One can well imagine that the interests and problems that someone like Aleksib must be well represented within the CSPPA, but one can wonder about teams like LDLC OL, which is a professional team and has its place in the Association.

How does it go for a subtop team that would like to join the Association because it has grievances to pass on a TO, a question of planning? What would their approach be and what channels of information and influence could they use?

Any professional player who has signed a contract can register directly with the association via the website and have access to CSPPA resources. It has happened many times, and unfortunately people don't talk about it enough, that players had signed crappy contracts, or had problems in the subtop with an organization that didn't pay cashprizes.

They come to see the association and, free of charge, it helps them: contract proofreading, working directly with the organizers, etc. It's already huge, because before, these actors had no way to get this kind of support. For me, this is a very important point: the players' Association is very open on this side.

It's also very easy to be able to give the standards we want for a tournament and transmit it to the organizers. The problem is that there are a lot of tournaments at the moment. It's already a bit of a mess in the Tier 1 with leagues that don't respect each other at this level, and for me that's the main problem. If you don't regulate the highest level, with a clear model where it's going well, you won't be able to deal with the lower levels.

You can't necessarily act on too many things at the same time. If even the people who play the game at the highest level don't have a stable schedule and a functioning ecosystem, I can't imagine that the rest of the scene will follow, will be professional and at the same level of exigeance. If you don't have a model of how to do things for the top players, it's hard to think that the rest can work properly.

I'm speaking for myself here, but I think we have to deal with one problem at a time, that's how I'd like to operate. It doesn't mean that the CSPPA can't help the rest of the scene, but we can't fix 100% of the Tier 2 tournament schedule and at the same time 100% of the Tier 1 tournament schedule. There is only 24 hours in a day, we only have 2 full-time employees on that front in the association, you can't settle everything at the same time. There are already very complex legal matters in Tier 1, with global corporations fighting for millions to make 50 000 tournaments with 50 000 bo3. It's a very hard balance to find.

So for the moment, in regards to lower levels, we're pretty much focused on giving free support to make things better for the players and teams, and at the systemic level we're prioritizing the top level.

The two employees you're talking about, Mads and Michael, how were they chosen? Were they elected by the players? Could you replace them if you wanted to?

They are 2 Danes, who came through Xyp9x, which has always been very active in setting up the players' Association. He knew them, Mads was in an association of professional football players, he had this experience which facilitated the creation of the association. Now that it has evolved, everything is open.

We added a member in the Players' Council very recently, it has not yet been officialized, a top player who has been there for a long time and who has a lot of ideas, we will communicate soon. Afterwards, as an individual, I think we should re-elect players to the Board, to have people who are really involved and who want to make the ecosystem and the Association evolve in a good direction.

Coming back to the interactions with the subtop, there was a scandal at the beginning of the year when the ESL Pro Tour was created. ESL had announced the new Pro League while ignoring the teams that had qualified via the MDL, like HAVU and Triumph.

The CSPPA issued a statement denouncing ESL's lack of communication on the subject, but also explaining the importance of the commercial interests of tournament organizers. Rereading the communiqué, it is a bit strange that an association that defends the interests of players, even in an ecosystem that wants to be co-constructed, would put these interests on the same level as those of a tournament organizer.

If the CSPPA begins to bend in the face of these interests, potentially contrary to the players' interests, what is its real power, its concrete range of action?

I can't promise a perfect answer, I'll tell you what I personally think, I wasn't in legal discussions with all the big players. We really fought to keep the circuit open. If I remember correctly, the initial propositions of the leagues were not necessarily open: they were leagues without qualifications, not including all the teams. For some organizers, they were basically saying "we take these teams and the rest, good luck". It's something we fought a lot about, even if it wasn't communicated publicly.

We lobbied for actual open leagues so that all the teams could be included. And I think the big 3 leagues now all have access for everyone, which was not the case at the beginning. At least all teams can qualify if they deserve it.

To get back to the issue, I'm speaking again from a personal point of view, because the CSPPA might use different words than I do. This is not necessarily the official position of the Association, but the way I see it is that 3 new products have been created. They are based on the observation that the CS ecosystem would not survive very long, with an bubble of cashprizes, salaries and buyouts.

So even if it's not in our primary interest that the organizers and the structures become richer and richer, in the long term, if their considerations are totally ignored by the players, the general ecosystem can be totally called into question. Especially since Valve doesn't play an active role as a neutral overseer, they just want the circuit to stay open, but they don't care about the rest. I can understand that it might seem odd that the CSPPA is defending both sides, but we try to be in harmony between the organizers and the players.

For the specific question of the ESL Pro Tour, I see it as a new product, not necessarily related to what was there before, even if some means, like the ESEA MDL or the influence of some tournaments, persist. And, as a new product, they wanted to have certain teams and players to ensure a certain visibility.

So we had 3 options: either we block everything in protest, or we do nothing and they do their league the way they want, or we negotiate to keep qualifications and an open circuit. The problem with being ultra-defensive is that there's a risk that ESL will leave with their product, that they'll say "ok, if you're radical like that, we'll take the teams we want, we won't listen to you anymore, too bad for you". Or, more likely, leave on another game.

