August 7 – Monaco is the third club to officially announce it is entering a professional eSports team in the Konami-backed eFootball.Pro league. Monaco join already announced FC Barcelona and Schalke 04 for the inaugural season.
Created by eFootball.Pro, of which Barcelona and Spain’s central defender Gerard Piqué is founder and president, the competition will be played on Konami’s Pro-Evolution Soccer (PES) game.
Monaco have been building an eSport presence. “One year after having created our dedicated eSports structure, this is another step forward in electronic sports industry for AS Monaco. The club which is already participating in different games, shows with this new move its commitment to position itself as a key player in this area,” said AS Monaco commercial and marketing director Juli Ferre.
“We are delighted to be the third club joining, as founding partners along with FC Barcelona and Schalke 04, in the first international electronic sports league for football clubs only. We are very excited to soon be competing with such great challengers, in this tough competition which will provide great moments to share with our fans,”
Piqué commented on the Monaco addition saying: “They are already in several eSports leagues with other games and will undoubtedly be a rival to take into account in our competition. The rest of clubs will have to be on the alert for their moves before and during the season.”
Further teams are expected to be announced for the league in the near future as well as the league’s launch schedule.
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