PGL cancel August '26 event after EWC expansion

11-10-2025 11:58

A 32-team Esports World Cup has led to PGL canceling one of its events.

PGL have cancelled their August 2026 event after news broke of the expansion of the Esports World Cup.

"The decision follows another tournament being announced at a later date that overlaps with ours, despite our schedule being published in March 2024," the tournament organizer wrote on X in a thinly-veiled dig at the Riyadh event.

EWC to expand in 2026 with 32 teams, $2 million and open LAN qualifier

PGL and ESL have long had a fractious relationship, with the latest heating point centering around overlap between Bucharest and Chengdu this month, as well as competition to hold a January event in Kraków.

Now, the expansion of the ESL-ran Esports World Cup means PGL's concurrent event was unlikely to attract many teams in the top 30 of the global VRS, resulting in its cancellation.

PGL's other events in 2026 have been announced in Cluj-Napoca, Bucharest, Astana, and Belgrade.

wtf

2025-10-11 11:58

Saudis driving out everyone who doesn't suck their tit

2025-10-11 12:00

303

11 replies

Y'all never liked PGL anyways, always shat on PGL Bucharest, never grateful for their events

2025-10-11 13:16

2 replies

who's "Y'all" ? I personnally always was pushing for PGL as I think TO diversity is important and even more when most of the ecosystem is ran by Saudi Arabia

2025-10-11 15:27

1 reply

The herd always made fun of PGL Astana PGL Bucharest earlier this year ... Mickey Mouse tournament, and dumb comments like that etc. But good to see that you don't. I agree that pushing for PGL and TO diversity absolutely is essential.

2025-10-11 16:56

It is business, don't cry about it. oil money > gamble money

2025-10-11 16:41

7 replies

100% Also Modern life relies on oil to sustain living standards and the way we live today. Finland's GDP is 20% oil revenues. Similar in Norway. In Texas without oil there's nothing.

2025-10-11 16:57

Finland is not an oil nation in any sense of the argument. Norway is the only oil nation in the nordics.

2025-10-11 22:05

The energy industry (crude, gas, nat gas, etc) is the largest export of the USA in general not just Texas.

2025-10-11 22:14

What business? They have essentially unlimited money. They aren't doing this to make money, they do this because they want to control esports.

2025-10-11 19:50

Actually, they are doing it for the money. They want to lose cash now. So in the future they have assets that brings money. It is like your billionaire neighbor who buys the whole lands for double the price and then, when his main business fails, he has lands to sell at the price he wants to sell. So they don't think now in the moment or in the 5-10 year span. They think that after 50 years, when oil finishes, they will have multiple sources of income that will have better revenue than oil.

2025-10-12 11:40

Saudis literally aren't running a business in the normal sense. They're buying out scenes of influence instead of actual profitable businesses, all for positive publicity. Normal businesses do not work like that.

2025-10-11 22:04

Oil money > Russian supportive Belgrade money

2025-10-12 10:28

PGL is just getting fucked over and over again 😭

2025-10-11 12:01

210

6 replies

last time they fucked themselves over as they actually released their dates after ESL but they did really get fucked over this time

2025-10-11 12:08

They have DOTA fully under control

2025-10-11 12:25

4 replies

?? Out of 18 T1 tournaments they have 4?

2025-10-11 17:11

3 replies

That's pretty good :P

2025-10-11 18:26

They hosted every TI since 2016

2025-10-11 19:26

"host" no valve is host, Pgl just bring the infrastructure.

2025-10-12 05:02

How much did Saudis paid PGL to cancel their event.

They didnt have to pay them. They pay the organizations so that nobody would show up to PGL

2025-10-11 12:06

119

They didn't have to pay them. The community stupidly makes fun of PGL events even before EWC comes along...

2025-10-11 13:17

Another Deaspair + Awareness from other TO to PGL unfortunately

Justice for PGL

Saudi mafia trying to take over

unlucky, PGL too poor to keep up

2025-10-11 12:02

So stupid to's cant be on the same page

5 replies

they are competitiors and saudis want a monopoly and they will get it if they continue with this bs

2025-10-11 12:05

It's a little more complicated in this case. The eSports World Cup is kind of...separated from the "usual" tournament organizers (PGL, ESL, Blast, etc). It features many more games, not only Counter Strike. Probably seeing that it got a lot of attention, they decided to expand the CS tournament to something similar to the football World Cup. And PGL is unfortunately caught in the middle here.

