After a year of waiting, Windigo finally receive WESG prize

Windigo have finally received their prize pool share from the WESG 2018 Finals, the organisation has said.

Artur Yermolayev, one of Windigo's founders and owners, told HLTV.org that the team's share of the $500,000 prize pool has already been wired to the players and expressed his happiness that this matter has been settled.

This came after a story by HLTV.org brought to light how Windigo – who closed their doors in October 2019 because of cash-flow issues – and the players who represented the team at the WESG event in Chongqing were growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of updates from the Chinese tournament organiser about the prize money payment.

The money has already been wired to the players, Windigo say

In a statement to HLTV.org, a WESG representative had stressed that the company remained "in constant communication with Windigo to resolve the payment issues" and blamed bank regulations and the coronavirus pandemic for the delay.

The players who won the WESG 2018 title have had very different fortunes since going their separate ways. The two star members of the team, Valentin "⁠poizon⁠" Vasilev and Georgi "⁠SHiPZ⁠" Grigorov, were respectively transferred to Complexity and CR4ZY – who later sold their roster to c0ntact. Kamen "⁠bubble⁠" Kostadinov is currently competing internationally with SMASH, while Yanko "⁠blocker⁠" Panov is representing BLUEJAYS. Viktor "⁠v1c7oR⁠" Dyankov is still a free player and has been seen competing in online qualifiers alongside other Bulgarian players.

WESG has yet to provide an update on the 2019 World Finals, for which teams like North, HEROIC, Chaos and Spirit have already qualified through regional and national tournaments. The company's latest announcement was made on January 22, when it was revealed that the Asia-Pacific Finals, scheduled for February 16-18 in Macau, would not go ahead as planned due to the coronavirus outbreak.