Denmark's Culture Minister wants PGL to ban Russian players from Major
In a shocking interview this morning, Denmark's Minister of Culture Jakob Engel-Schmidt, a member of the Moderaterne political party, has called for Russian players participating in the PGL Copenhagen Major to be barred from competing.
"As long as Russia continues its illegal war on Ukraine, I don't think Russian athletes should be allowed to compete in international sports," the Minister said in an interview with Danish outlet Berlingske "That of course includes E-sports"
The first Counter-Strike 2 Major features several players and teams from Russia, including Virtus.pro, Cloud9, Spirit, and AMKAL. Cloud9 and Spirit are considered some of the best teams in Counter-Strike at the moment with Russian prodigy Danil "donk" Kryshkovets one of the brightest starlets to feature in the competition.
9Pandas, another Russian team, were supposed to participate but had to be replaced at the last minute when several players were unable to obtain visas in time to enter the Schengen area.
"Even though it is a Romanian tournament organizer, I want to encourage them to ban Russian participation, " Jakob Engel-Schmidt continued. "I also want to heavily encourage Royal Arena to be more critical when deciding what they want to host."
The comments come as Spirit just arrived in Copenhagen earlier this morning. The squad is preparing to participate in the Elimination Stage of the Major which begins this Thursday.
There are 18 Russian players across five teams that will be participating in the Copenhagen Major. ESL, BLAST, and PGL barred Russian-based organizations from participating in events immediately following the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian War. Players were allowed to participate but could not represent their organizations. This lead to Virtus.pro adopting the moniker "Outsiders" for almost a year before transferring to an Armenian owner. Gambit players had been using the moniker "Players" until being acquired by Cloud9 on the eve of the 2022 PGL Antwerp Major.
Since the invasion of Ukraine began, a number of Russian athletes have been banned from international competitions while others were allowed to participate, but under a neutral flag.
Dust2.us asked PGL for a comment on the Minister's statements, however they declined.
