International Esports Federation Appoints Saudi Arabia's Prince Faisal As President

Another member of the Saudi Arabian royal family has acquired a prominent position in international esports operations

The International Esports Federation (IESF) has today announced that they will be replacing their president. Out will go Vlad Marinescu, who had held the position for three and a half years and in his place will come Prince Faisal bin Bandar Al Saud of the Saudi Arabian royal family. In the resignation letter which we were able to obtain a copy of Marinescu said that Prince Faisal is someone who “breaths (sic) and bleeds esports” and will be able to “further develop and promote the IESF.”

The announcement comes only a few months after the IESF was publicly accused of fraudulent activity by the Director of StrategicPartnerships at Starladder, Andrei Yatsenko. There was also speculation that the long-running esports operator might be facing financial ruin as they struggled to adapt to a much more competitive market. Now with their new president the organisation is likely to receive any financial support it needs to remain operative.

The IESF was founded in 2008 as a collaboration between international esports representatives from South Korea, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Vietnam and Taiwan with a view to facilitating international competition between participating nations. The goal was to create something akin to The Olympics for esports, as at the time multiple Olympic federations and the International Olympic Committee had repeatedly rejected the notion of including esports titles in the competition. Over the years their membership started to grow and the focus of the federation was an annual competition called the Esports World Championship, now the World Esports Championship, that comprised of multiple tournaments of popular esports titles. As of 2023 the number of member nations has expanded to 140.

Although the federation hasn’t been seen as a major player in the Western esports world for some time, several established entities have been engaging with the competition in recent years. For instance this year’s CS:GO contest in the Iasi, Romania, featured players from Godsent, BiG and Astralis, with the latter two entering their academy sides as the representatives for Germany and Denmark respectively. The women’s CS:GO tournament also featured competitors from Evil Geniuses, NiP, MiBR and Nigma Galaxy among others.

In September it was announced that 2024’s World Esports Championship was to be held in Riyadh, the latest in a long line of sports and entertainment events being imported into Saudi Arabia as part of the government’s Saudi Vision 2030 program. The stated end goal is to create 39,000 new jobs and raise the country’s GDP by $13.3 billion by that year. However, it also continues a trend of investing Saudi wealth into non petrochemical portfolios as the nation looks to remain influential in a potential post-oil landscape. The events also function as a distraction from the appalling human rights record the country continues to add to with record highs for executions and draconian sentencing for criticism of the Saudi state.

The appointment of Prince Faisal will make him the latest member of the Saudi Arabian royal family to directly preside over an international esports tournament operator. The Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is the chairman of the Savvy Games Group, parent company to the ESL FACEIT Group. Both have been heavily involved with the weeks long games festival Gamers8 which is directly run by the Saudi Arabian Federation for Electronic and Intellectual Sports.

There’s a high likelihood that this move is a precursor to a merger between IESF and the Global Esports Federation (GEF) which has fulfilled similar role but on a smaller scale since 2019. Prince Faisal is also a Vice President of that federation and their annual tournament is to be also held in Riyadh later this year. The prospect of esports and The Olympics were recently discussed on Saudi Arabian soil at the Next World Forum in August.