At the end of 2016, Deputy Prime Minister Russian Federation Vitaly Mutko at a meeting of the executive committee of the Russian Football Union, he made it clear that e-football is of interest to sports officials. “We thought that the development of e-football is an interesting topic. At this stage, the Ministry of Sports has approved the eSports Federation. We need to figure out whether cyberfootball will enter it or become a kind of football. We
we can hold Russian championships under the auspices of the RFU. Perhaps we will hold the Cyberfootball World Cup in Russia. Maybe at least we will become champions in it, ”the official said then.
20 days after the announcement, the Russian Football Premier League announced the open championship RFPL in e-football and RFPL Cup OLYMPUS. The last one will be held in the entertainment complex "Ogni Ufa" from 24 to 26 February 2017. "This is an official tournament Russian Premier League. The cup will be received not by the player, but by the club he represents. We will make beautiful sports holiday. This is the first experience in Russia when, within the league, players will compete in the field of cyberfootball,” explains one of the organizers of the upcoming tournament, head of the Bashkir branch of the Federation of Computer Russia Azamat Muratov.
This is the official tournament of the Russian Premier League. The cup will be received not by the player, but by the club he represents.
RFPL Executive Director Proximity of football and e-football audiences. “Life has shown that esports has a great future both in terms of investment and audience coverage. And we are very interested that the audience involved in eSports be our audience, so we found common ground. I think e-football and big football audiences will be exchanged,” Cheban said.
About mixing real and virtual football esportsmen also say. So, the player signed by Zenit Ruslan Yaminov admits that from the age of six he was engaged in big football but failed to become professional athlete. “Now I have the opportunity to bring value to my favorite club in cyberspace,” he adds. “I feel a great responsibility and desire to prove that esports is serious.”
Now I have the opportunity to bring value to my favorite club in cyberspace.
In a similar way, I got into eSports and Robert "Ufenok77" Fakhretdinov. He played football since childhood, and after a knee injury, he switched to virtual games. Now he is one of the strongest players in FIFA. Among his achievements, in particular, the title of world champion in 2015 according to WSVG and victory in the Cup of Russia in 2016. Robert will represent FC Ufa at the RFPL OLYMP Cup in e-football, which was one of the first among Russian clubs to look for and sign an e-sports player.
"OLIMP RFPL Cyberfootball Cup" might not have seen the light of the day, if not for Electronic Arts, which managed to interest football clubs with its game. The pioneer was the German football club Wolfsburg, which signed a contract with e-footballers in January 2016. The trend was picked up by other eminent clubs - Besiktas, Schalke 04, Sporting, West Ham United”, Manchester City, Bayern, PSG and Lyon. Volga became the first Russian football club to sign a contract with an esportsman. A week before the start of the competition, almost all Russian clubs, playing in the elite division of the Russian championship, announced the signing of contracts with e-sportsmen.
“Real football very much draws attention away from e-football. A lot of people play FIFA, but some of them just don't know that it's also very interesting competition. This has never been popularized before, including by the developers themselves, unlike, say, League of Legends. Electronic Arts started investing in eSports only last year,” says the head of the Russian Cyberfootball Federation Yuri Soshinsky.
16 players will take part in the upcoming tournament, each of which will represent his football club. Playing for Spartak Sergei "kefir" Nikiforov considers the e-sportsmen of the football clubs CSKA, Zenit and Ufa to be the main favorites of the competition. This list also includes the Spartak player himself, who is a two-time FIFA champion of Russia.
