Kentucky Fried Counterstrike… the KFC Esports Battle is here!

In a world filled with pro gamers and pro tournaments, Leagues, Championships and whatever else you can imagine, it’s easy to lose sight of gamers that aren’t quite at that level – talented players that can’t or don’t want to go pro. They make up a significant number of overall players in the world, and they often get ignored in favour of the flashier pro fields.

KFC of all companies decided to do something about that – by hosting a CS:GO tournament dedicated specifically to non-pro players. In fact, that’s one of the two entry requirements – the other one is the age limit. Players have to be between 14 and 30 years old in order to participate in the new KFC Battle Esports as the event is called.

If you want to participate, you will need to sign up online either as a team or a solo player. After several rounds of qualifiers that begin on the 11th of May and continue through to the 7th of June, the Grand Final is taking place in Moscow – players from all over Europe are going to assemble in the Russian capital in order to duke it out among themselves who’s really the best team.

Players who qualify for the Grand Final in Moscow are getting their entire trip paid for, start to finish, and for the winners of that Final, another trip is in the cards – they get to go to Berlin for the CS:GO Major 2019 later this year.

That’s a pretty cool prize in and of itself and given that anyone can sign up for the open qualifiers of this tournament, there’s little reason not to at least try to participate. As for the background of it all – KFC Battle is a project that has been around for several years – it aims to support sports, culture and education on an international basis. This year, a specific esports branch is targeting teens and young adults that engage in one of the most popular hobbies on the planet – esports.

Participation is entirely free, though there are some restrictions on region: the CS:GO battle in particular is only open to players from Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

There is a second esports battle as well – Dota 2 is following similar rules and is open to players from Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan. The winners of that particular competition get a similar prize – they get an all-expenses paid trip to The International 2019 in Shanghai!

If all of that sounds fun (and why wouldn’t it?), sign-ups are already up on the kfcbattle.gg website, so all you have to do is wait for the 11th of May and get ready to fight it out on some of your favourite maps – the tournament is going to take place on the standard competitive map rotation, including Train, Cache, Nuke, Inferno, Overpass, Mirage, and of course Dust 2.