The 2021 League of Legends World Championship has been moved from China to Europe, Riot Games’ head of global esports John Needham officially announced today.
The company isn’t ready to announce where in Europe the tournament will be taking place, but “accessibility for the highest amount of teams and their best players” will be a top priority when choosing a location. This was, according to Needham, one of the reasons why Riot was forced to switch the host country.
“With the Delta variant, travel restrictions and COVID protocols have been even more complicated to navigate in 2021 than they were in 2020,” Needham said. “Sadly, we’ve reached the point where it’s extremely difficult to guarantee that qualifying teams and their best players would be able to attend Worlds this year. As a result, we’ve made the tough decision to pivot Worlds from China to Europe.”
Riot believes that moving Worlds to Europe will give the most teams and their best players a chance to attend the tournament. Needham said more information regarding the locations of the event will be revealed in the weeks ahead, which many fans across the world will be eagerly waiting for.
LCS teams were still working to secure visas to enter China as of last week, according to a report by Upcomer. And Riot had also reportedly struggled with securing travel for its production crews into the country. It’s unclear when Riot will make an announcement for the locations of Worlds 2021, especially since there’s roughly only a month left before the event is set to begin.
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