As you are aware, PGL announced back in January that the first CS:GO Major after a two-year break would take place in the capital of Sweden, Stockholm. The entire community was ecstatic for many reasons, but the most important was taking part in the first LAN Major since the start of the pandemic.
Bucharest, July 20, 2021 - Right now, we are in direct discussions with the Swedish authorities and working together to find a solution to still host the PGL MAJOR in Stockholm. For the city to be the heart of Counter-Strike later this year, we have to stick to the initial terms of the project: we need to fly in all the qualified players into Sweden and to entertain a large number of spectators inside the venue. The current restrictions in Sweden allow for only 300 spectators within the Avicii Arena, but these restrictions MIGHT be lifted after September 15, depending on the development of the COVID-19 pandemic.
When we initially planned the CS:GO MAJOR, we had in mind that, after such a long time, we needed to find a special place to unleash the passion of players, organizations, fans, and last but not least, ours and Sweden seemed the perfect spot; a place with a great Counter-Strike heritage that largely contributed to the esports industry.
But, as with every other event we have organized, we always had a backup plan in case we wouldn’t be able to execute the event properly. We are in touch with two other European countries who have already offered us all the necessary guarantees to run the CS:GO MAJOR by having all the players on-site and a large audience inside the venue. With certain European countries reopening really fast for events, we have a very short window of opportunity to secure a new venue that will allow a large vaccinated audience, even with an uncertain COVID situation.
Nevertheless, we still hope that Sweden, the home of Counter-Strike, will be the host for the next CS:GO MAJOR. If the conditions outlined are not met, we will go forward with the backup plan and move the event into a different country.
We will have more updates soon.
