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V1lat to teams going to Russia: "You guys will go through hell"
Vitalii Mykolayovych "v1lat" Volochai took to Twitter to blast teams attending Russia's upcoming Games of the Future 2024. The tournament will be held in Kazan, one of the largest cities in the country.
In his Twitter blast, v1lat promised he would email the list of attending players to their government, along with listing them as sports people who support terrorism.
V1lat: "Good luck with getting EU and UK visas after that"
A total of 16 teams will be competing in the Games of the Future, eight invited while the other eight will go through qualifiers.
V1lat stated he would inform all countries of the players who travel to Kazan for the event. The Ukrainian caster aims to repel organizations from attending the event.
"I will personally do whatever it takes to mail to all EU countries the personal data of your players and staff after you visit Government funded Russian tournament, so your players will have visa issues in future. So good luck and have fun in Kazan. And even more good luck with getting EU and UK visas after that."
Getting Visas to travel to tournaments is a notoriously difficult process for players. There have been several Majors that saw teams playing with a stand-in. Even at The International last year, some teams had to recruit players from other countries to field a full roster.
That's not all that V1lat intends to do, he also plans to add the attending players' names to the list of sports people who support terrorism.
"I will do everything possible to enlist your player in a monthly update of the list of sportspersons who actively support terrorism. Thats works with sports, will work with esport too"
We don't know which list Vitalii is referring to here but it sounds like one people wouldn't want to find themselves on.
The Dota 2 community rallies around v1lat's statement
The tweets were shared on Reddit and the response sided with v1lat, with multiple comments talking about the impact the war has had on people.
"I'm Ukrainian and I fully understand him. Why? Today I have been hiding in shelter 3 times due to air alert. " -Olexiety
"As a Ukrainian whose city literally been bombed like 20 minutes ago(3rd time this day btw), I fully support this statement from Vilat." -ThisRussian
"It's totally in V1lat's right to do what he threatened. And you know why?
Because he's Ukrainian.
And you know what happens after the threats?
The EU government should, and most likely will respond to this. And will ban the players from entering." -Semmy_T
This is a hot topic issue and it will be interesting to see if any team or specific players decide to opt out of the tournament due to the threats.
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