E-football: who needs it and why? Russian e-football championship - six main questions What results did Russia have in e-football before?

At the end of 2016, Deputy Prime Minister Russian Federation Vitaly Mutko at a meeting of the executive committee of the Russian Football Union, he made it clear that e-football is of interest to sports officials. “We thought that the development of e-football is an interesting topic. At this stage, the Ministry of Sports has approved the eSports Federation. We need to figure out whether e-football will be included in it or will become a type of football. We

We can hold Russian championships under the auspices of the RFU. Perhaps we will hold the cyberfootball world championship in Russia. Maybe we’ll at least become champions in it,” the official said then.

20 days after that statement, the Russian Football Premier League announced open championship RFPL e-football and “OLIMP RFPL Cyber ​​Football Cup”. The last one will take place in entertainment complex“Lights of Ufa” from February 24 to 26, 2017. "This official tournament Russian Premier League. The cup will not be received by the player, but by the club he represents. We'll make it beautiful sports festival. This is the first experience in Russia when players will compete in e-football within the league,” explains one of the organizers upcoming tournament, head of the Bashkir branch of the Russian Computer Federation Azamat Muratov.

This is the official tournament of the Russian Premier League. The cup will not be received by the player, but by the club he represents.

Executive Director of the Russian Premier League (RFPL) closeness to the audience of football and cyber football. “Life has shown that e-sports has a huge future both in terms of investment and audience reach. And we are very interested in the eSports audience being our audience, so we have found common ground. I think that e-football and big football audiences will be exchanged,” Cheban noted.

About the mixture of real and virtual football eSports players also say. So, a player signed by Zenit Ruslan Yaminov admits that from the age of six he was involved in big-time football, but failed to become professional athlete. “Now I have the opportunity to benefit the club I love in cyberspace,” he adds. “I feel a great responsibility and desire to prove that eSports is serious.”

Now I have the opportunity to benefit my favorite club in cyberspace.

In a similar way, I got into e-sports Robert "Ufenok77" Fakhretdinov. He played football since childhood, and after a knee injury he switched to virtual games. He is now one of the strongest players in FIFA. His achievements include, in particular, the 2015 WSVG world champion title and victory in the 2016 Russian Cup. At the OLYMPUS RFPL Cyber ​​Football Cup, Robert will represent FC Ufa, which was one of the first Russian clubs to bother searching for and signing an e-sports player.

“OLYMP RFPL Cyber ​​Football Cup” might not have seen the light of day if not for Electronic Arts, which managed to interest football clubs in its game. The pioneer was the German football club Wolfsburg, which signed a contract with e-football players in January 2016. The trend was picked up by other famous clubs - Besiktas, Schalke 04, Sporting, West Ham United", "Manchester City", "Bayern", "PSG" and "Lyon". The first Russian football club to sign a contract with an e-sportsman was Volga. A week before the start of the competition, almost everything Russian clubs performing in elite division Russian championship, announced the signing of contracts with e-sportsmen.

“Real football very much draws attention away from cyber football. A lot of people play FIFA, but some of them simply don’t know that it is also a very interesting competition. This has never been popularized before, including by the developers themselves, unlike, say, League of Legends. Electronic Arts began investing in e-sports only last year,” says the head of the Russian Cyber ​​Football Federation Yuri Soshinsky.

16 players will take part in the upcoming tournament, each of whom will represent their own football club. Playing for Spartak Sergey "kefir" Nikiforov considers e-sportsmen from the football clubs CSKA, Zenit and Ufa to be the main favorites of the competition. The Spartak player himself, who is a two-time Russian FIFA champion, is also included in this list.

Composition of participants in the “OLIMP RFPL Cyber ​​Football Cup”:
Ruslan Yaminov (FC Zenit)
Sergey "kefir" Nikiforov (FC Spartak)
Andrey "Timon" Guryev (FC CSKA)
Anton "KLENOFF" Klenov and Konstantin "STAVR" Girin (both FC Lokomotiv)
Robert "Ufenok77" Fakhretdinov (FC Ufa)
Kirill "Aruhito" Ordinartsev (FC Orenburg)
Alexey Oleynik (FC Rostov)
Maxim Kirilov (FC Krylya Sovetov)
Ilya Belosludtsev (FC Amkar)
Omar Aliyev (FC Ural)
Shamil Kurbangadzhiev (FC Anzhi)
Andrey Konnov (FC Krasnodar)
Valentin Moroz (FC Tom)
Vyacheslav Alkhazov (FC Arsenal)
Umar Baysagurov (FC Terek)
Anton Zhukov (FC Rubin)

One of the tournament participants, e-sportsman football club“Orenburg” Kirill Ordinartsev expects that after such an event people, organizations and sponsors will have a great interest in e-football. The player admits that he began preparing for the competition immediately after signing a contract with the football club: “I try to spar with strong players as much as possible, analyze past matches and look for the best combinations, schemes and tactics for the upcoming tournament.”

