Two of Europe’s foremost League of Legends players will not be able to compete this week or in the immediate future due to visa issues. European LCS games are played in Berlin, and Germany has no specific work and residence law regarding eSports players.
League of Legends pros unable to play because the German government doesn’t have eSports visas
Europe’s best jungler is one of two players out indefinitely.
Unicorns of Love announced Tuesday that Russian jungler DiamondProx, currently leading EU LCS junglers with 10 kills this split, will not be a part of the team "this week, and probably for the next incoming weeks." Wednesday Team Roccat announced Armenian support Edward will also miss time to due visa issues.
So what’s going on? As Roccat explained in its announcement:
The German government doesn’t currently recognize eSports athletes, so they are unable to obtain traditional sporting visas. This means organizations have to find individual solutions for non-EU residents regarding their work permit. We’ve been in close contact with Riot as well as the German authorities over the last couple of weeks but the status right now is that we can’t satisfy work eligibility requirements for EU LCS.
Reddit user Damian2M, who claims to be a German visa officer not involved in this case, said pro gamers would likely have to apply for a residence/work permit under one of the following categories:
- athlete (needs approval of the associated IOC-approved highest sport association)
- artist (has to prove to the embassy that playing LoL is an art...)
- part of a TV/theater production (needs a foreign company as employer that actually does such a production)
- specialist (salary needs to be (a lot) higher than for a person with an academic degree, needs to be essential for the company)
Damian guessed the “specialist” category was the most likely to succeed, as long as the player made at least €46,000 per year. Both teams have said they are working behind the scenes to try and find a solution.
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