they say they won't support EWC on their rules because it is blood money, but still allow posts about China, USA, and other countries that are currently or have committed war crimes. Not to mention riot is directly sponsored by the Saudi EWC, so every tournament has blood money in it. It just feels like virtue signaling cause they shouldn't exist if they oppose EWC on the premise that the Saudi money is bad
is valcomp hypocrite?
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China isn't using their government funding. US Military isn't hosting an event. You could argue NRG is allowed to be immune if you'd like.
tencent is a chinese company that has ties to the Chinese Communist Party
There's a much larger argument to this, but I hate the moral grandstanding that ValComp does (that's just reddit in general though).
I understand that saudi arabia is using their wealth to creep into entertainment, but china and the US has done the exact same thing. The CCP has direct ties to Tencent, the majority shareholder of riot games. The united states does not directly contribute, but people in power have allowed more betting and Polymarket is partially owned by Donald Trump Jr. You can say that saudi arabia is the most loud sportswasher but then you must also admit that riot is owned by a company that answers to the CCP
I don't think you understand what sportswashing is, sportswashing isn't when a person in power owns a betting platform or a company has ties to the government or is owned by the government. What makes something sportswashing is if a country/organization/person is actively trying hide unethical conduct, human rights violations, corruption etc. by hosting giant events to try and improve their image and reputation. Neither the USA or China do this, they go about it in other ways.
legit fking WC is going on in USA and you are saying USA doesn't do sportswashing?? or maybe they don't do it because every crime US does it's considered for the good and is right rules for thee, not for me
First the world cup is taking place in 3 different countries not just the USA, two FIFA gets to choose who hosts the world cup, third the USA had countless drama before the world cup even started about not giving so and so a visa or not letting the Iran team stay in the country why would that do any of that if they were sportswashing and trying to improve their image?
They denied a Somali referee when his visa was valid. I'm counting that as sportswashing.
Again, you're not understanding the actual point here, EWC isn't being talked about because it's associated with the Saudi regime but because it was created by it with the express purpose of softening their image and attracting tourism, it's quite literally a branch of a giant sportswashing campaign run by their goverment.
You seem to think people don't like EWC just because it's Saudi, so we should by extension hate Tencent because it's Chinese and Polymarket because it's American, this is not part of the discussion
The funding that EWC gets is literally directly coming from the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which is directed by the crown himself. Everything that it funds was funded by the direct consent and direction of the government of Saudi Arabia. The US and China go about their soft power influences in different ways that are probably equally as reprehensible, but when it comes to esports, EWC is literally directly funded by the Saudi government, while stuff like VCT CN/AMER and LPL/LCS are just sponsored by American and Chinese companies.
When it comes to hiding international human rights abuses and crimes against their domestic populations the US and CN usually just kill their activists or hide it all under layers of bureaucracy and intelligence agencies, they usually don't go out and sponsor massive "bread and circuses" type events to reform their image (other than the World Cup right now)
I just think it's stupid that they have two games going at the same time even if it's just groups. If Saudi has so much money why can't they fucking have a tournament that isn't a subpar viewing experience. This tournament does literally nothing for the sport it's just wave big prize money around so orgs all scurry like mice to qualify and make it deep, all for viewership to be subpar and production to look like a high schooler made the graphics and having shit security. Doesn't help that a large chunk of costreamers clearly don't give a fuck about it. Might as well run a charity event where teams get saudi money on a raffle instead
The vast majority of tournaments are like this (look at CS), valorant events just aren't because there's barely any games played in a year. EWC is ran on a tight schedule and it already causes enough disruption, teams aren't going to allocate an entire month to play it
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