The Valorant Americas Player’s Association has called out both Riot Games and The Guard for acting without consulting the players or the association ahead of their decision to not let the organization into VCT Americas.
Riot released a statement on August 29 saying that The Guard would not be joining VCT Americas due to missing deadlines for paperwork to enter the league. The Valorant developer then said the league would not expand to 11 teams for 2024, and instead continue on as a 10-team competition for the next season.
The announcement caused quite a stir in the Valorant community as the statement came seemingly from out of the blue. However, Riot said in the announcement that they had been in communication about the matter with The Guard for months.
What did I just wake up to. There’s no fucking way man
— G2 JonahP (@JonahP_) August 29, 2023
Players on The Guard did not know about the situation and learned about the news via social media with the rest of the community. The Valorant American PA issued a statement on the news, saying that its executive council wasn’t even aware of the situation and called out both The Guard and Riot Games.
VCT Americas PA issues statement on Riot Valorant league decision
“This kind of sudden change is harmful and will result in lost jobs and lost value for their hard work to earn a promotion,” The AVPA said on social media. “The AVPA believes and promotes that there is a solution to be found with the players and/or a 3rd party org that would honor Riot’s commitment to expand the VCT and reward challenger teams.”
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
A statement from our Executive Council pic.twitter.com/fo8lQLxh3u
— Americas VALORANT Players Association (@valorant_pa) August 29, 2023
The Program Manager for the AVPA, Taylor ‘Tailored’ Broomall, said online that this will be something the association will be pushing hard for Riot to find a solution for.
“There are a lot of good solutions that we have presented to Riot, as of this morning. I want to be clear that I will be pushing on this issue until further notice,” he said.
Some responses to the AVPA’s post have advocated for the players to go on strike, in a similar fashion to how the League of Legends Champions Series Player’s Association went on strike earlier this year due to changes in their Tier 2 system.