The composition of the participants of the "OLIMP RFPL Cyberfootball Cup":
Ruslan Yaminov (FC Zenit)
Sergei "kefir" Nikiforov (FC Spartak)
Andrey "Timon" Guryev (FC CSKA)
Anton "KLENOFF" Klenov and Konstantin "STAVR" Girin (both - FC Lokomotiv)
Robert «Ufenok77» Fakhretdinov (FC Ufa)
Kirill "Aruhito" Ordinartsev (FC Orenburg)
Alexey Oleinik (FC Rostov)
Maxim Kirilov (FC Krylya Sovetov)
Ilya Belosludtsev (FC Amkar)
Omar Aliyev (FC Ural)
Shamil Kurbangadzhiev (FC Anji)
Andrey Konnov (FC Krasnodar)
Valentin Moroz (FC Tom)
Vyacheslav Alkhazov (FC Arsenal)
Umar Baisagurov (FC Terek)
Anton Zhukov (FC Rubin)
One of the participants of the tournament, e-sportsman football club Orenburg, Kirill Ordinartsev, expects that after such an event, people, organizations and sponsors will have a great interest in e-football. The player admits that he began preparing for the competition immediately after signing a contract with the football club: “I try to spar as much as possible with strong players, analyze past matches and look for the best combinations, schemes and tactics for the upcoming tournament.”
After such an event, people, organizations and sponsors will have a great interest in e-football.
Sergey “kefir” Nikiforov from Spartak, on the contrary, is going to devote only the last few days before the start of the tournament to intensive preparation for the Cup: “I always prepare for tournaments for three days, I just sit down and play a little more than usual. On a typical day, I will play for two hours, and before the competition I will play five or six hours a day.
However, the success of the event depends not only on the preparation of the players. , it is important how this tournament will be presented in the media, in particular on television. At the moment, the broadcast of the matches was announced by the TV channel Game Show. Games will be shown on the website of the Russian Football Premier League and on the pages of the Premier League clubs in social networks. One of the information partners of the tournament is "Championship".
"If you're a football club and you're worried about a new generation of potential fans addicted to League of Legends games, then you need to go and take them in alternative ways," says EA Sports CEO Peter Moore. This quote best explains why European clubs are increasingly signing contracts with players in virtual football, and individual leagues are arranging full-fledged esports championships.
There are now two major series of virtual football in the world, but the popularity of FIFA and its Japanese rival PES (Pro Evolution Soccer) is incomparable. FIFA 17 sold 1.1 million copies in its first week in the UK alone, the same in Germany and other European countries. PES sells out about 40 times worse, but even such sales volumes do not prevent Konami from signing contracts with Barcelona and UEFA. Simultaneously with Euro 2016, a PES tournament was organized, the matches of which were broadcast in the fan zone near the Eiffel Tower. Even if an outsider has enough resources for such events, then the market should be recognized as serious.
It is clear that clubs are mastering esports in the hope of making money: the industry is developing extremely intensively. According to a report by Newzoo, in 2016 total esports revenue was $492 million and is expected to rise to $1.5 billion by 2020. The spectator audience already now exceeds 300 million people a year: 162 million are a permanent audience, 161 million watch tournaments rarely, from time to time.
In the US, interest in eSports is so great that individual players and teams are signed by specific athletes. Brooklyn Nets point guard Jeremy Lin created a Dota2 team with his own money and called it Team VGJ. Another basketball player, Rick Fox, purchased an already existing team, but renamed it Echo Fox. Of the players, the Brazilian Ronaldo showed interest in e-sports, having invested in 50% of the shares of the local CNB e-Sports Club team. Gerard Piqué is also going to create an eSports project from scratch - by the way, he already has a video game company, Kerad Games.
What is this all for?
Despite the rapid growth of esports, virtual football is not yet so profitable. In the ranking of the most popular online games, FIFA 17 does not even creep into the top ten. To make a difference and motivate players, the creators of the game (EA Sports) founded the FIFA Interactive World Cup tournament, which is spending more and more every year. In 2017 prize fund will be 1.3 million dollars, of which 200 thousand will go to the winner. This is 10 times more than last year, but still very small compared to global esports - for example, the winner of the Dota2 (The international) main tournament last year received more than $8 million.
