Several CS:GO teams may have trouble participating in European RMR tournaments due to the complicated visa process. Such difficulties were encountered, in particular, by 1WIN, Aurora, K23 and Benched Heroes.
On September 9, the European Commission announced new rules for processing applications for short-term visas from Russian citizens who would like to visit one of the EU countries. These documents mention, among other things, that consulates can «give lower priority to optional travel», extend the application processing time from 15 to 45 days, and request additional documentation.
As a result, K23, 1WIN and Aurora have had difficulties in processing the visas required for travel to Malta in a timely manner. It is mentioned that 1WIN has only two players (lollipop21k and flamie) with visas, and deko recently mentioned that his chances of getting a visa can be estimated as «fifty-fifty». Aurora still hasn't received visas for the manager, coach and one of the players.
Owen «smooya» Butterfield from the multinational team Benched Heroes recently mentioned that he is not sure yet what the final roster will be: Russian roster member Evgeny «Aunkere» Karjat is also at risk of missing the competition due to lack of visa.
According to ESL rules, teams can only make one substitution, which means that those teams that have problems with two or more participants will have to leave the tournament.