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Russian organization Fantastic Five, which plays in the lower division of the Dota Pro Circuit, announced from Valve announced a bootcamp of the Russian team in the occupied Crimea.
On their official page in the Russian social network VK, Fantastic Five reported that their team is training in Sevastopol, Crimea.
Fantastic Five’s lineup for the first season of the regional lunges from Valve. The guys are now on bootcamp in Sevastopol, Crimea
Apparently, the organization is not embarrassed by the annexation of the peninsula by the Russian Federation. This means that all players and management will be banned from entering the territory of Ukraine due to the Ukrainian legislation under which no citizen can enter the territory of the annexed Crimea from the territory of other countries.
Ukraine is an essential country for esports. The largest tournament operators, such as WePlay and Starladder, operate there and hold esports tournaments. Ukraine is also home to several leading esports organizations, such as Na’Vi and HellRaisers, and one of the most influential studios covering esports in the Russian language, Maincast.
Here is what co-founder of Maincast studio, commentator, and influencer Vitalii “v1lat” Volochai had to say about it:
I don’t know why Fantastic Five announced that their team was at a bootcamp in Sevastopol, but now none of the players of this team will ever be able to travel to Ukraine for the LAN from a conditional WePlay or Starladder. The chance of getting a visa to the U.S. is now close to zero, and there will also be problems with the Schengen. Genius marketing.
Volochai noted that players are unlikely to get a visa to the U.S. in the future because of a visit to Crimea. This means they won’t be able to get into The International, should it be relocated back to the U.S. as well as other tournaments run by American tournament operators, such as The Summit. F5 players are also likely to have problems obtaining a Schengen visa to visit the European Union.
The social media post was edited half an hour later. The administrator of the Fantastic Five community deleted the part about the team being in Crimea, but by that time the news had already spread all over the esports media.