After such an event, people, organizations and sponsors will have a great interest in e-football.

Sergei “kefir” Nikiforov from Spartak, on the contrary, is going to devote only the last few days before the start of the tournament to intensive preparation for the Cup: “I always spend three days preparing for tournaments, I just sit down and play a little more than usual. On a normal day I spend two hours playing, but before a competition I’ll play five to six hours a day.”

However, the success of the event depends not only on the preparation of the players. , it is important how this tournament will be presented in the media, in particular on television. The Game Show TV channel has currently announced the broadcasts of the matches. The games will be shown on the website of the Russian Football Premier League and on the pages of Premier League clubs on social networks. One of the information partners of the tournament is “Championship”.

(RFS) and the Computer Sports Federation (FCS) of Russia announced the country's first cyberfootball championship. Following England, France and other leading European football powers, the official national championship will be held in Russia.

What kind of cyber football?

By analogy with the official name, it is called “interactive football” - in fact, it is a tournament computer game FIFA 2018 from Electronic Arts. Back in April of this year, the Ministry of Sports of the Russian Federation recognized e-sports as a direction being developed at the national level, and already in June it designated e-football as a separate discipline - albeit within the framework of football, not computer sports. That is why for holding official competitions Both the RFU and the FCC of Russia are responsible jointly.

What format?

The main beauty of the tournament is that anyone can take part in the qualifying games, and in the final part, representatives of Russian Football Premier League clubs will be waiting for the winners - there the level of participants will be very high. On qualifying stage 48 trips will be competed for: 21 people will be selected based on the results of a series of online tournaments, another 27 will receive the right to compete at the Russian Championship based on the results of offline qualifying rounds (the organizers call them Grand Prix), which are timed to coincide with the matches national team and key games of the Russian Premier League, but take place directly at the stadiums. Another 16 people representing Premier League clubs will join the winners, and in the final round 64 participants will determine the Russian champion among themselves.

What results did Russia have in e-football before?

About the same as the national team. In none of the 14 world championships held under the auspices of FIFA have the Russians reached the final, although both the USA and Saudi Arabia have won it. At the same time, our players were always among the strongest and periodically gave good results. For example, in 2006, a person with a significant name for domestic football - Viktor "alexx" Gusev - took third place at the World Cyber ​​Games, which in those years was almost the main e-sports tournament in the world.

Where else is e-football taken as seriously as Russia?

In almost all European countries. The main wave began in 2016, when several leading organizations - the English Premier League, the French Ligue 1, and the Dutch Eredivisie - announced the start of e-football championships. The trend quickly spread across Europe, and some teams signed not just one, but several players to their rosters, for example, Roma.

The RFPL Championship and Cup took place at the beginning of 2017, but formally the winner could not be called the champion of Russia. Accordingly, it is the winner of the current Russian cyberfootball championship who will receive this status.

Who to follow?

The main character of Russian cyber football is Andrey "Timon" Guryev. Having started playing FIFA in 2009, today the Nizhny Novgorod resident is not only the strongest player in Russia, but is also among best players in the world. In 2017, according to the results of the E-football World Cup, which is held by FIFA, Andrei took 11th place out of 32 participants; a year earlier he finished fourth at the Electronic Sports World Cup. At home in 2017, he had no equal: Andrey won victories in the championship and the RFPL Cup, playing for CSKA.

Andrey's main competitor should be Robert "ufenok77" Fakhretdinov. Back in 2014, he took second place at the same ESWC, and last summer he moved to Lokomotiv from Ufa, for which he played in RFPL tournaments - this was the first official transfer in the history of domestic e-football.

In general, e-football players actively participate in the life of the clubs for which they play. For example, before the match between Lokomotiv and Krasnodar last Monday, everyone could play with Ufenko right in front of the stadium.

