Chinese esports operator VSPO held a press conference in Shanghai on Tuesday and announced that it will host the Esports Asian Champions League in China in 2025. Dino Ying; the CEO and founder of VSPO; Danny Tang, CFO of VSPO, Huang Simian, vice minister of the publicity department of Shanghai; and HRH Prince Faisal, founder of the Saudi Esports Federation, vice president of the Global Esports Federation, and president of the International Esports Federation, and Shanghai authorities attended the press conference at Shanghai INS KEZEE, a club that is also owned by Dino.
According to the announcement, VSPO will run an ACL Foundation to operate ACL, similar to the Esports World Cup (EWC) foundation and EWC. VSPO Co-Founder Wang Xinyi will act as the ACL CEO and Xie Fan, co-founder of VSPO and Qiddiya Gaming & Esports board advisor will act as ACL president. ACL will also be one of the partners of EWC and HRH Prince Faisal will act as the honorary president.
Many details of the competitions were undisclosed, meaning that it is unclear what esports titles will be included in competition, but a promotional trailer that was played at the conference featured League of Legends, PUBG, and the city of Shanghai. Zeng “Xiaohai” Zhuojun, the winner of the EWC Street Fighter VI competition, was also featured in an interview at the main stage of the conference. While not emphatically stated, the trailer and interview seems to indicate that ACL could feature League of Legends, PUBG, and Street Fighter VI.
Sources who attended the conference told The Esports Advocate that the ACL will include between seven to 10 esports titles.
“Recently, VSPO and EWC have had a ‘positive’ discussion on game selection and 2025 EWC qualifier,” according to the PR release.
This seems to indicate that ACL might become an Asian qualifier for EWC. Typically, esports competitions have to get approval from game publishers, such as Valve, Riot Games, Tencent, Krafton, and Capcom.
While League of Legends, PUBG, and Street Fighter VI were all esports titles at EWC, Riot Games, TJ Sports, Krafton and other stakeholders were not in attendance at the conference. Tencent fully owns Riot Games and also has investments in VSPO. In 2023, the Saudi Arabian government’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) invested approximately $265M USD in VSPO.