ESL FACEIT Group (EFG) announced Tuesday that it has partnered with Brace For Impact (BFI) to bring Counter-Strike 2 competitions aimed at women and marginalized genders to Europe and South America.
Financial terms of the deal (if any) were not disclosed.
In addition to working with EFG on these specialized tournaments, BFI will create its own FACEIT Club on EFG’s FACEIT online competition platform.
In case you are not familiar with BFI, it describes itself as a Canada-based not-for-profit tournament organizer with a focus on women’s and marginalized genders in the Counter-Strike 2 scene. The organization was founded in 2025 by Scott “ParkS” Park and Tatiana “t4tiana” [last name withheld], and is named after a 56-episode Counter-Strike podcast of the same name. The non-profit helped fill the gap left by the discontinuation of ESL Impact in 2025 by hosting a large number of Cash Cups in North America, South Africa, and Oceania aimed at women.
“We are incredibly excited to partner with Brace For Impact and support the important work they are doing for women and marginalized genders in Counter-Strike”, said Anna Pototska, community partnership manager at ESL FACEIT Group. “BFI has demonstrated a clear commitment to creating consistent, meaningful competitive opportunities, and this collaboration allows us to help scale that vision globally. By combining their community-first approach with FACEIT’s tournament and Club infrastructure, we believe this partnership can play a significant role in strengthening and sustaining the female Counter-Strike scene across multiple regions.”
More information about these tournaments in 2025 will be announced at a later date.
Properties owned or tied to the Saudi Arabian government such as EFG and its parent company Savvy Games Group are frequently accused of helping the government engage in so-called “sports washing,” or using various forms of sport and entertainment to cover up its record on human rights, women’s rights, LGTBQ+ rights, military actions in Yemen, and more. These and other criticisms are actively highlighted by international watchdog groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.