“Fifa 17 is played by millions of people every day. Many of them learn about players and teams through the game, choose who to root for in the future. If only for these reasons, we are interested in esports,” explains Diego Gigliani, senior vice president of media and innovation at City Football Group (Manchester City and New York City). The English club was one of the first to sign a contract with 19-year-old cyber football player Kieran Brown. Not only does he represent City in various tournaments, but he is also bound by the number of Twitch live streams and YouTube videos he uploads. On match days, Fifer meets with the club's fans and teaches them how to play FIFA 17 cool. A similar model has already been adopted by Wolfsburg, West Ham, PSV, Ajax, Sporting Lisbon, PSG, Brøndby, " Panathinaikos, River Plate.
At the league level, e-football is most actively developed in France and Holland. Ligue 1 in October last year announced the holding of the first FIFA 17 tournament. Most likely, PSG will win it - the sheiks and in this situation decided to take the best by signing two-time world champion August Rosenmeier and one of the most promising fifers Luca Chielje. The Dutch announced the creation of a virtual Eredivisie only in mid-January, but it is already known that the matches will be broadcast not only by Twitch and YouTube, but also by the local television company Fox Sports. Each cyberfootball player will be considered a real representative of his club.
There are no independent tournaments in England yet, but BT Sport, which broadcasts the Champions League, has agreed with EA to show key stages FIFA Ultimate Team Championship Series. This is the first time e-football will appear on such a large venue and appear on serious television. First, BT Sport will show the North American qualifier for the FIFA 17 World Cup, then the Asia-Pacific region will turn on, then the European qualifier will take place, and on May 20 and 21 the final stage will take place in Berlin.
Now in Russia
European Third League, where he appeared official championship according to FIFA 17, it turned out to be Russia.
Before the resumption of the Premier League, a tournament was held in Ufa, in which representatives of all 16 clubs played. “In the future, the cyberfootball championship will most likely run parallel to the real one,” said Yury Soshinsky, head of the Russian Cyberfootball Federation. “So far, this Cup is a kind of independent tournament without continuation.”
Soshinsky admits that in fact the Russian FIFA Championship has been held for three years without any participation from the Premier League. “This championship is part of a global tournament run by EA and FIFA. The winner of our tournament will get the opportunity in a few next steps reach the final in London. At the same time, there will be a separate stage for those who directly represent football clubs.”
After the recognition of esports at the state level, the affairs of the federation went better. Virtual football has ceased to be an unrecognized hobby for teenagers after the November meeting of the executive committee of the RFU. Then the mayor of Kazan and the president of Rubin, Ilsur Metshin, suggested that Vitaly Mutko develop a fashionable theme. The idea was publicly supported, but no actual steps were taken from the RFU. Then the Premier League played ahead of the curve by organizing the Russian Cup.
The league as a whole should be satisfied with the tournament: on the official YouTube channel of the Premier League, the broadcasts of three days of the competition collected a total of approximately 200,000 views (on average, a video on the channel is gaining about 5,000, with the exception of match reviews). On VKontakte, broadcasts of matches have collected more than 720,000 views.
“We are essentially building everything from scratch – we have received some support from the government only in the last year. Before that, there was nothing. We came to the RFPL three years ago, but then they were not very interested: they did not understand why it was necessary. But now we are actively cooperating with them. We talked with the RFU several times, no more. They seem to be interested in the development of e-football, but they do nothing,” Soshinsky notes.
Russian clubs do not yet fully understand the prospects for a new direction. Some chose to the last who will represent them at the Cup in Ufa, and it is possible that all cooperation will end with participation in the mandatory tournaments.
“Not a single club in Russia can be called progressive in terms of the development of virtual football. There are several of them in the world, - said the head of the cyberfootball federation. - The only thing that Spartak is better than others is that they took the only player in the country whose level of play and media coverage is comparable. But he’s the only one, the rest will catch up with time.”
Spartak signed a contract with Sergey "Kefir" Nikiforov. Now it is the most recognizable fifer in the country: 150,000 subscribers on VKontakte, 700,000 on YouTube. At the tournament in Ufa, Nikiforov dropped out at the 1/4 final stage, losing the derby to Andrey Guryev from CSKA. In the fall, Guryev won the Russian championship, and now he has won the Cyberfootball Cup for the "army team".
