- Riot reportedly wants all its attending players at Brazilian events to be vaccinated
- This includes all players, coaching and support staff, as well as attending viewers
- These new policies coincide with the deportation of a VALORANT coach for lack of vaccines
According to rumors, Riot Games will require everyone attending the Brazilian tournaments in-person, players, coaches, staff, to be vaccinated.
Riot Wants Its Players Vaccinated
A recent report by ge.globo.com, Riot will require all its Brazilian players and staff, who attend any of the Brazilian tournaments to get vaccinated with the Covid-19 vaccine. The requirement will include tournaments across all Riot titles, like the Brazilian Championship of League of Legends, VALORANT Challengers Brazil, and Wild Rift‘s Wild Tour Brasil. Any in-person spectators will also have to provide proof of inoculation before entering the venue.
Riot has said to ge.globo.com that it intends to keep live events with this new policy in place, however, this might change depending on the pandemic situation. The company adds that it is monitoring the cases of the new variants, so it could modify its requirements again by the time the tournaments start. In addition, Riot also told ge.globo that the CBLOL will have a smaller audience than the maximum the venue is able to accommodate, in order to ensure the social distance between people. Riot Games also added that it will soon release information about the sales of tickets.
Controversies Surrounding Unvaccinated Players
Riot’s new requirements coincide with the story of Argentine VALORANT coach Rodrigo “Onur” Dalmagro. He’s the former KRU Esports and was recently denied the opportunity to work with the Brazilian organization LOUD Esports due to his lack of vaccinations. He is now potentially facing deportation back to Argentina.
He took to Twitter, posting a TwitLonger explaining his side of the story.
According to a machine translation, Onur says “When the team manager was informed about the travel restrictions, [Brazil] only required a PCR with less than 72 hours of validity.”
Onur adds that neither he nor the managers knew about the new regulation Brazil implemented on December 20. According to it, foreigners entering the country must be vaccinated, in addition to having the negative PCR test. Later on, Onur posted another TwitLonger, explaining he is now a free agent and is up for traveling to other locations only if they have more relaxed vaccination policies.
It is unclear if Riot’s new policies were triggered by Onur’s case, but unvaccinated players might face similar obstacles when wanting to play at any of the Brazilian events.
