Sky Sports FIFA eChampions 2018 Event Branded ‘Waste of Time’ After Pro Event Cancelled After One Round
The annual eChampions 2018 FIFA event hosted by EA Sports and Sky Sports has been criticized for shunning the professional players in attendance.
Taking place on Thursday May 10th at the Sky Sports studios in London, there was high hopes for the event with celebrities and esports coming together.
Premier League footballers and Grime artists showed up to compete in the All-Star tournament, with British rapper Avelino beating out seven other competitors, including Ryan Bertrand, Saido Berahino and Patrick van Aanholt, to first place.
Alongside the All-Star tournament, sixteen professional gamers were invited to compete for the first place prize of £5,000, with representatives from Lightning Pandas, Hashtag Utd, Roma, Goal and more turning up to compete.
Despite some of the players travelling a considerable distance to play, the tournament ran into severe delays, with the games eventually being played off stream to allow the celebrity tournament to take place.
The delays eventually led to the pro tournament being cancelled after two rounds, with the seven players left in the tournament agreeing to share the prize pool.
Players reported that alongside the delays, their games were randomly interrupted mid-way through by DJ’s warming up to play their set, including flashing lights going off without warning.
Pro player Sean ‘Dragon’ Allen took to Twitter to vent his frustration at what he called a ‘massive waste of time’.
Ahhh on my way home from a massive waste of time they actually split the prize pool between 7 players.. so really people won 1 game and came away 1k richer, I wish I was mad at the fact I lost though.. if I done YouTube I would do a full video explaining the whole situation
— Sean Allen (@DragonFIFA_) May 11, 2018
On top of the pro tournament being cancelled, there was also heavy criticism of the stream production, which was broadcast in just 480p.
You can watch the full two hour broadcast below.