When do they play?

On this moment The names of 18 participants in the final stage are known, and the next online qualifiers will be held on October 28 - everyone is registered at

“If you're a football club and you're worried about a new generation of potential fans getting excited about playing League of Legends, then you need to go and get them alternative ways“says EA Sports executive director Peter Moore. This quote best explains why European clubs are increasingly signing contracts with virtual football players, and individual leagues are organizing full-fledged eSports championships.

There are currently two major virtual football series in the world, but the popularity of FIFA and its Japanese competitor PES (Pro Evolution Soccer) is incomparable. FIFA 17 sold 1.1 million copies in the first week in the UK alone, the same in Germany and other European countries. PES is sold out about 40 times worse, but even such sales volumes do not prevent Konami from concluding contracts with Barcelona and UEFA. Simultaneously with Euro 2016, a PES tournament was organized, the matches of which were broadcast in the fan zone at the Eiffel Tower. If even an outsider has enough resources for such events, then the market should be considered serious.

It is clear that clubs are mastering e-sports in the hope of making money: the industry is developing extremely intensively. According to a Newzoo report, in 2016, the revenue of all esports was $492 million, and is expected to grow to $1.5 billion by 2020. The viewing audience already exceeds 300 million people a year: 162 million are a permanent audience, 161 million watch tournaments rarely, from time to time.

In the United States, interest in eSports is so great that individual players and teams are signed by specific athletes. Brooklyn Nets point guard Jeremy Lin created a Dota2 team with his own money and called it Team VGJ. Another basketball player, Rick Fox, acquired an existing team, but renamed it Echo Fox. Among the football players, Brazilian Ronaldo showed interest in e-sports, investing in 50% of the shares of the local team CNB e-Sports Club. Gerard Pique is also planning to create an e-sports project from scratch - by the way, he already has a video game production company, Kerad Games.

What is this all for?

Despite the rapid growth of e-sports, virtual football is not yet so profitable. In the ranking of the most popular online games, FIFA 17 does not even creep into the top ten. To change the situation and motivate players, the creators of the game (EA Sports) founded the FIFA Interactive World Cup tournament, on which they spend more and more every year. In 2017 prize fund will be 1.3 million dollars, of which 200 thousand will go to the winner. This is 10 times more than last year, but still very little compared to global eSports - for example, the winner of the main Dota2 tournament (The international) was paid more than $8 million last year.

“Millions of people play FIFA 17 every day. Many of them learn about players and teams through the game and choose who to support in the future. At least for these reasons, we are interested in esports,” explains Diego Gigliani, senior vice president of media and innovation at City Football Group (Manchester City and New York City). English club one of the first to sign a contract with e-football player, 19-year-old Kieran Brown. He not only represents City at various tournaments, but is also committed to the number of live broadcasts on the Twitch service and videos uploaded to YouTube. On match days, the fifer meets with the club's fans and teaches them how to play FIFA 17. A similar model has already been adopted by Wolfsburg, West Ham, PSV, Ajax, Sporting Lisbon, PSG, Brøndby, " Panathinaikos, River Plate.

E-football is being developed most actively at the league level in France and Holland. Last October, Ligue 1 announced the holding of the first FIFA 17 tournament. Most likely, it will be won by PSG - the sheikhs, and in this situation, decided to take the best, signing two-time world champion August Rosenmayer and one of the most promising “fifers” Luca Kjellier. The Dutch announced the creation of a virtual Eredivisie only in mid-January, but it is already known that the matches will be broadcast not only by Twitch and YouTube, but also by the local television company Fox Sports. Each e-football player will be considered a real representative of his club.

There are no independent tournaments in England yet, but BT Sport, which broadcasts the Champions League, has agreed with EA to show key stages of Fifa Ultimate Team Championship Series. For the first time, e-football will appear on such a large platform and appear on serious television. First, BT Sport will show the North American qualifying for the FIFA 17 World Cup, then the Asia-Pacific region will be included, then the European qualification will take place, and the final stage will take place in Berlin on May 20 and 21.

Now also in Russia

The third European league where the official FIFA 17 championship appeared was Russia.

Before the resumption of the Premier League, a tournament was held in Ufa, in which representatives of all 16 clubs played. “In the future, the e-football championship will most likely run parallel to the real one,” said the head of the Russian E-football Federation, Yuri Soshinsky. “For now, this Cup is a kind of independent tournament without continuation.”

