Could the Esports World Cup move to Paris? Breaking down yesterday's rumors from the Saudi scene
Amidst the ongoing 2026 Iran War questions have been raised in the esports community about whether the 2026 edition of the Esports World Cup will proceed as planned or if the Esports World Cup Foundation will cancel or move their $75m event out of the region due to safety and security concerns.
These concerns are not without merit as Saudi Arabia has been attacked on multiple occasions by Iranian drones and missiles, with the Saudi government reporting that Riyadh and the nearby King Khalid International Airport were targeted in late February and early March.
While this chatter has lingered in the background since the beginning of hostilities between the United States and Iran in late February, a number of Saudi Arabian esports publications and content creators reported yesterday that the EWCF are weighing moving the 2026 edition of the Esports World Cup to Paris, France.
Among these posts, the most rigorous comes from a Saudi esports publication named ECHO MENA, which presented a number of data points and hearsay to allege that the EWCF are investigating a possible Parisian move.
Per ECHO MENA's post, an undisclosed ESL FACEIT Group employee allegedly told the publication to listen to the rumors about the potential of a move away from Riyadh. Additionally, the publication claims that a senior EWCF figure recently visited Paris for an unknown reason.
The publication also noted that various hotels across Paris are reportedly seeing higher levels of bookings in July and August, however they rightfully caution that there is a strong possibility for this to be unrelated to the EWC, as Paris is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world.
While the prior information is largely hearsay, ECHO MENA also pointed to a now-deleted post on the Esports World Cup's official Arabic X account as a sign of uncertainty internally about the location of the event.
At around 15:00 Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on May 10th, @EWC_Festival published a post telling fans that circulating rumors about the event moving are incorrect and the event is proceeding as planned before deleting the post a short time later:
Around the same time as ECHO MENA's report, Falcons' content creator Abu "k2nnn8" Najd also posted on X that the event will be moving to France. However, it is unknown if this post is serious or mocking/latching onto the flurry of posts on X.
Overall, it is important to take these and the flurry of other posts on X with a grain of salt as a move away from Saudi Arabia is likely to be a closely guarded secret. Additionally, tickets to the event are still on sale on the EWC website.
However, with the security situation in the region being in a continued state of flux amidst stalled peace talks, it isn't hard to see that many are worried about the future of an event in the conflict zone.
With EWC 2026 starting in 56 days, all eyes in the wider esports community will likely be on the region to see if the lucrative, and oft-criticized, event will go ahead as planned.
