The ESL Pro League has expanded its coverage to the Asia Pacific region. Season 7 will feature open qualifiers and season matches held in Southeast Asia, China and Australia / New Zealand.
ESL has announced that in order to support the expansion, it will begin the rollout of infrastructure, adding to the existing pool of servers and other technical framework to allow for players from the newly included regions to compete on-par with Pro League's standards.
Eight teams from across SEA, China and Aus / NZ will progress to the APAC offline finals set to take place at the ESL Studios in Sydney, Australia. The top two teams from there will secure group stage spots at the CS:GO Pro League finals in Dallas Texas - set to take place from May 18th to 20th.
Country Restrictions
ANZ :
- Australia
- New Zealand
China :
- China
- Hong Kong
- Japan
- South Korea
- Mongolia
Southeast Asia :
- ?Thailand
- Vietnam
- Philippines
- Malaysia
- Singapore
- Indonesia
- Taiwan
- Cambodia
- Bhutan
- Brunei
- Laos
- Myanmar
- Nepal
Brian Kraemer - Product manager at ESL, working on the ESL Pro League has confirmed that India will not be eligible to participate via the SEA qualifiers for season 7. He has however mentioned that it is on their list.
Unfortunately not for Season 7, but it's on our list :)
— Brian Kraemer (@ESLqntm) March 6, 2018
ESL has expressed its intent to further expand the program into additional territories within the region along with creating a full league system in the future. For now, aspiring South Asian CS:GO players whose countries aren't eligible to participate in the ESL Pro League Season 7 might consider joining the upcoming ESL India Premiership.
For details and registration links, click HERE.