- Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev says the ESL provided players with terrible hotel rooms
- ESL’s Senior Vice President of Game Ecosystems defends the ESL
- He says the organization is in constant dialogue with teams to fix various problems
According to NaVi’s star player Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, the ESL provided players with hotel rooms plagued by mold and insects.
Pros Complain
Setting up big esports events can be a logistical nightmare. Organizers have to work with various teams, players, and other bodies, often international ones. This can often lead to miscommunications or other problems, setbacks, and curious anecdotes. One such seems to have happened at the ESL Pro League Season 16 playoffs in Malta, where many pro players have reported having to live in hotels plagued by mold and insects.
Not long after the tournament started, many players started complaining about the bad living conditions in their accommodations. One of the most popular CS:GO players, Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, voiced his outrage on Twitter, berating the ESL for the hotels it has provided to players. “Wake up and tell your employees to remember what professionalism is,” the player hailed the organization, stating there is bad communication with the teams.
S1mple also mentioned that he had been moved in and out of rooms, dealing with unhealthy accommodations overall. He later shared pictures taken in the hotel rooms, showing the disgusting conditions the players were hosted in. He accompanied the pictures with an explanation that he was required to check out of his first room only to be accommodated into to move to the same room with the huge mold spots. S1mple additionally explained that the reason for the move in the first place was him waking up to ants crawling in his bed.
In a Reddit thread discussing the event, ESL’s Senior Vice President of Game Ecosystems Ulrich “TheFlyingDJ” Schulze said that s1mple was moved to a different room when he notified the staff, which he allegedly did not do before making the tweets.
He also defended the ESL, stating it and the teams are in constant dialogue, working out solutions to various topics that were raised. Furthermore, Schulze said that the ESL is still investigating and that none of the 24 EPL teams have so far mentioned mold issues in any way.
