CS:GO<\/em> tournament organizer BLAST and Saudi Arabian project NEOM have mutually agreed to end their partnership just 15 days after the deal was announced, according to a report<\/a> by HLTV.<\/p>
The report comes one day after it was reported<\/a> that CS:GO<\/em> teams partnered with BLAST called for a meeting to pressure the tournament organizer to end the partnership with NEOM. Although almost all of the organizations stayed silent about the deal, they were allegedly unsatisfied with the deal from the beginning. BLAST reportedly communicated the decision to part ways with NEOM to the organizations yesterday during the meeting.<\/p>
When the BLAST and NEOM deal was announced on July 28, the tournament organizer described it as a \u201crecord deal<\/a>\u201d and an \u201cambitious project<\/a>.\u201d NEOM is a planned mega-city in Saudi Arabia with an estimated cost of $500 billion. BLAST, however, has been heavily criticized by the community and\u00a0part of its talent crew<\/a> since the announcement.\u00a0Frankie Ward<\/a>,\u00a0Vince Hill<\/a>,\u00a0Harry Russel<\/a>,\u00a0Hugo Byron<\/a>, and former talent and now Team Liquid\u2019s head coach\u00a0Moses<\/a>\u00a0have publicly expressed their concerns with the deal.<\/p>
The backlash began due to the Saudi Arabia government\u2019s poor human rights record, the abuse of indigenous communities around NEOM<\/a>, and its anti-LGBTQ+ laws. Frankie, Vince, Harry, and Hugo all said they wouldn’t work with BLAST until the deal was dropped.<\/p>
If BLAST confirms that the partnership with NEOM has ended, the tournament organizer will be the second esports company to part ways with NEOM this month. On July 29, the LEC formed a partnership with NEOM but\u00a0canceled the deal less than 24 hours after the announcement<\/a>\u00a0after\u00a0several broadcast talent members<\/a>\u00a0and other people on Riot\u2019s staff boycotted the project.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
