Windigo have finally received their $500,000 prize pool from winning WESG 2018 in March 2019, according to a report by HLTV.
Artur Yermolayev, one of Windigo’s owners, said that the CS:GO team’s share of the $500,000 prize pool has already been wired to Valentin “poizon” Vasilev, Georgi “SHiPZ” Grigorov, Kamen “bubble” Kostadinov, Yanko “blocker” Panov, and Viktor “v1c7oR” Dyankov. Yermolayev said he’s happy that the matter is settled.
It took WESG over a year to pay Windigo for its title. In another report last month, HLTV said that the lack of payment was one of the reasons why Windigo ceased all operations in October 2019, just seven months after their phenomenal run.
A WESG representative said that the company remained in “constant communication” with Windigo to solve the payment issue, according to HLTV’s report. He also said that the delay was due to bank regulations and the coronavirus pandemic.
The team’s share of the $500,000 prize pool should help some of the former Windigo’s players, especially v1c7oR, who’s been a free agent since October 2019. Poizon and SHiPZ, the two stars of that team, were the players who signed contracts with big esports organizations, Complexity and c0ntact Gaming, respectively. Bubble now plays for SMASH and blocker is on BLUEJAYS, two teams that are outside of the top 50 on HLTV’s world rankings.
It’s still unknown what WESG will do about the 2019 World Finals. The tournament organizer hasn’t given an update since January when it said the Asia-Pacific finals scheduled for February wouldn’t go on as planned due to the coronavirus pandemic. Teams like North and Heroic have qualified for the 2019 World Finals.