2025-10-11 12:19

Officially it is separate, but production is handled by ESL, who are owned by Saudis, who host the EWC So technically it's an ESL tournament (and I wouldn't be surprised if it's covered under the same revshare agreement and so on)

2025-10-11 12:32

it isn't

2025-10-11 15:18

Is it though? Both the EWC foundation and the ESL-FACEIT group are owned by the Saudi PIF and ESL does have involvement in the running of the EWC. Considering that ESL has spent the last year at least trying to fuck over PGL there's no way they didn't have a part in this. They could've extended it by starting earlier instead of ending later but that would overrun with blast bounty and ESL and Blast basically have an agreement to fuck over PGL and leave each other alone. Doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

2025-10-11 12:40

hahaha somehow ESL fked PGL over again

2025-10-11 12:04

Fuck valve

Yeah well the only thing Valve will do here is to get upset that there's an organization even more greedy than themselves </3

2025-10-11 12:34

valve gives vrs points... if valve somehow decides to get the vrs the 2 mil prize pool would be worthless because all teams fight for major

2025-10-11 13:25

the fact that there are actually internet warriors who think that valve is even remotely greedy compared to literally any other company is wild.

2025-10-11 16:37

When will valve intervene in this shitshow

2025-10-11 12:11

So basically Valves grandious 2-year-plan is a mild suggestion at best and TOs get stressed over it for no reason? Cool

2025-10-11 12:14

valve should say that this tournament does not count for VRS. or just deny it using cs in general. I hope valve actually does something. you got to reinforce the rules you set for yourself

2025-10-11 18:16

poor PGL

2025-10-11 12:18

Instead of bickering against biggest TO ESL, PGL needs to kick down Blast and implement pay structure year plan.

2025-10-11 12:22

Fck saudis

2025-10-11 12:27

All my homies hate EWC

SAD!

2025-10-11 12:45

This is fucking bullshit. Massive respect for any team and player that starts prioritizing PGL events over Saudi funded events like ESL-events, EWC and ENC.

2025-10-11 13:00

Will be laughing so hard when the saudis pull out of esports after the sportwashing is over and no TO is left to host events, remember the scene did this to itself!

2025-10-11 13:07

It's not sports-washing. They dont care about your opinion of them. It's an investment in global sports and esports as a way to diversify the economy away from fossil fuel dominance, and to participate in the global economy more actively. We've had hollywood california shoved down our throats the last century... time for a new world order

2025-10-11 13:22

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH good one 8/8

2025-10-11 15:26

oh man... nevermind ... there's no point with you! Yes Yes it's sports-washing. Saudi is investing in EWC so that you change your opinion of Saudi Arabia. You are right.

2025-10-11 16:54

And they did some good stuff in other sports as well. For me the best example would be boxing. Since they practically took over a few years ago the big fights keep coming.

2025-10-12 11:48

well Saudis sportwashing everything

at this point just remove valve vrs points for ewc

2025-10-11 13:29

Remember guys, cooking oil always wins !!! 🏆

2025-10-11 13:31

until there are no money left

2025-10-11 13:39

Bloodmoney and Sportswashing from Arabia slowly but steady destroying the scene until everything is hosted in their countries and everyone else is obeying their reign.

2025-10-11 13:47

CS Scene is about to hit the rock bottom.

2025-10-11 14:16

All my homies hate sportwashing Saudis, they are obviously going for monopoly at this point. Hopefully Valve will step in sooner than later, I like more counter-Strike and the open qualifier is nice, but the way they do it (as always) is absolutely corrupt

2025-10-11 14:34

"We can't have a monopoly? Then we will force everyone out with money!" Valveee, this shit happened before. It almost killed the game, wake up!

2025-10-11 14:47

EWC has to be the worst event in the year and because of blood money they can jut bully the scene into being around.

2025-10-11 15:04

fuck saudis, try make even good event instead of NiKo fanboying event with some football bros in

2025-10-11 15:16

I wish I could get to use my cigarette lighter to burn MBS's beard away

2025-10-11 17:31

fuck cancer saudis

2025-10-11 17:33

#JusticeForPGL

2025-10-11 18:01

PGL seems to be joining CCTV club of tier2 tournaments.

2025-10-11 19:19

I wish they just downsize the event and keep it. Finally we get to see some of the good t2 teams at a real LAN. tho I guess at best only a couple of the top 32 will even skip EWC so your event will be filled with pure t2.

2025-10-11 21:59