Visas for Russian CS players seem to be a total crapshoot. No rhyme or reason why certain teams/players are getting denied. Spirit and VP mostly manage to get all their visas with no issues, but Degster can’t get anywhere (despite having an extensive public profile and travel history *and playing for EU teams*!), some smaller teams like BetBoom or 9Pandas sometimes miss out, but other times are totally fine (only 9Pandas out of 5 Russian teams couldn’t get to the major, for example). Of the current BetBoom squad, Magnojez seem to be the only player without a long history of playing tier-1 events around the globe.
And that’s even though the CS world these days seems to center around Denmark, which has one of the strictest policies for Russians in general.
falsa_ovis
now I’m worrying about hally
LapinTade
I hope the frenchies will have a good run ! Seeing Graviti climbing from an unknown GenOne prospect to an IEM Cologne playin player, what a run ! Good to see the other french as well.
Psychaz
Since they’ve added Graviti they’ve definitely gone up a level, be interesting to see them on LAN against teams very close to their ranking
Pan_Fruto
They can attend some bookie Mickey mouse event instead
Nick007J
It is very difficult to say how exactly visa processing is being planned for certain Russian team/players, but this is virtually inevitable.
In case Betboom players applied for actual German visa, Germany openly says that “The processing time for Schengen visa applications in most cases will be 45 days”, and it is, in fact, exactly 45 days in most cases. Considering Betboom went to India recently, they either had to apply with a different passport (Russian nationals can hold two passports and it’s a normal practice), or could only apply with less than 45 days left, so they had no chance.
In many cases, teams have to circumvent the limitations by applying to a different country for a visa. For example, Poland does not issue visas to Russians, nor does it even allow entry via any border, so in order to attend Katowice teams needed to apply to other countries’ embassies. If you remember, donk arrived very late in Katowice because he had to apply for Italian visa (*), got it last minute, went to Italy to enter EU and from there he went to Poland (no border is crossed within EU, so nobody can prevent entrance).
(*) It is worth noting that the most “convenient” country to apply for is something that needs to be monitored by management. At the beginning of the year, it was known that specifically Italian embassy in Moscow was issuing “long-term” (multiple months) multi-entry visas, which attracted a lot of people that, for various reasons, needed to attend Europe. Interestingly, this was only the case for Moscow – embassies in other cities, including Belgrade, would issue single-entry visa for the duration of the trip, based on dates in application. Which embassies are “in good mood” right now is a question with no permanent answer. It seems like Betboom made a wrong bet this time (no pun intended).
Jakezetci
nafany said they withdrew from skyesports for cologne, unlucko
TheN1njTurtl3
Really sucks for bet boom tbh would’ve been a big opportunity for them
9 Comments
Visas for Russian CS players seem to be a total crapshoot. No rhyme or reason why certain teams/players are getting denied. Spirit and VP mostly manage to get all their visas with no issues, but Degster can’t get anywhere (despite having an extensive public profile and travel history *and playing for EU teams*!), some smaller teams like BetBoom or 9Pandas sometimes miss out, but other times are totally fine (only 9Pandas out of 5 Russian teams couldn’t get to the major, for example). Of the current BetBoom squad, Magnojez seem to be the only player without a long history of playing tier-1 events around the globe.
And that’s even though the CS world these days seems to center around Denmark, which has one of the strictest policies for Russians in general.
now I’m worrying about hally
I hope the frenchies will have a good run ! Seeing Graviti climbing from an unknown GenOne prospect to an IEM Cologne playin player, what a run ! Good to see the other french as well.
Since they’ve added Graviti they’ve definitely gone up a level, be interesting to see them on LAN against teams very close to their ranking
They can attend some bookie Mickey mouse event instead
It is very difficult to say how exactly visa processing is being planned for certain Russian team/players, but this is virtually inevitable.
In case Betboom players applied for actual German visa, Germany openly says that “The processing time for Schengen visa applications in most cases will be 45 days”, and it is, in fact, exactly 45 days in most cases. Considering Betboom went to India recently, they either had to apply with a different passport (Russian nationals can hold two passports and it’s a normal practice), or could only apply with less than 45 days left, so they had no chance.
In many cases, teams have to circumvent the limitations by applying to a different country for a visa. For example, Poland does not issue visas to Russians, nor does it even allow entry via any border, so in order to attend Katowice teams needed to apply to other countries’ embassies. If you remember, donk arrived very late in Katowice because he had to apply for Italian visa (*), got it last minute, went to Italy to enter EU and from there he went to Poland (no border is crossed within EU, so nobody can prevent entrance).
(*) It is worth noting that the most “convenient” country to apply for is something that needs to be monitored by management. At the beginning of the year, it was known that specifically Italian embassy in Moscow was issuing “long-term” (multiple months) multi-entry visas, which attracted a lot of people that, for various reasons, needed to attend Europe. Interestingly, this was only the case for Moscow – embassies in other cities, including Belgrade, would issue single-entry visa for the duration of the trip, based on dates in application. Which embassies are “in good mood” right now is a question with no permanent answer. It seems like Betboom made a wrong bet this time (no pun intended).
nafany said they withdrew from skyesports for cologne, unlucko
Really sucks for bet boom tbh would’ve been a big opportunity for them
Been hoping to see 3dmax on lan again