Certainly, few games are as legit as CS. But they can make bets on some games, like Valorant coming up. For us it's also a factor, we have to be careful about that. A tournament like Flashpoint, or BLAST that does DotA 2, it can be easy to change games or to be less interested in CS. That's why we want to work in harmony with them. It doesn't mean we won't fight with them when we have to.

The other problem with a potential radical mobilization, such as a group of teams refusing to play for a TO, is the probability that it will happen. Would the 12 best teams in the world go so far as to refuse to play until qualifiers are included in a league? Would the players be willing to take risks for that? It would be the only way to fight this kind of thing, except that realistically, it won't happen that the twelve best teams will accept to deprive themselves of their revenue shares, their cashprizes, in solidarity with others. And yet, it would be one of the only ways to fight a form of tournament control over the players.

So in the end, one of the only realistic ways to build something with the organizers is to compromise with them to have a final product that is balanced, that helps them while keeping the interest of the players intact. That's where you have to find compromises: if you're too extreme on one side or the other, in fact, nothing will happen. The twelve best teams in the world will never go on strike. You can't have 60 guys going without the money they're getting until we get qualifiers.

Why do you think that in esport, this kind of action seems so unthinkable, when in other sports we have seen strikes like this? I'm thinking in particular of the Danish footballers' association, from which the CEO of the CSPPA comes, which had led such an action, paralyzing Danish soccer for several months. Why, in your opinion, would esports players be less willing to engage in this kind of more radical action?

I think it depends on the rights and the topics. For example, the closest thing we have in the current situation that could cause a reaction like that is the format and length of tournaments. This has a direct impact on the physical and mental health of the players, the quality of the matches and the competition. These are really big issues on the current scene, where such a mobilization could occur.

Everyone is concerned, and it's unbalanced and unfair for the players, who are worn out for the benefit of tournament organizers looking to maximize hours of content for sponsors. That would be a problem, but we're not going to go on strike for the interests of another actor on the scene, it has to be in our interests and it has to be a major problem. It can't be because there's no more coffee.

In this case, the issue of openness was precisely about the interests of the players. For top players, it may be hard to imagine that it could be their direct interests, but we've seen a lot of players at the top drop off and end up in the subtop. You yourself, with Vitality, you ended up doing a lot of qualifiers, and if there had been a closed circuit in 2019, Vitality wouldn't have had the same trajectory.

Absolutely, and since I've been in the Association, I've been hammering that, the importance of staying on an open circuit, that's what makes CS:GO so beautiful. And on that, we've managed to have some influence with the CSPPA, except that it's not points that are emphasized.

We have a bit of a bad role in the end: we work and influence the organizers by being in direct contact with them, by taking time with them, but we don't get any credit for our work, because the final product is presented by the organizers. People say "congratulations organizer, you've made a great product" without knowing that without the influence of the CSPPA, the product could have been totally different.

Why don't you have a clear spokesperson capable of appearing in the media and answering interviews? Almost all of the major journalists on CS share this criticism that it is impossible to speak with the CSPPA, to send them questions. 

You say yourself that you have a major role in the quality of the product delivered to the public, and yet we can't know it. How can that be?

Communication is clearly a very complicated thing with the CSPPA. As you say, we don't have this representative, this spokesperson, a guy like Pasha could be for example. If he became the figurehead of the association, it would be very easy for people to identify with someone like that, someone who is very well known. It would make it a lot easier, but we don't have that.

For example, Mads, when he's going to speak, there's always going to be a doubt that he's really representing the players or a question mark on his integrity. So already, we lack a single representative who can talk about everything and answer all the questions.

Then, there are other problems, which are the social media. Here it's quite simple: the CSPPA is composed of several players who are members of the Players' Council, and each player is generally very active on Twitter. And each player doesn't necessarily have the same opinion on each topic. You can have quite different opinions within the same association, opinions that you will find very easily on Twitter. Again, it divides the channels you have.

But why don't you have a clear spokeperson?

If you're thinking about one of the Council players, like if we told Xyp9x to take care of the communication, it takes a lot of time. It's not something that's easy to do. If Xyp9x has to answer all the interviews,  and he is already gone because of burnout, you put that on him, that's the end.

What about former players? You cited Pasha, but isn't that a role that a Sean Gares could have had when he was active, he who is very comfortable in public speaking?

He could have clearly been the right person for the job, I was very happy when he joined us. As you say, he's very articulate, he's a respected and intelligent person who has the players' interests at heart. But you have to find this gem, who wants to do this, capable of dedicating all his time to others and to the players he represents.

This person must speak perfectly, be able to express clear and concise points in English, which is not the case for everyone. The more constraints you add, the harder it is to find that person. So we have to be on different channels, and that divides our communication.

As for the journalists who tried to contact the CSPPA and didn't get an answer, that's clearly an area for improvement, if only to provide an answer, no matter who does it within the association. The CSPPA is heavily criticized publicly, whether by players, casters or journalists, while invisible, in-depth work is being done.

