Saudi Arabia-based esports organization Team Falcons announced on Monday that it has officially exited the Valorant Champions Tour EMEA Ascension (VCT EMEA Ascension), ahead of the start of the season later this month. In an announcement published on X/Twitter and reposted by the official VCT EMEA account, the organization said that it was stepping away from the league by officially releasing its roster and allowing them to play under their own name.
While there has been some speculation on the reasoning behind this move on Monday, the exit was a decision made by Team Falcons and not compelled by Riot Games, according to sources we spoke to on background.
The organization said, in part on Tuesday:
“We have taken the difficult decision today to release our Valorant players from their contract as they enter the Ascension tournament.
“They will remain as a team and compete together in the event under their own name.
“We want to thank the fans for all their support for the team and we wish the players the best moving forward.”
In reposting Team Falcons’ statement, the league noted:
“We can confirm that Team Falcons will no longer participate in VALORANT Ascension EMEA and that its former players will now compete as an independent team during the event.
“We want to wish the players, and the other nine contending teams, the very best of luck during the tournament.”
Reporting from Sheep Esports in July suggested that Team Falcons was in negotiations with Rogue owners Infinite Reality to buy its League of Legends EMEA (LEC) slot. The same report also suggested that Riot blocked a previous bid to acquire the LEC slot from Astralis in 2023, which was ultimately sold to France-based Karmine Corp, but for what reason no one knows.
TEA asked Riot and Team Falcons about this in July, but both companies declined to comment at the time.
In the course of our research, TEA has learned that Riot does in fact have a global esports ecosystem-wide (Valorant, Leagues of Legends, TFT, etc.) rule in place that requires the disclosure of ownership, and also bars teams with direct ties to governments or government-controlled entities from participating in its Tier-1 leagues.
It has been speculated that part of Team Falcon’s ownership group includes funding from companies or individuals either tied to the government or its sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund. It should be noted that there is no public information on the ownership of/investments in Team Falcons, as of this writing. Team Falcons Co-Founder and CEO Mossad “Msdossary” Al-Dossary publicly pushed back on speculation that the company is funded by the Saudi Arabian government—directly or indirectly— in an HLTV interview (shown below) eight months ago:
VCT EMEA Ascension is an online/offline competition that kicks off on Aug. 31 and runs until Sept. 15, with the lower finals and grand finals taking place at the Riot Games Arena in Berlin. More details about the competition can be found from our friends at Liquipedia.