UK esports organisation and current ESL Premiership League of Legends champions, exceL Esports, will be taking part in the new European Masters cup.
Riot announced the new European cup last year, which will feature the winning teams from 10 European Regional Leagues, including the ESL Prem, Spanish Superliga, Nordic Championship and more.
It wasn’t clear whether xL (the autumn 2017 winners) would take part in it or not, or if the upcoming ESL Prem spring split 2018 champions would.
However sources close to the situation have confirmed to Esports News UK that xL will be taking part.
We first caught wind of this rumour earlier this month, and the news comes as Riot UK is meeting teams and other members of the UK League of Legends community in London today.
Some kind of announcement from Riot UK is expected soon.
The most recent articles from Riot on the new European Cup include this one, which confirms the regions, and this one, which outlines the open qualifiers.
It’s not clear if the winners of the current spring 2018 ESL Prem would also qualify for the new European cup, but it’s expected they will.
Riot UK’s head of esports Mo Fadl made comments recently on the UK LoL esports scene potentially being as big as the Spanish LVP in the future.
“Let’s focus, the players want our attention, let’s give them attention, get our sh*t together and learn and build,” Mo said.
“I believe we can build the strongest esports scene and community in Europe. I really see the UK League being the strongest League in Europe. But we are far from where we should be [right now].”
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.
