Mentioned in this article Games: Dota 2, Hearthstone

The Australian Esports Association and Australian Olympic Committee have released a joint statement confirming that the nation’s esport players will not compete in the 2017 Asian Indoor & Martial Arts Games.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]The multi-sport showcase has turned into one of esport’s most politicized competitions.[/perfectpullquote]

The organisations cite two reasons for the boycott:



Instead of recruiting national teams through individual sporting organisations or National Olympic Committees, players will be seeded through online qualifiers. The registration portal for these tournaments was independently created by Alisports – a subsidiary of e-commerce giant Alibaba, who became a main partner of the summer and winter olympics in a deal potentially worth over $1 billion

The statement claims this is “inconsistent with generally accepted practices for national representation of sporting codes”.

The AOC has a commitment to only participate in sports that are confirmed in the 2020 Olympic program. Not only is this not the case for esports, but it will only be included in the 2017 AIMAG as a “demonstration sport” , despite having been featured as a medal event since 2007.

Sanctioned by the Olympic Council of Asia, the pan-continental 2017 AIMAG will take place in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan this September, and will feature five esports titles: Dota 2, Starcraft II, Hearthstone and King of Fighters XIV. The multi-sport showcase has turned into one of esport’s most politicized competitions, and doesn’t set a good precedent for the 2022 Asian Games, where esports will debut as a medal event.

In May, the Korea Esports Association stated they, along with China, Iran, Mongol and other Asian nations, were also bowing out. Kespa affirmed it “will correspond with other Asian nations with a unified voice to fix the unprecedented matter which should not exist in the international sports society.”

One of the oldest national esport bodies, Kespa levied serious criticisms against Alisports. It condemned the private enterprise for running the games with no NOC recognised federations in the Asian region, and for forming its own “Asian Esports Federation” completely under the radar of the International Esport Federation. The IeSF have long been the torchbearer for esports Olympic endeavours, and pulled out of the 2017 AIMAG esport events themselves due to a lack of internet infrastructure and budget in the region.

Darren Kwan, president of the Australian Esports Association, said: