Virtus.Pro released a statement on the matter, saying they were forced to release a public statement on the current situation in Ukraine. “Either your club issues a public statement regarding the situation in Ukraine, or you get dropped from the tournament.” They went as far as threatening to announce that our players have COVID (even though all the tests are negative), only to prevent them from playing. As an alternative they offered us a chance to renounce our tag and jerseys and play without affiliation to any particular club or country.“
— Virtus.pro (@virtuspro) March 1, 2022
According to Virtus.Pro they’ve never disallowed their players to make statements or show their support for Ukraine. They are one of the esports organizations who haven’t made a public statement on the situation as of yet. According to many sources an internal memo was going around at Virtus.Pro, which has urged players and staff to take a neutral stance on social media in regards to the war, allowing for support to be shared but to “not get personal”.
From two independent sources I got information that https://t.co/kTVxSso1B2 and Gambit forbid their players and other staff to express their support to Ukraine during russian agression.
Massive fines and firing were mentioned to me as a punishment for social media posts
— Vitalii Volochai #StandWithUkraine (@v1lat) February 24, 2022
Russian teams being disqualified from competing isn’t new, as BLAST has already announced a ban on Russian teams from their competitions from the time being. The same has been happening in other sports, with FIFA and UEFA banning Russian football teams. In regards to the Gamers Galaxy event, we’ll have to wait and see how the situation evolves and how the organizer will respond to Virtus.Pro’s statement.
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