Since its launch in 2024, the Esports World Cup (EWC) has generated a wealth of debate from inside the entire esports neighborhood.
The annual multi-title occasion, organised by the Esports World Cup Basis (EWCF), takes place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and has raised considerations round inclusivity since its creation.
Forward of this yr’s version, Mike McCabe, COO of the Esports World Cup Basis and Fabian Scheurmann, Chief Video games Officer, mentioned LGBTQ+ and girls’s illustration on the occasion in a press convention attended by Esports Insider.
Extra Aggressive Alternatives
On the press convention, McCabe reiterated to Esports Insider that everybody is welcome to compete on the Esports World Cup, no matter sexual orientation or gender.
“Everyone is welcome. Everybody who competes at EWC is welcome to the Kingdom. What Saudi Arabia is attempting to do to shift the tradition is to assist aggressive play,” he said.
In recent times, the Saudi Esports Federation has invested within the ladies’s esports business as a part of its Nationwide Gaming and Esports Technique. In consequence, the Saudi eLeague hosts regional ladies’s tournaments for quite a few titles, together with VALORANT and Overwatch 2.
“As for the tournaments we have now, we’d like to have extra aggressive tournaments for ladies in EWC,” added McCabe.
“What we have to do is figure with publishers to construct the circuits and pathways for these competitions to get onto the large stage. We hope that we have now increasingly ladies’s competitions sooner or later.”
Whereas the Esports World Cup continues to reaffirm its stance on inclusivity, Saudi Arabia’s stance on LGBTQ+ communities nonetheless stays an space of concern. Homosexuality within the Kingdom is illegitimate and punished, leading to backlash from a number of members of the neighborhood. In June 2025, Apex Legends participant Hambino refused to attend the ALGS Mid-Season Playoffs because of the Kingdom’s human rights file and considerations for his or her security.
For the 2026 version of the Esports World Cup, Cellular Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) will as soon as once more characteristic a devoted ladies’s event. The MLBB Ladies’s Worldwide will see 16 groups from the world over competing for its $500,000 (~£372,939) prize pool and to be topped world champion.
The Significance Of Ecosystems
Steady esports ecosystems play a pivotal position in offering a platform for ladies to compete in occasions for his or her respective titles. For a number of years, ESL Influence acted because the world’s greatest ladies’s Counter-Strike circuit, providing massive prize swimming pools and attracting main organisations.
Nevertheless, in October 2025, ESL suspended the circuit indefinitely, citing an unsustainable financial mannequin behind the choice. When requested concerning the potential for internet hosting a ladies’s Counter-Strike occasion as a part of EWC, Scheurmann revealed that extra must be carried out to enhance stability.
“We can not carry ecosystems by themselves. Think about you may have a 3 or four-day event every year, that’s not an ecosystem. You have to give skilled gamers one thing to do all yr spherical.”
He continued: “If we see that there are ecosystems being constructed for ladies, we are going to proceed to double down on these, however they should be present, and it may well’t be solely us. If we see that they’re rising, we’re tremendous pleased to incorporate them or contemplate them for inclusion sooner or later.”
“Hopefully, extra organisers create extra ladies’s tournaments for CS,” the Esports World Cup Basis’s Chief Video games Officer added.
“This will even assist us ensure that we are going to introduce ladies’s Counter-Strike esports.”