Soshinsky admits that in fact, the Russian FIFA Championship has been held for three years without any participation from the RFPL. “This championship is part of a global tournament run by EA and FIFA. The winner of our tournament will have the opportunity to reach the final in London through the next few stages. At the same time, there will be a separate stage for those who directly represent football clubs.”

After the recognition of e-sports at the state level, the federation’s affairs went better. Virtual football has ceased to be an unrecognized hobby for teenagers after the November meeting of the RFU executive committee. Then the mayor of Kazan and the president of Rubin, Ilsur Metshin, suggested that Vitaly Mutko develop a fashion theme. The idea was publicly supported, but no actual steps were taken by the RFU. Then the RFPL played ahead of the curve by organizing the Russian Cup.

The league as a whole should be happy with the tournament: on the official YouTube channel of the RFPL, broadcasts of three days of the competition collected a total of approximately 200 thousand views (on average, a video on the channel gets about 5 thousand, with the exception of match reviews). On VKontakte, broadcasts of matches collected more than 720 thousand views.

“We are essentially building everything from scratch - we only receive any support from the government in Last year. There was nothing before this. We came to the RFPL three years ago, but then they were not very interested in it: they did not understand why it was necessary. But now we are actively cooperating with them. We communicated with the RFU several times, no more. They seem to be interested in the development of e-football, but they do nothing,” Soshinsky notes.

Russian clubs do not yet fully understand the prospects of the new direction. Some chose until the last minute who would represent them at the Cup in Ufa, and it is possible that all cooperation will end with participation in mandatory tournaments.

“Not a single club in Russia can be called progressive in the development of virtual football. There are several of them in the world,” noted the head of the e-football federation. – The only thing that Spartak has better than others is that they took the only player in the country whose level of play and media presence is comparable. But he’s the only one, the rest will catch up with time.”

Spartak signed a contract with Sergei “Kefir” Nikiforov. Now this is the most recognizable fifer in the country: 150 thousand subscribers on VKontakte, 700 thousand on YouTube. At the tournament in Ufa, Nikiforov was eliminated at the quarter-final stage, losing the derby to Andrey Guryev from CSKA. In the fall, Guryev won the Russian championship, and now he has won the Cyber ​​Football Cup for the army team.

“My opinion is that all the clubs simply forced them to determine the player who will participate in the Cup and the Championship. It feels like after these tournaments the guys will be forgotten until the next major competition,” Kefir noted. – The clubs don’t quite understand what it is. They’ll pay for their flight, give them a club T-shirt for the performance – and that’s it.”

The fact that Russian clubs are only looking at e-football is confirmed by Zenit. Commenting on the cooperation with the best e-football player of St. Petersburg, Ruslan Yaminov, the club noted that the contract is short-term.

“The current agreement is preliminary in nature and is designed for three months, until May 2017, but we expect that our cooperation with Ruslan will not be limited to the RFPL tournament,” Zenit said. – We have serious plans for working together. It is absolutely certain that Zenit fans are interested in cyber football, and the news about the start of cooperation with Ruslan Yaminov evoked a response no less than the message about the newcomers of the first football team.”

OLYMPUS RFPL Cyber ​​Football Cup - the first official cyber football tournament from RFPL and we couldn’t pass by and decided to give our forecast. A forecast is not a rewarding task and we do not insist that it will coincide 100%, but we really want to believe that at least 70-80% of our forecast will coincide with reality.

• We study the players and see our forecast at the end of this news! Also, don’t forget that everyone has the opportunity to place a bet on this tournament, read the article to the end!

• Andrey “Timon” Guryev

• Achievements:
• Top 1 Lawson Cup 2016, Moscow (PS4)
• Top 4 Grand Final ESWC World Championship 2016 (Paris) Xbox One (FUT)
• Top 1 Russian Championship 2016 / ESWC Russia, Moscow (2016) PS4

• Sergey “KEFIR” Nikiforov

• Achievements:
• Two-time winner of the Russian e-football championship in 2012 and 2015
• Participant of the 2015 World Championship
• Winner strawberry field cup 2016

• Anton Zhukov

• Achievements:
• Top 3 Russian Championship 2016
• Top 8 of the 2016 Lawson Cup
• Top 1 Cyberiada 2015 Kazan

Anton Zhukov- one of the best FIFA players in Russia. Anton constantly manages to get to the top of any tournament and impose his fight and his game on any player. No one has ever said that it would be easy with him. A simple and open guy who can give results and get the most out of himself, even if he’s not in the best shape. His game is attractive, because he tries to do everything as close as possible to real football- play combinations and control the ball.

