Danish tournament organizer BLAST has decided to terminate cooperation with NEOM. It is a company located in Saudi Arabia; it is government supported and is the creator of a futuristic business zone. More recently, on July 28, BLAST announced that it had entered into a partnership agreement with NEOM. It was planned that it would help create a major esports hub in the Middle East.
However, almost immediately information about this deal caused a negative public reaction. Many publications mentioned violations of human rights and freedoms in Saudi Arabia, and also that in order to build a futuristic city, NEOM forcibly evicted local tribes from their territories. This was stated not only by activists, but also by representatives of the esports scene. In particular, the head of Astralis called such a partnership unacceptable. The CEO of the Complexity team spoke in a similar way: he noted that this decision was not discussed with the BLAST partner teams.
For some time, BLAST avoided commenting on this topic, but on August 13, it officially confirmed the termination of the partnership agreement with NEOM. At the same time, the company announced that it plans to contribute to the development of the esports scene, including in the Middle East.
