Riot Games announced over Twitter that Week 3 of VCT EMEA matches will be postponed.
The organizer said the matches will take place at another time. Since many players, staffers, and fans are affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Our community’s welfare is integral to us and at this time, our number one priority is to support the players, casters, staff and fans affected by the escalating crisis in Ukraine,” Riot said on Twitter.
After careful consideration, we have decided to postpone VCT EMEA Week 3 games. Our community’s welfare is integral to us and at this time, our number one priority is to support the players, casters, staff and fans affected by the escalating crisis in Ukraine.
— VALORANT Champions Tour EMEA (@valesports_emea) February 24, 2022
Week 3 Postponement and Upcoming schedule
Players typically compete from their home country, since the European VALORANT circuit is played online. There are multiple Russian and Ukrainian players within the EMEA VCT that compete. Such as Gambit, Natus Vincere, FunPlus Phoenix, and Acend.
Acend Ukrainian-Spanish player Vlad “Kiles” Shvets, has family in Ukraine, said that he and his family are both safe. “It seems absurd to me that we come to this in our era, what a disaster everything,” he said on Twitter.
FunPlus Phoenix Ukranian player Kyrylo “ANGE1” Karasov said he woke up to the sound of explosions.
Today most of Ukrainians including me woke up because of explosions and I do not want anyone to experience this ever.
But im extremely proud of our army, our goverment and our people. We managed to stay calm and fight back.
Have no idea how it will end but we should stay united.— FPX ANGE1 (@OfficialANGE1) February 24, 2022
The matches were scheduled to begin tomorrow with Guild Esports set to face SuperMassive Blaze and Acend playing Fnatic. With these matches postponed, they may be pushed until the conflict has been somewhat resolved. Riot has not clarified when these matches will be played, however.
We will provide an update on the new schedule as soon as we can. In the meantime, please keep an eye on our social channels for further updates.
— VALORANT Champions Tour EMEA (@valesports_emea) February 24, 2022