Elisa Esports, Relog Media, Eden Esports reveal plans amid Ukraine invasion

The organizers that are a part of the "Champion of Champions" circuit will be approaching the Russia-Ukraine crisis in different ways.

The Finnish tournament organizer Elisa Esports announced on Wednesday that, in support of Ukraine, all Russian-owned organizations will be suspended from participation in their tournaments until further notice.

While their decision won't affect the currently active Elisa Invitational Winter 2021 as no Russian-owned teams are currently in competition, this means that the likes of Gambit, Virtus.pro, and FORZE won't be able to compete in future tournaments by Elisa Esports.

After the announcement, HLTV.org reached out to other tournament organizers that are a part of the Elisa-headed Champion of Champions circuit to hear how they will deal with the situation.

Eden Esports, the company behind Malta Vibes tournaments, revealed that they don't plan to run tournaments at the moment. The company's CEO Sergey Bidzan, formerly of StarLadder, explained that despite the Eden Esports being based in Malta, many of their crew members are from Ukraine, and are currently "either in bomb shelters or on the front line."

"So far we're focused on surviving. We'll get back to esports once possible," Bidzan concluded.

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On the other hand, Relog Media stated that they "do not believe that esport belongs in politics," but stressed that they have helped over 50 players from both Ukraine and Russia with invite letters, accommodation, and PCs so they could come to the country where Relog is based in, Serbia, and prepare for upcoming events. "We are closely working with our partners on this matter and certainly do hope that it will be resolved as soon as possible."

HLTV.org has also reached out to the organizers of Pinnacle Cup and FunSpark events about their stances but hasn't received a response by the time of the article's release.

BLAST was the first tournament organizer to take a stance on the war in Ukraine, pledging on Tuesday that they would not invite Russia-based teams "for the foreseeable future." ESL followed with a statement on Wednesday, banning only organizations with ties with the Russian government, while allowing players to compete under a neutral name.