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.
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.
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.