ESL cancels Rio Major, reveals IEM Global Challenge plans

Valve and ESL have announced that the ESL One Rio Major has officially been cancelled. The event was previously scheduled for November 2020.

The announcement comes after months of speculation that ESL Rio would not take place due to the ongoing global situation which has caused extreme travel restrictions to and from Brazil and other countries around the world. ESL finished its announcement by stating that, as of now, there are no plans in place for when CSGO will see its next Major take place.

ESL also announced that any and all tickets purchased for the event will remain valid when the two companies eventually reschedule the Major sometime in the future. The writing has been on the wall for several months now, with tournament organizers moving their events to online closer and closer to when the ESL One Rio Major would have taken place. ESL says that it “explored every possible avenue” before canceling CSGO’s largest event of the year.

ESL planning multiple events after ESL One Rio Major cancellation

Alongside the announcement of ESL One Rio’s cancellation, the tournament organizer reminded players and fans that there are still three more events set to take place in 2020:

• October: IEM New York 2020 – Online
• November: IEM Beijing-Haidian 2020 – Online
• December: IEM Global Challenge 2020

December’s IEM Global Challenge 2020 is currently being billed as a LAN event, but ESL has added that even that may be moved to an online tournament depending on global conditions.

According to the official CSGO blog, RMR events will continue for the foreseeable future.

“First, we’re going to hold off on scheduling Majors until, at a minimum, Regional Major Ranking (RMR) LAN events are safe to hold around the world. Until then, we expect to continue to hold online RMR events to keep track of the best teams in each region, the CSGO Blog said.