“My opinion is that all the clubs were simply forced to determine the player who will participate in the Cup and the championship from them. It feels like after these tournaments the guys will be forgotten until the next major competition, - said Kefir. - Clubs do not quite understand what it is. They will pay for their flight, give them a club T-shirt to perform, and that’s it.”
The fact that Russian clubs are only looking at e-football is also confirmed by Zenit. Commenting on cooperation with the best e-football player of St. Petersburg Ruslan Yaminov, the club noted that the contract is short-term.
“The current agreement is preliminary and is designed for three months, until May 2017, but we expect that our cooperation with Ruslan will not be limited to the RFPL tournament,” Zenit said. – We have serious plans for joint work. It is absolutely certain that Zenit fans have an interest in e-football, and the news about the start of cooperation with Ruslan Yaminov caused a response no less than the message about newcomers to the first football team.
(RFS) and the Federation of Computer Sports (FCS) of Russia announced the first national e-football championship. Following England, France and other leading European football powers in Russia will pass official national championship.
What is cyber football?
By analogy with the official name, it is called " interactive football"- in fact, this is a tournament in computer game FIFA 2018 from Electronic Arts. Back in April of this year, the Ministry of Sports of the Russian Federation recognized e-sports as a direction developed at the national level, and already in June it designated e-football as a separate discipline - albeit within the framework of football, and not e-sports. That is why both the RFU and the FCS of Russia are jointly responsible for holding official competitions.
What format?
The main charm of the tournament is that to take part in qualifying games anyone can, and in the final part of the winners will be waiting for the representatives of the clubs of the Russian Football Premier League - there the level of participants will be very high. On qualifying stage 48 tickets will be raffled off: 21 people will be selected based on the results of a series of online tournaments, another 27 will get the right to play at the Russian Championship based on the results of offline qualifiers (the organizers call them Grand Prix), which are timed to coincide with the matches national team and key RFPL games, but take place directly at the stadiums. Another 16 people representing Premier League clubs will join the winners, and already in the final round 64 participants will determine the champion of Russia among themselves.
What results did Russia have in e-football before?
About the same as the national team. In none of the 14 world championships held under the auspices of FIFA, the Russians did not reach the final, although whoever won it - both the United States and Saudi Arabia. At the same time, our players have always been among the strongest and periodically gave high results. For example, in 2006, a person with a symbolic name for Russian football - Viktor "alexx" Gusev - took third place at the World Cyber Games, which in those years was almost the main esports tournament in the world.
Where is e-football taken seriously besides Russia?
Practically in all countries of Europe. The main wave began in 2016, when several leading organizations - and English Premier League, and the French Ligue 1, and the Dutch Eredivisie - announced the start of e-football championships. The trend quickly swept across Europe, and individual teams signed not one, but several players at once to their squads, for example, the same Roma.
The championship and the RFPL Cup were held at the beginning of 2017, but formally the winner could not be called the champion of Russia. Accordingly, it is the winner of the current Russian e-football championship that will receive such a status.
Who to follow?
The main character of Russian e-football is Andrey "Timon" Guryev. Having started playing FIFA in 2009, today the Nizhny Novgorod player is not only the strongest player in Russia, but also one of the the best players in the world. In 2017, according to the results of the FIFA Cyberfootball World Cup, Andrey took 11th place out of 32 participants, a year earlier he finished fourth at the Electronic Sports World Cup. On home arena in 2017, he had no equal: Andrey won the championship and the RFPL Cup, playing for CSKA.
Andrey's main competitor should be Robert "ufenok77" Fakhretdinov. Back in 2014, at the same ESWC, he took second place, and last summer he moved to Lokomotiv from Ufa, for which he played at RFPL tournaments - this was the first official transfer in the history of domestic e-football.
In general, e-football players actively participate in the life of the clubs they play for. For example, before the match "Lokomotiv" - "Krasnodar", which took place last Monday, everyone could play with "Ufenk" right in front of the stadium.
When are they playing?
