- A Reddit user, u/Deanocide, has claimed that none of the teams competing at WESG 2019 have been paid their share of money.
- World Cyber Games and Alibaba sports are the organizations to have reported failed to payout any team for the tournament.
- While the global finals of the tourney have been postponed, an approximate amount of $121,000 from the regional finals has been reportedly unpaid.
A Reddit user by the name of u/Deanocide has claimed that none of the teams that competed at the World Electronic Sports Games(WESG) 2019 have been paid their share of prize money. World Cyber Games (WCG) and Alibaba sports, the organizations behind this global league, have come into question for this default in payment.
RELATED: Former VP General Manager States That WESG Tournaments Department Has Been Shut Down
No Payout For Any Team for WESG 2019
WESG is the global platform for esports where international teams compete against each other as each team is required to have three players from the same nationality and the rest two can be from foreign countries. Before 2019, all five players were required to represent one country, like the Olympics.
Almost the entire globe is covered in WESG with regional finals in various regions. Top teams from every region move to the Global Finals where they join other invited teams. WESG 2019 was scheduled to be held in the first quarter of 2020 at Chongqing with a total of 24 teams and $800,000 USD on the line. But due to the problems posed by the global pandemic, the event was postponed indefinitely.
Following this, Roman Dvoryankin (Former GM of Virtus.Pro) stated that the esports department within Alisports was disbanded and that there would be no more WESG tournaments taking place in the future.
While the main tournament and some of the regional finals are yet to take place, some regional finals also have their own prize pool. So, a sum of around $121,000 is being estimated to not have been paid by the organizers of WESG 2019. The user has stated that they were required to send the photocopies of their ID’s more than four months ago but there has not been any communication from the organizations involved. He also mentions that the same organization paid Collegiate StarLeague(CSL) teams within two months of the tournament conclusion.
Carry player for 4Zoomers, Samuel "Sammyboy" Anderson, whose reddit name is u/Noblewingz replied to the thread stating that his team had been paid fully for the 2018 finals. He also mentioned,
No official statement has been issued by either WCG or Alibaba sports regarding this complaint from the user.
RELATED: TNC Predator qualify for the WESG 2019: SEA Finals
The World Electronic Sports Games series began in 2016 with Dota 2, CS:GO, StarCraft II and Hearthstone tournaments. In the Dota 2 side of things, TNC Predator won the first-ever edition of the tournament. This was a monumental win for the region.
In 2017, Team Russia (featuring 4 Virtus.Pro players) won the tournament. The Filipino powerhouse, TNC Predator won it again in 2018 despite their offlaner Kuku being banned from the tournament. The finals of the 2019/20 edition was postponed indefinitely because of the current global lockdown.
