In some of the most depressing esports news of the year so far, we are sad to say that the legendary Spodek Arena will remain silent for the duration of the IEM Katowice playoffs.
Coronavirus strikes again at IEM Katowice
The Intel Extreme Masters Katowice playoffs will be played in front of… nobody. The Polish government has informed tournament organizers ESL that they will not be allowed to let any audience inside the Spodek Arena.
The extreme measures are enforced out of fear over the spreading of the highly contagious coronavirus. The disease was first recognized as an epidemical threat back in December when it hit the Wuhan area in China. Since then it has spread across basically every continent, Europe included, causing dozens of fatalities and as a result – mass panic.
While we as fans of the beautiful game are deeply saddened to see the arena empty at such a premier CS:GO tournament, it is quite obvious how a huge mass of people gathered at one place could be potentially dangerous to anyone involved with the event.
Tickets purchased for IEM Katowice 2020 will be refunded in full.
IEM Katowice keeps on going strong
The tournament itself will not be affected by the virus. Matches and broadcasting will proceed as planned and ESL have promised to give us a memorable weekend in spite of the pesky circumstances.
The biggest worry is that if the epidemic hasn’t been tamed in time, we might be missing on more epic audience moments. We have DreamHack Masters Jönköping scheduled for June and ESL One Cologne in July. We can’t start imagining how devastating it would be to see either of these historic CS:GO locations go silent.
Nothing left to do but hope this nightmare will not materialize.