On this moment names of 18 participants are known final stage, and the next online qualifiers will be held on October 28 - everyone registers for
OLYMP RFPL Cyberfootball Cup is the first official cyberfootball tournament from RFPL and we could not pass by and decided to give our forecast. Forecasting is not a thankful task and we do not insist that it will match 100%, but we really want to believe that at least 70-80% of our forecast will match reality.
- We study the players and see our forecast at the end of this news! Also, do not forget that everyone has the opportunity to bet on this tournament, read the article to the end!
- Andrey “Timon” Guryev
Age:18 years old
City: Nizhny Novgorod
- Achievements:
- Top 1 Lawson Cup 2016, Moscow (PS4)
- Top 4 2016 ESWC World Championship Grand Final (Paris) Xbox One (FUT)
- Top 1 Russian Championship 2016 / ESWC Russia, Moscow (2016) PS4
Andrey Guryev- the last winner of the Russian Championship, top 4 of the world according to ESWC. Of course, such acquired experience in recent years certainly gives Andrey a chance to fight for the victory and also be one of the three main favorites of the tournament. Emotionally, he is very strong, thanks to such experiences lately. Andrey's strong quality is ball control in the game, thoughtful combinations, as well as two clearly simulated schemes in the game
- Sergey “KEFIR” Nikiforov
Age: 23 years old
City: Mytishchi
Platform:PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
- Achievements:
- Two-time winner of the Russian e-football championship in 2012 and 2015
- Participant of the World Cup 2015
- Strawberry field cup winner 2016
Sergei Nikiforov- one of the most titled players, and also, perhaps, the most famous player FIFA in the CIS. Despite the fact that Sergey is now paying less attention to eSports, he did not play worse. Sergey's stable result is to be in the top of any tournament. Sergey's playing style is known to everyone and has not changed, perhaps, for a long time - the "diamond" scheme and fast, aggressive attacks with a good variety of tricks. But in the 85* mode, the number of feint options is drastically reduced. Will it play against Sergey? The experience of playing in tournaments with a rating of 85 also speaks for him.
- Anton Zhukov
Age:20 years old
City: Kazan
Platform: Playstation 4
- Achievements:
- Top 3 Russian Championship 2016
- Top 8 Lawson Cup 2016
- Top 1 Cyberiade 2015 Kazan
Anton Zhukov- one of the best FIFA players in Russia. Constantly Anton manages to get into the top of any tournament and impose a fight and his game on any player. No one has ever said that it would be easy with him. A simple and open guy who can give results and get the most out of himself, even being not in best form. His game is attractive, because he tries to do everything as close as possible to real football- play combinations and own the ball.
- Andrey “22DRON11” Konnov
Age: 19 years old
Krasnodar city
Platform: PlayStation 4
- Achievements:
- Top 1 Championship of Krasnodar June 18, 2016
- Top 1 FC Krasnodar esports biathlon according to FIFA 17 22.01.2017
Andrey Konnov- perhaps the strongest player in Krasnodar. An avid bull fan. Andrey did not find high places in competitions high level, but it cannot be ignored dark horse tournament. Of course, that he will not have enough experience and it will be important for him to cope with his nerves. And if he can catch his wave, then perhaps he will put up with the nerves of the favorites?
- Valentin Moroz
Age: 22 years old
Tomsk city
Platform: PlayStation 4
- Kirill “Aruhito” Ordinartsev
Age: 19 years old
City: Ulyanovsk
Platform: PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
- Achievements:
- Top 4 Russian Championship 2016
- Top 3-4 Lawson Cup 2016
- Top 1 Cyberiad in Kazan 2016
Kirill Ordinartsev- one of the prominent players in Russia. Recently, Kirill began to show stable results, winning tournaments of regional sizes, and also becoming 4th in the Russian Championship. The psychological moment can play important role for Cyril - he has not completely strengthened his positioning as a winner and champion. But the built game can help to achieve a high result.
