- Internacional de Madrid football team that came to be in possession of the DUX Gaming esports organization
- Thibaut Courtois and Borja Iglesias are not only a part of the team’s shareholders but fervent supporters as well
- Internacional dreams on growing and one day participating in La Liga
DUX Internacional de Madrid is an interesting case of a football team that is both owned by an esports organization and supported by some of the big names in the football industry.
The Visionary Football Team
Internacional de Madrid is a football team created in 2002 which is still fairly new by football standards. They were the only team created in this century that participated in the Copa del Rey. Inter was recently bought by DUX Gaming.
DUX Gaming is a fairly new esports team that has competed in classical sports-themed games such as the FIFA series and NBA 2K. The squad has some highly esteemed members, such as Jaime “Gravesen” Alvarez, a former Liga champion, and Laura Moreno, the first woman to represent a professional FIFA esports club in Spain.
The team can also brag with some of its shareholders – one is DjMaRiiO – an infamous YouTube content creator with more than six million subscribers. The other two of them are none other than the professional football players Borja Iglesias and Thibaut Courtois.
When DUX gaming later bought the third tier Internacional de Madrid football team, the three aforementioned major shareholders are fully committed to growing the team’s success. The two football players now act both as advisers and content creators.
In an interview with BBC Sport, Iglesias even said to be “thrilled to be involved.” The professional football player shares that he has always been passionate about both football and video games. This exciting project gives him the opportunity to work in favor of both. Iglesias promises to give his best in working together with all other members of the project as he thinks everyone’s individual skillset provides many advantages and learning opportunities.
The shareholders of the Internacional de Madrid team aren’t the only thing that’s interesting. Even more surprisingly, their goalkeeper, Carles Santalo, is a former esports player who decided to pursue a career in live football. Moreover, Santalo has one of the biggest followings in Spain because of his YouTube and Twitch channels. Under the name Kolderiu, the player has half a million subscribers on Twitch.
Santalo was one of the first members of DUX and was one of the biggest help in increasing the popularity of the Internacional de Madrid team.
Santalo mentions that his streams are where sports meet esports. His Twitch channel is one of the few such that stream football matches live. Moreover, the lineup of professional commentators and esports and content creator guests provides a unique opportunity for sports and mind sports to touch.
And if things weren’t interesting enough, the team used Bitcoin to take David Barral in as anew player. The team is also supported by the cryptocurrency platform.
Stephen Newman, the president of Internacional de Madrid, commented that he is glad to be one of the pioneers to use cryptocurrency in the football world. Newman believes that one day players may be partially paid with cryptocurrencies.
Newman dreams of growing the team enough to one day have it participate in La Liga.
