Starladder has announced that it will host the Africa/Middle East qualifer for the $1.5 million World Electronic Sports Games (WESG). Over the next months, qualifiers will be held in four different regions and also in China to determine the 24 team that will attend WESG, an esports event hosted by Chinese e-commerce tycoon Alibaba that will pay out $3.7 million across four tournaments, with $1.5 million being allocated to the Counter-Strike competition. As we get closer to the start of the qualifying process, more details are emerging about the tournaments’ rules. It has now been revealed that team rosters are limited to one country, effectively ruling multinational lineups out of the competition.

Starladder will host the Africa & Middle East WESG qualifiers According to Stepan Shulga, Executive Producer at Starladder, this rule “could help esports to be recognized as official sports and potentially included in the Olympic Games.” The Africa & Middle East qualifiers will begin with an online stage, on August 13-14, and will culminate with an offline event at the Conrad Hotel in Dubai, from August 26-28, with the top three teams advancing to WESG. In addition to the spots at the main event, teams will also fight for over $75,000 at the qualifier, with the prize breakdown looking as follows:
1. $30,000
2. $18,000
3. $9,000
4. $6,000
5-8. $3,000
Teams can find more information about this regional qualifier and the registration process by heading over to the official website. Below you can find the allocation of WESG slots per region:
Region | Slots |
China (Host) | 1 |
Asia-Pacific | 6 |
Europe & CIS | 8 |
North & South America | 6 |
Africa & Middle East | 3 |
The $1.5 million will be distributed between the top eight finishers as follows:
1. $800,000
2. $400,000
3. $200,000
4. $60,000
5-8. $10,000