- Anton “KLENOFF” Klenov
Age: 20 years old
Moscow city
Platform: PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
- Achievements:
- Top 2 CIS, Russian Championship 2016
- Top 3 Russian Cup (2016)
- Top 3 Russian Cup (2015)
- Top 1 qualifiers for RFPL Cyberfootball Championship
Anton Klenov- also one of the top three favorites. Multiple winner of major Russian tournaments online and LAN. Repeatedly, Anton lacked only one step to win titles and it is very likely that he will be able to take this step this time. Huge online experience of victories and tournaments in FIFA 17, as well as killer micromanagement of the player in the game can do a great job for Anton, with the 85 rating format
- Robert "UFENOK77" Fakhretdinov
Age: 20 years old
City Ufa
Platform: PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
- Achievements:
- Thor 5-6 Russian Championship 2016
- Top 1 Cup of Russia 2016, Ulyanovsk (PS4)
- Thor 1 CIS Nations Friendship Cup 2016
- Top 1 World Championship according to WSVG 2015
- Top 2 of the ESWC World Championship 2013
Robert Fakhretdinov is one of the best FIFA players in our country. Definitely one of the three main favorites of the upcoming tournament. Huge experience of LAN tournaments, both Russian and European. Good game in defense and building a game on counterattacks, with strong individual actions - a formidable weapon of Ufenka. Let's see if he can show his game with an overall rating of 85*
- Ruslan “SHD” Yaminov
Age: 23 years old
City: St. Petersburg
Platform: PlayStation 4
- Achievements:
- Thor 5-6 Russian Championship 2016
- Thor 2 VK FEST 2016
- Thor 9-12 Russian Cup 2016
Ruslan Yaminov is perhaps the strongest FIFA player in St. Petersburg. Certainly one of the favorites of any tournament in Russia. If Ruslan catches his wave and drive, it is very hard to stop him. The support of his fans greatly affects his emotional component. With and without support, they are two different players. Knowing the devotion of the zenith fans, Ruslan will definitely have a lot of support in this tournament, which he will feel. IN game plan he has something to surprise. He has made a lot of progress lately, at the same time he likes to quickly build his attacks in a vertical way.
- Maxim Kirilov
Age: 19 years old
Samara city
Platform: PlayStation
- Achievements:
- Thor 5-6 Cyberiad 2016
- Thor 1 Qualification “Wings of the Soviets” 2017
Interview with this player here:
- Ilya Belosludtsev
Age: 18 years old
City: Perm
Platform: Playstation 4
- Achievements:
- Top 1 Qualification in FC “Amkar”
- Thor 3 Ural Cup 2016
- Umar Baisagurov
Age: 30 years old
City Grozniy
Platform: not specified
Achievements:
The player did not participate anywhere or there is no data
A fan of playing real football, this quality can help him in the virtual space, because in cyberfootball it is important and physical state Same.
- Omar “Omar” Aliyev
Age: 18 years old
Yekaterinburg city
Platform: PlayStation
- Achievements:
- Top 1 Qualifiers FC Ural
Interview with this player here:
Shamil “SHOOOMA1” Gurbangadzhiev
Represented by: FC Anji Makhachkala
Age: 25 years old
City:-
Platform: not specified
Achievement:
Top 1 Qualifiers in FC Anji
In his interview, he said that he wants to show his maximum and not let his club down.
- Vyacheslav "JUHURO" Alkhazov
Age: 21
Moscow city
Platform: PlayStation
- Achievements:
- Thor 1 Qualifiers in FC Arsenal
- Thor 8 Russian Championship 2015
Interview with this player here:
- Alexey “DON_KLASS4ESKY” Oleinik
Age: 26 years old
Rostov-on-Don
Platform: not specified
Achievements:
Participated Cup of Russia
Participated in the Championship of Russia
Thor 1 Qualifiers in FC Rostov
He is fond of sports, also an engineer by profession, perhaps he sees the game well and reads the opponent’s tactics, he also won the tournament from the Rostov football club in a difficult struggle and came here obviously not to lose.
Prediction for the group stage:
Forecast for the Play-off stage:
