The Pro League organisers have announced that in the centre of the COVID-19 series, Electronic Sports League (ESL) will play ESL Pro League Season 11 online. The group stages were originally scheduled for a studio in Malta and the playoffs were hosted in Denver by 1STBANK CENTER (USA).
The group stage will now be online, as described in the press release, while the playoffs will be performed without live audiences in Europe at a studio.
It follows the declaration by Malta’s government of new travel restrictions. After the IEM Katowice was held in Spodek arena without an audience, leaving the Denver final was yet another turnaround for ESL. Previously, Flashpoint had already determined that the grand finale would not take place in Sweden, with the producers holding the entire thing at the Los Angeles theatre.
“This decision was primarily inspired by Malta’s establishment of a wide range of travel restrictions and quarantine regulations in our originally planned location (for group stages). Such travel constraints have stopped several workers and most teams from reaching the expected seasonal venue, “the press release said.
“With this, teams and players will play their matches in Europe, either from home, team houses or in suitable boot camps in the future, rather than more than a hundred players, coaches, team members and ESL staff in a single location for several weeks, and they will play their matches in dedicated Online Servers”
The organisers told the ticket holders of the refund and apologised for giving up the Denver finale. At present, there are more than 124,000 coronaviruses and 4,585 confirmed deaths in 100 nations. The Virus was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization.
