UK eSports organisation Choke Gaming says it may not have a UK CSGO team ever again, after its CSGO players left following a fallout with management last weekend.
It all kicked off with a dispute over player accommodation during the ESL UK CSGO Premiership Season 2 finals at the MCM London Comic Con from October 24th to 26th.
UK CSGO has published an in-depth post worth reading about the whole debacle.
In short, accommodation was booked late, the players weren’t happy with it, the team went out during the tournament after losing 2-1 to Team Infused, some of the players went public with their grievances on social media, they didn’t have a place to stay on the third night, and ended up parting ways with Choke.
Choke owner Vince Clarke responded to the news, citing problems with the players back at Epic Lan, and saying that he took out a small loan to pay for player accommodation at MCM after being let down by some sponsors, only for that accommodation to fall through, prompting them to find a new place – which was being renovated.
Vince also claims that his players received money early from ESL, and “weren’t prepared” to give Choke the agreed 15%.
The whole incident has left Choke without a CSGO team, UK players looking for a new organisation (who we understand are currently in talks with another top UK eSports organisation), and Vince unsure of forming a CSGO team with UK players again.
“We don’t plan on picking up another UK line-up right away – or maybe even this side of Christmas,” he told UK CSGO.
“We may never work with a UK CS team again. We obviously don’t want a repeat of all this, so there will be some changes made back of house with regards to some processes we have – and we won’t be rushing into any decisions when it comes to picking up a new team.
“Counter-Strike is a massive part of our history and we will be looking at getting involved again.”
There are many more parts to the story so it’s worth reading CSGO’s full post.
Ex-Choke players have also since responded to Vince’s comments, saying some of what he said was inaccurate.
United Estonia went on to win the ESL UK CSGO Premiership Season 2, beating Team Infused in the final.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
