eSports Gaming Competition organization Starladder has announced that they will be hosting a qualifying tournament for African/Middle Eastern Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams for the World Electronic Sports Games finals in Shanghai sometime in December.
The WESG qualifiers will begin with an online stage set to start on August 13. The regions are divided into Turkey, North and East Africa, South and West Africa, and West Asia. The top two teams from each region will move forward into the regional final, which will be held from August 26 through August 28 in Dubai. These top eight teams will be fighting for a ￥500,000, or around $75,000, prize pool.
The top three teams in the Dubai regionals will move on to the WESG Global Grand Finals which will be held at the end of October in Shanghai. The WESG Global Grand Finals will offer a prize pool of $1.5 million, which will be divided among the top 24 teams from across the world with $800,000 going to first place, $400,000 for second, and $200,000 for third.
StarLadder has also announced that only citizens of each region will be able to participate in the tournament, with no international teams allowed.
The WESG tournament is even bigger than ELEAGUE, another competitive video game tournament which comes in with a $1,400,000 prize pool. It is also interesting to note that the WESG is owned by the eSports branch of Alibaba named Alisports which would explain the high prize pool for the championship. This is the first eSports event Alisports has been a part of, so it’s great to hear they managed to secure the services of a big name in the industry like Starladder. Below is the WESG qualifiers breakdown:
- Turkish regional qualifier on August 13th, 19:00 local time (GMT+3)
- North & West Africa regional qualifier on August 13th, 19:00 local time (GMT+2)
- South & East Africa regional qualifier on August 13th, 19:00 local time (GMT+2)
- West Asia regional qualifier on August 13th, 19:00 local time (GMT+4)
- Africa & Middle East Regional Finals on August 26th – 28th.
Featured Image via Alisports