While knowing that, and on top of that, we can't reveal everything, because many players are under NDA. There are many subjects on which we cannot express ourselves, we cannot communicate. I know that it's hard for some people at the Association because we're getting blasted on Reddit and Twitter. We already take a lot of flak as player, when we lose games, and we just said "come on, just for fun, we're going to get thrash even more because we're at the CSPPA and we're trying to do things right", so it's not easy.

It's just that we don't have time to do everything, so the ideas, when they come out, don't necessarily come out right. The only thing we can really say is that all the time we take is not for our own personal interests, but to try to improve the scene and for the players to be better defended.

If people want to keep insulting us, we can't control them, we can just improve our communication. But as an actor, we do the best we can, doing what we think is best with everything we have. And anyway, there will always be people to explain to us that they have better solutions.

Regarding the planning question, we saw more and more players complaining about the rythm of 2020, players in burnout, competitions that follow one another, matches every 2 days. The 2021 ESL calendar has been released, and it still looks very full, since the year is almost complete even before the BLAST and other Flashpoints get their competitions in.

 You said that the CSPPA was very close to ESL and that you had a good relationship, how is it that we have the impression that the schedule is still similar when it's supposed to be one of your major concerns?

The balance of the schedule, we will never have it until we have one main league. Everybody wants to do business, everybody wants to have the biggest tournament, the biggest business, and nobody wants to get along. So it seems impossible to me that, as long as there are so many big organizers, we'll have an ideal circuit for the players, because everybody wants their share of the pie.

Does this mean that the CSPPA has an interest in having a monopolistic organizer on the scene?

The CSPPA does not. The players, not necessarily either. For me, the only thing that's problematic is that if you're with the ESL, you have to play all the tournaments. That's the real problem. You have to be able to skip tournaments, that's what would make the scene better. Each team would have its own schedule and some dates, like Katowice, Cologne or the Major would gather all the teams, for the real big tournaments.

But on the other tournaments you will have different matchups, because the teams will prepare their schedules differently. For example, MIBR, which would target a tournament in Brazil, would be organized according to this, without focusing on a tournament in Germany. For me, that's how I see a real sustainability for esport on CS.

The problem is that when you sign agreements with structures, they are made for you to play everything. You can't adapt your agreement the way you want. And even if you're not in an agreement like the Louvre, you have to play a certain number of tournaments to qualify for others with ESL Pro Tour points, like Katowice or Cologne, because that's their circuit. But if you give a monopoly to ESL, they'll run everything and there won't be any competition, which forces them to increase the cashprizes, to be inclusive with all the teams.

So basically, as long as there are several players willing to put a lot of money into having the biggest tournaments, the biggest stages, it's always going to be complicated for the schedule. What we need is to have more specific break periods. Right now we're in discussion with ESL to change the players breaks. We are trying to adapt them, to make them better. These are really problems that we are currently working on with ESL and BLAST, to have something beneficial for the players.

The other point is the formats. When you have a bo3 round robin format for example, you're going to play a lot of maps and that's what's going to ruin you. You can have a lot of tournaments but if they last 1 week, with GSL bo3 formats, you play a maximum of three matches in groups, two if you're good and then you play your bracket in bo3, it might be a little bit more random but there are so many tournaments that it balances out. It's an excellent format.

We're also in active discussion with the organizers on this point, so that you don't play a bo5 in the grand final that ends at one o'clock in the morning on Sunday night, and that on Tuesday morning at 11am you have a new bo3 for a new tournament. There are really these 2 parts which must be articulated together: the format side which must lighten, especially if there are more tournaments, and the possibility of being able to skip certain tournaments, to prepare and rest.

At the moment, it's under discussion between the players, the CSPPA and the tournament organizers, but it's not settled yet, and it should change for future tournaments.

So in the end, putting aside the tournament format, you made the systemic diagnosis, namely the competition and the bids between the three big organizers who all want to make the biggest tournament possible.

But this is not a new situation: apart from Flashpoint, the scene has always had several big organizers, be it ESL, BLAST since 2017, FaceIt, Starladder. Despite everything, agreements are signed with these structures.

At the time of these signatures, the CSPPA or the players in the structures, do they have their say or does it go over their heads because it's the revenues of the teams that are in question? We think in particular of ALEX who, when he left Vitality, explained that he had been promised a lighter schedule, something that was not respected at all when Vitality then signed the Louvre agreement. So what is the place of the players and the CSPPA in these agreement signatures?

The CSPPA will be present to ensure that the tournaments and the organizers take the players into account. As for the agreements signed between organizers and structures, it will vary from team to team.

There are the teams that own Flashpoint, like Cloud9, which in any case are not concerned by an agreement like the one at the Louvre. There are also some structures that will consult players and ask them: "we can go to the 3 leagues, what do you prefer?" A discussion follows and they choose this or that league. And there are certainly some structures that don't leave the choice to the players, and they go where they want.

So it's really really separate entities, between the CSPPA and the players who eventually participate in signing these agreements, that depend more on the relationship between the players and their club.