Now that Riot Games has announced the partnered teams for the Valorant Champions Tour in 2023, various organisations that have been snubbed have spoken out about the disappointment of not being selected. One of these very teams is FunPlus Phoenix, who despite winning the second Masters tournament in 2022, and even being a top four team at the end of the Champions tournament, was not chosen by Riot to be a partnered organisation.
"Today we share the unfortunate news that we are not selected by Riot for the next VCT partnership program in 2023, which means we'll be unable to compete in the highest-level Valorant league next year. On behalf of the FPX esports, we're shocked and disappointed regards this result."
The statement continued, "Throughout 2022, we have been through numerous challenging circumstances, but everyone on the team always stuck together, showed outstanding sportsmanship, and dedicated themselves to the best performance in every game. All of these during the adversities made us a phenomenal year. We won VCT Challengers. We won the championship on Master2. We made TOP 4 at Champions. We are the best EMEA team, and we are proud of it."
As for what this means for the players on FPX's roster, the team approached this by stating, "Since coming into the region, FPX has been committing to building an energetic culture and planning to allocate a long-term investment for Valorant esports in EMEA, but now we will focus on taking care of our players in the near future."
You can see all of the partnered VCT teams here.
