The International 2018 is getting closer, only a matter of weeks. As one of the international tournaments, there must be lots to be prepared both from the esports organization / team to the players. Not only physical and mental preparation, they also have to prepare a “Visa”.
The Visa itself is simply a document that must be owned by someone when travelling to another country. It is even simpler like a permit to enter a particular country. In this case, the Dota 2 professional teams who will compete in The International 2018 will not only come from Canada / United States, but from other parts of the country that require each pro player to have their own Visa.
At both TI 6 and TI 7, there is plenty of visas not getting approved. This year not much has been heard from the teams regarding visas, which was taken as a good sign. Recently. Team Secret’s manager, Matthew “Cyborgmatt” Bailey has confirmed via his Twitter account that all teams that will compete in full with all their players have completed their respective visas for Canada. According to Cyborgmatt, teams have been receiving plenty of help securing visas this year, and that might be the difference maker.
“To clarify my earlier point, all the teams are getting great visa support, it’s just a difficult process when you take into account the type of visas pro players require in order to compete and the regions a lot of players reside from. Hopefully we don’t have any issues,” Cyborgmatt as Tweeted on his account.
Visa issues are the bane of esports. With few countries that officially recognize esports players in they same way they do traditional sports players, securing a visa can be hard depending on what region you come from. Two weeks ago, Team Liquid’s manager Mohamed Morad 2 stated that they had not yet been able to secure a visa for Maroun “GH” Merhej. While the situation has been resolved, it’s cutting it close.
In previous years Visa had become one of the biggest problems in the dream tournament of all Dota 2 players in the world, as happened in TI 6, Visa problems were felt by TNC Predator and Execration where they had just obtained their Visa on the day their flight schedule was growing close. Meanwhile Vici Gaming Reborn and PSG.LGD was forced to use stand-in player. Meanwhile on the TI 7, carry player of Team Empire, Vladimir “Chappie” Kuzmenko must also experience Visa problems that require him to not be able to fly to TI 7 and must be replaced by Roman “Resolut1on” Forminok.
Well, with all the teams and players who will compete in TI 8, there will be no more experienced Visa issues so that both the team and the players will certainly be more confident to fight for their dream title in this grand tournament of the year.
