Fnatic shuts down its CS:GO academy project

Fnatic has ended today the operations of Fnatic Rising, the academy setup the organization had in CS:GO esports.

As a result of that, Sebastian “⁠volt⁠” Malos, Mikkel “⁠Maze⁠” Sparvath, Matias “⁠Banjo⁠” Kivistö, and Adam “⁠WolfY⁠” Andersson will become unrestricted free agents and explore new opportunities ahead of the 2023 CS:GO season. The Fnatic Rising project was created in 2021 after the organization’s three-year hiatus in junior-level competitions and gave the players the opportunity to compete in six editions of WePlay Academy League, the No. 1 competition for academy teams, which they won in season five.

The program saw young CS:GO players develop and three of them—Banjo, Peppe “Peppzor” Borak, and Iulian “regali” Harjău gained opportunities in the first team during 2022. Regali is arguably the best talent to have played for Fnatic Rising as he left the project in August 2022 and signed with Copenhagen Flames, where he’s averaging a 1.24 rating thus far, according to HLTV.

“With our main objective of the squad to be leveling them to a pro standard, we’re excited to see multiple members of the squad graduate to main teams,” Fnatic said. “With this said, we’ll be putting a pause on the Fnatic Rising squad as these players graduate and other contracts expire. Putting the roster on pause may come as a surprise, but we want to take the time to best strategize about our place in the CS:GO Academy leagues to best benefit both the players who enter the program and also Fnatic’s overarching strategy. We are immensely proud of this program, and have proven its success time and time again, and will provide new updates when we have them.”

While the project is now on hold and the four remaining players are ready to leave Fnatic, the organization has also announced the renewal of team director Andreas Samuelsson and head coach of the main team Jamie “keita” Hall’s contracts through the end of 2023 as part of an overall update of Fnatic’s planning for the 2023 season.