British CS:GO player Owen “smooya” Butterfield is now a free agent, he confirmed today.
The 20-year-old was under contract with Asian team TIGER alongside veteran Marco “Snappi” Pfeiffer. The team’s plans reportedly changed, however, after TIGER surprised CS:GO fans and won ESL One: Road to Rio Asia in May. If TIGER added smooya and Snappi to the starting lineup, they would’ve lost half of the 1,600 Regional Major Ranking (RMR) points they earned from that event.
While TIGER has loaned Snappi to Astralis, the organization has freed smooya from his contract. Smooya said on Twitter that he’ll be considering offers from Europe and North America.
“I can confirm that I am now a free agent, meaning I am open to all offers EU/NA,” smooya said. “Would love a chance to prove myself especially after the way my time in Chaos ended.”
Smooya’s year has been unstable so far. He only stayed with Chaos for two months, but he was unarguably the best player on the team with an average 1.32 rating during his stint, according to HLTV’s statistics. He was released in March due to the coronavirus pandemic, which made it impossible to secure his P1 visa.
As the coronavirus pandemic continues, it’s more likely that smooya will receive more offers from European teams and play from home. The British AWPer is most known for his period with BIG between 2018 and 2020 where he helped the German squad finish as the runners-up at ESL One Cologne in July 2018.
