FlyQuest question Valve's updated COI determination
Valve issued their final ranking which will be used today to invite teams from across the world to their respective regional RMR events for the upcoming 2024 Perfect World Shanghai Major.
Those invites for teams also came with one slight caveat - FlyQuest, Imperial, TSM, and more would not be allowed to send their women's teams to their respective Closed Qualifier events if they also wanted to send their men's teams, regardless of the region they were in.
This caused some strife for the women's teams as they were under the impression that organizations could have multiple teams participate in the Major cycle so long as the teams were never in the same competition.
It was not entirely unheard of for the same organization to allow multiple teams to participate within the Major cycle. For example, 00 Nation's European team, 00 Prospects, participated in the 2022 IEM Rio Major European Open Qualifier #1 while their Brazilian lineup, 00 Nation, also qualified via the South American Qualifier. Open qualifiers have previously allowed this, while this case deals with the closed qualifier and onwards.
In a more outlandish example, Aurora's youth team Aurora Young Blud claimed to have departed their organization while participating in the open qualifiers for the 2024 PGL Copenhagen Major European RMR.
The team, then known as 30 Second to Win, never actually qualified for the RMR to compete alongside their former organization. However, Aurora signed the young lineup shortly after the failed venture, prompting conflict of interest concerns. Valve has never made a statement on this instance.
The current discourse revolving around FlyQuest RED's statement argues that organizations should never be allowed to have an interest in multiple teams participating in the same Major. FlyQuest makes the argument that historically, organizations have been able to field multiple teams and directly references the Aurora situation explained above.
In the statement, FlyQuest expressed their disappointment, arguing that their women's team should be allowed to participate in the North American Closed Qualifier while their men's roster competes in the Asian RMR. They called Valve's decision "short-sighted" as it negatively affects each Impact roster worldwide.
"At FlyQuest, we understand the need for strict rules around competitive integrity, but not allowing our RED program to compete in a totally different regional qualification system without advance notice only just sets back women's esports while contributing little to a fair qualification circuit".
FlyQuest's Mounira "GooseBreeder" Dobie expressed her disappointment with the decision stating, "I thought how it was previously made sense & found balance between competitive integrity while still allowing impact/academy players a chance to qualify... Hopefully this is a mistake"
Valve is unlikely to adjust their ruling and women's teams will need to either follow Aurora's example of divestment or simply miss out on participating in the game's biggest event of the year.
