India to miss WCG 2010 - Report

According to gamebashing.com, India will most likely have no representatives at this year's WCG Finals.

Reports in the country claim that Indiagames, which has been the organiser of the WCG events in India since 2001, has decided against hosting a qualifier this year after failing to get the required support from the WCG's parent company, Internacional Cyber Marketing.

"This year Indiagames put its foot down and refused to be part of the event unless proper funding to organise it at a good venue and without any delays was provided," a source told gamebashing.com.

The financial crisis has caused a reduction in the amount of money Samsung, the WCG's global sponsor, and ICM are willing to hand to national partners worldwide, which resulted in countries like Spain, Norway and Austria not having Counter-Strike teams at last year's finals in Chengdu.

In 2009, ATE, the Indian team who won the WCG qualifier in the country, did not travel to China after ICM told them they would get no assistance with the expenses. Makeway and NSD were the two teams representing the country in the Counter-Strike competition, both of whom did not make it out of the groups.

India, ranked 36th in the world by the WCG, saw most of its gaming tournaments last year cancelled due to funding problems, with the WCG qualifier one of the few events to take place.

The ESWC has announced that India will organise a qualifier for this year's event in Paris, but according to what HLTV.org has learned, it will be a different company, Re-inforcement, responsible for the tournament.

The 2010 WCG World Finals will take place at Los Angeles' Convention Center, in the United States, from September 29 through to October 3.