CSPPA future doubtful as multiple board members leave, website goes offline

As first pointed out by HLTV's Head of Operations, Zvonimir "Professeur" Burazin, on Monday, the Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association's (CSPPA) website has gone offline, with the URL failing to resolve. While a website outage isn't newsworthy on its own, this development coupled with the general lack of activity by the CSPPA over the past nine months raises questions about the body's status.

Dust2.us has attempted to determine the status of the CSPPA, learning in the process that there have been a number of key departures from the association in 2023. Starting with the board itself, Dust2.us and HLTV have confirmed that Johnny "JT" Theodosiou, Martin "STYKO" Styk, and Maikil "Golden" Selim have all stepped down from the board.

STYKO told Dust2.us that he decided to leave due to a mixture of a busy professional schedule ahead of the BLAST.tv Paris Major RMRs and the feeling that little was being accomplished via the CSPPA. He told Dust2.us:

"I felt like not much was being done, people in charge were barely communicating with us, meetings became irregular... I felt like I was not contributing via CSPPA to the well being of the scene and therefore I felt like I don't want to associate myself with the project, for now."

The departure from STYKO in particular is a key loss to the CSPPA as he was one of the more active members of the board. With STYKO, JT, and Golden stepping down as board members, the CSPPA currently has a rump board consisting of inactive pro Chris "chrisJ" de Jong, Dan "apEX" Madesclaire, and Endpoint's Max "MiGHTYMAX" Heath. However, this may not be the case for long, as apEX told HLTV he was weighing up leaving and had no clue about the CSPPA's current activities.

Despite the dismal state of affairs, sources tell Dust2.us that the CSPPA are currently in the process of attempting a "re-launch" and are in the process of looking for a new COO to replace Michael Døi.

Speaking of Døi, Dust2.us confirmed the CSPPA COO left sometime in early 2023, leaving the board without any C-level executives. This appears to have been a premeditated move to some degree, as the CSPPA's most recent tweet, dated September 1st 2022, was a job posting for the role of COO.

Beyond Døi, most over verifiable names attached to the project over the years have publicly or privately left the CSPPA. Sean "seang@res" Gares confirmed to Dust2.us he left back in mid-2020, executive assistant Louise Kwang left in May 2021, and Scott "SirScoots" Smith, a key name for the CSPPA, left in May 2022. The only other name associated with the CSPPA publicly, Mads Øland, could not be verified as still working with the CSPPA.

Øland was a high-profile addition as CEO when he joined the CSPPA from the Danish Football Players' Association in 2018. However, he stepped down from the role in mid-2021 to work with HK, a Danish workers' union. While HLTV's original story suggested he would still be acting as an advisor to the CSPPA, Dust2.us was unable to verify he is still active in this greatly diminished role.

Dust2.us attempted to reach out to the CSPPA for comment on their activities, however, due to the domain being down the email bounced.

While there is a small chance of the CSPPA surviving in its current form, it seems more likely that the second attempt to form a union of professional CS players will likely go down as a failed exercise at collectivization after a number of blunder, controversies, and missteps has undermined its credibility in the scene.