January 10 – Global eLeagues are launching their inaugural ‘eFootball League’ January 11 with teams attached to clubs from 11 countries playing FIFA 18 (Ultimate Team format) for a $10,000 prize pool.
The league matches the gamers from across Europe with professional football clubs and organisations in a Champions league style tournament in two divisions: Xbox and PS4. The winners of each division will face off in a grand final which will be held live at a football ground in May 2018.
The league will be broadcast exclusively by Goal on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Twitch.
Global eLeagues launched the ‘Celtic eSports League’ in 2017. The new league will have 22 club teams playing.
Sam Brown, Goal’s head of English language said: “Over the past couple of years we’ve noticed the increasing interest in eSports from our fans. For some, FIFA 18 is the main way they interact with football and we’re continuingly looking into how we can provide them the best FIFA content, whether that’s news or the streaming of games.
“This is why we’ve decided to work with the eFootball League, as it will allow us to showcase some of the best FIFA players and teams in the world, introducing them to new audiences and providing a new home for existing eSport fans.”
Clubs competing in the forst season of competition include St Gallen (Switzerland), Alkmaar, FC Twente, Groningen, Ajax, Feyenoord (Holland), Dundalk FC, Shamrock Rovers (Ireland), Hibernian, Hamilton Academical (Scotland), Crusaders, Linfield (Northern Ireland), TNS (Wales), Northampton, Wolves, West Ham, Man City (England), VFL Bochum, VFB Stuttgart, (Germany), Terrassa (Spain) AS Roma (Italy), Standard Liege (Belgium).
The league also includes eSports organisations Excel, Goal, Excelsior, Lightning Pandas, Millenium, Epilson, ECV Holland.
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