ESL apologizes for hosting IEM Road to Rio 2022 for the Americas in Sweden

Tournament operator ESL has brought changes in front of fans and teams for organizing the IEM Road to Rio 2022 for the Americas in Sweden. In his Apollo post, a company representative explained the reasons for choosing the venue for the competition, and also apologized to the community.

We (or I) are responsible for not living up to the expectations we hold or should hold. Quite simply, the RMR tournament for the Americas had to take place in either North or South America. I'm not here to point out excuses or add a deeper rationale for a bad decision, we were just too slow to take appropriate action which resulted in the tournament taking place in a visa free country.

At the moment we cannot change the situation, for any teams wishing to arrive earlier, we are working on connecting them or suggesting potential locations for organizing training camps in order to optimize conditions before the competition. It's important that we do things right, we got caught up in streamlining logistics and lost sight of what was right/best for the community.

Thus, ESL was unable to find the right venue for the regional IEM Road to Rio 2022, which could satisfy one essential requirement - the absence of visa restrictions.

In a follow-up post, Apollo addressed Jason O'Toole and Richard Lewis, two of the most vocal critics of the ESL decision in the last few days. Describing the decision, an American analyst called the move "insane" and "awkward." Richard Lewis was equally blunt towards ESL, saying that you "can't help but feel like there was some way to anticipate these problems", noting that they were acutely aware of the visa difficulties as early as the organization of IEM Dallas 2022.

However, Apollo made it clear that, given the current time frame, the organizers could not guarantee that all participants would be able to obtain visas if they had an RMR tournament in Novy Svet.

A little earlier, tournament operator ESL announced the venues and details of IEM Road to Rio 2022 for Europe, America and Asia. More than 50 teams will compete in three different locations for the right to play the first-ever Major on Brazilian soil.

The European RMR tournament will be played in Malta, while the IEM Road to Rio 2022 for the Americas and Asia will take place in Sweden and Australia respectively. Unlike the previous RMR tournaments held in April prior to PGL Major Antwerp 2022, where competitions for each region were held in sequence, the upcoming set of events will take place simultaneously from October 4th to 9th. The new schedule will reduce the duration of RMR tournaments by eight days compared to the previous cycle.

IEM Road to Rio 2022 America

The RMR tournament for teams from North and South America will take place from 5 to 9 October in Stockholm. The decision to send 16 teams from the New World to the Swedish capital was reportedly taken to avoid any significant problems or delays in visa applications. Matches will be played at the ESL studio.

The American RMR tournament will be held according to the Swiss system, in which all matches, with the exception of the decisive ones, will be held in the BO1 format. At the same time, the meetings that decide the tournament fate of the teams will be held in the BO3 format.

The team that takes first place at IEM Road to Rio 2022 will receive Legend status. The teams that take places from 2nd to 3rd will receive the Challenger status. Teams ranked from 4th to 6th will receive Contender status. The remaining teams will miss IEM Rio Major 2022.

The current IEM Road to Rio 2022 Americas line-up is as follows:

• FURIA Esports, Imperial Esports, Team Liquid, paiN Gaming, MIBR, 00NATION, Complexity Gaming, ex-Gaimin Gladiators, O PLANO and 9z.