• Andrey “22DRON11” Konnov

• Achievements:
• Top 1 of the Krasnodar Championship June 18, 2016
• Top 1 E-sports combined event of FC Krasnodar in FIFA 17 01/22/2017

Andrey Konnov- perhaps the strongest player in Krasnodar. An avid Bulls fan. Didn't find it high places Andrey at competitions high level, but one cannot help but consider him the dark horse of the tournament. Of course, he will lack experience and it will be important for him to cope with his nerves. And if he can catch his wave, then perhaps he will endure the nerves of the favorites?

• Valentin Moroz

• Kirill “Aruhito” Ordinartsev

• Achievements:
• Top 4 Russian Championship 2016
• Top 3-4 Lawson Cup 2016
• Top 1 Cyberiada in Kazan 2016

• Anton “KLENOFF” Klenov

• Achievements:
• Top 2 CIS, Russian Championship 2016
• Top 3 Russian Cup (2016)
• Top 3 Russian Cup (2015)
• Top 1 qualification for the RFPL e-football Championship

• Robert “UFENOK77” Fakhretdinov

• Achievements:
• Top 5-6 Russian Championship 2016
• Top 1 Russian Cup 2016, Ulyanovsk (PS4)
• Thor 1 CIS Peoples' Friendship Cup 2016
• Top 1 World Championship according to WSVG 2015
• Top 2 World Championships according to ESWC 2013

Robert Fakhretdinov is one of the best FIFA players in our country. Certainly one of the three main favorites of the upcoming tournament. Vast experience in LAN tournaments, both Russian and European. Good game in defense and building a game on counterattacks, with strong individual actions - Ufenka’s formidable weapon. Let's see if he can show his game with an overall rating of 85*

• Ruslan “SHD” Yaminov

• Achievements:
• Top 5-6 Russian Championship 2016
• Thor 2 VK FEST 2016
• Top 9-12 Russian Cup 2016

Ruslan Yaminov is perhaps the strongest FIFA player in St. Petersburg. Certainly one of the favorites of any tournament in Russia. If Ruslan catches his wave and drive, it is very difficult to stop him. His emotional component is greatly influenced by the support of his fans. With and without support, these are two different players. Knowing the devotion of Zenit fans, Ruslan will certainly have great support at this tournament, which he will feel. In terms of gameplay, he has something to surprise. He has achieved great progress lately, at the same time he likes to quickly build his attacks in a vertical manner.

• Maxim Kirilov

• Achievements:
• Thor 5-6 Cyberiad 2016
• Top 1 Qualification “Wings of the Soviets” 2017

Interview with this player here:

• Ilya Belosludtsev

• Achievements:
• Top 1 Qualifications in FC “Amkar”
• Top 3 Ural Cup 2016

• Umar Baysagurov

Achievements:
The player did not participate anywhere or there is no data

A fan of playing real football, this quality can help him in the virtual space, because in e-football, physical condition is also important.

• Omar “Omar” Aliev

• Achievements:
• Top 1 Qualifications FC “Ural”

Interview with this player here:


Shamil “SHOOOMA1” Gurbangadzhiev
Represented by: FC Anzhi Makhachkala
Age: 25 years
City:-
Platform: not specified

Achievement:
Top 1 Qualifications in FC Anzhi

In his interview, he stated that he wants to show his best and not let his club down.

• Vyacheslav “JUHURO” Alkhazov

• Achievements:
• Top 1 Qualification for Arsenal FC
• Thor 8 Russian Championship 2015

Interview with this player here:

• Alexey “DON_KLASS4ESKY” Oleynik

Achievements:
Russian Cup participated
Russian Championship took part
Top 1 Qualifications in FC Rostov

He is interested in sports, he is also an engineer by profession, he probably sees the game well and reads the opponent’s tactics, and in a difficult struggle he became the winner of the tournament from the Rostov football club and clearly came here not to lose.

Forecast for the group stage:

Forecast for the Play-off stage: