OG to replace 1Win at ESL One Birmingham

Russian team 1Win failed to secure visas in time for ESL One Birmingham.

ESL One Birmingham is set to commence on the 22nd of April, with all 12 teams being given a deadline by the tournament organiser to secure their UK visas two weeks in advance. Per ESL’s official announcement, the deadline expired this past Monday, on the 8th of April, when 1Win were unable to confirm their participation.

1Win secured their spot at the $1,000,000 tournament via Eastern European qualifiers where they placed second, after Team Spirit. Before giving the spot to OG, who fell short of a qualifier spot in the Western Europe bracket, ESL extended the invite to the third placed team in EEU, Virtus.pro, however, VP couldn’t confirm their participation due to the same visa issues.

1Win claim their slot was taken away

While ESL has already confirmed OG to have replaced 1Win at the upcoming LAN in Birmingham, United Kingdom, 1Win claim that the situation is rather different than what the tournament organiser is saying and that their slot was given away for no good reason.

According to Timur "Ahilles" Kulmuhambetov, 1Win coach, the entire team have their visas and more details on their side of the story will be released soon. GosuGamers has reached to 1Win for a comment, so stay tuned for further details.