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CS:GO Major organiser “still hopes” the event can go ahead in Stockholm

"We still hope that Sweden, the home of Counter-Strike, will be the host for the next CS:GO Major"

A CS:GO character with a red shirt and machine gun in a dusty alley

PGL, the organiser behind the CS:GO Major, has said it’s still hopeful that this year’s event can go ahead as planned in Stockholm, Sweden, but has revealed that it’s “in touch with two other European countries” that might be potential backups should anything change.

The PGL CS:GO Major in Stockholm is due to take place on October 23, with the big finale on November 7, and is set to be the first LAN Major since summer 2019. However, with the global pandemic still ongoing, rules around what can be hosted in Sweden have meant there are some questions hanging over the tournament. For example, the biggest event in the Dota 2 calendar – The International 10 – recently had to be moved to Bucharest, Romania from its original planned host city, Stockholm, due to Swedish officials deciding that esports could not be classified as ‘elite sporting events’.

The organisation explains that it’s currently “in direct discussions with the Swedish authorities and working together to find a solution to still host the PGL Major in Stockholm”, and details some of the restrictions that the event might face, though it notes that these could potentially lift on September 15, depending on the state of things around the pandemic at that time.

“But, as with every other event we have organised, we always had a backup plan in case we wouldn’t be able to execute the event properly,” the post says. “We are in touch with two other European countries who have already offered us all the necessary guarantees to run the CS:GO Major by having all the players on-site and a large audience inside the venue.”

However, the PGL says that, “nevertheless, we still hope that Sweden, the home of Counter-Strike, will be the host for the next CS:GO Major”. The organiser adds that it’ll have some more updates to share on the CS:GO Major “soon”.

So, for now it looks like the event could well still go ahead in Stockholm, but we could potentially see it get moved to one of two other unspecified countries in Europe should things not work out as initially planned.