The Esports Foundation (organizer of Esports World Cup) has announced that the inaugural Esports Nations Cup (ENC), originally scheduled for November 2026 in Riyadh, will be postponed to November 2027, following “ongoing assessment of the wider regional situation, and after consultation with key stakeholders.”
Esports Nations Cup Postponed Due To Regional Situation
While not explicitly stated, the “regional situation” in question is the US-Iran war, which has dragged several other Middle Eastern nations – including the country of host city, Saudi Arabia – into the conflict since early this year. This naturally presents problems logistics-wise, as well as the overall security and safety of the event. (It is also why EWC26 opted for Paris to take care of its operations this time around.)
“Given ENC’s unprecedented international scale and the uncertainty created by the wider regional situation, [Esports Foundation] believes moving the inaugural competition to November 2027 is the responsible decision to provide the certainty and stability that National Teams, publishers, partners and fans expect,” the organizer said in its press statement. “The postponement does not change [Esports Foundation’s] commitment to the ENC or to the national esports ecosystems already being built around it.”
Esports Foundation says all existing ENC Development Fund commitments to National Team Partners will remain in place, and related ecosystem development programs will continue alongside ongoing work with publishers and partners.
Of course, the more immediate consequence of this postponement is the situation of qualification events, which has already been concluded for some titles. Pushing the entire event forward by 12 months – effectively a full competitive year ahead – will likely cause changes in the confirmed rosters. To that end, the organizer says it will “work directly with partners” to handle the “implications of the revised timeline,” as well as the transition to the rescheduled date in November 2027, which is still to be hosted in Riyadh.
Pokdepinion: Well, if EWC worked out with a Plan B in Paris, why couldn’t ENC though?
