China has canceled all international sports events for 2020—except the trials for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games—due to COVID-19, according to USA Today. As a result, the fate of League of Legends‘ World Championship is now in the balance since the tournament was supposed to be held in the country this year.
Although China has largely contained the virus within its borders, imported cases have become the new focus. The U.S., for example, has the most coronavirus cases in the world with just over three million people affected.
Since the World Championship is supposed to be a global event with teams from around the world attending, the tournament could now be postponed, set in another location, or transition to an online-only event.
The international League calendar has already been affected heavily by COVID-19. MSI 2020 was canceled earlier this year due to the coronavirus and multiple leagues were forced to play out the remainder of their splits online from their own team headquarters and houses.
Worlds is supposed to be the culmination of an entire year’s worth of work from both Riot and the plethora of League teams that battled to be there. But if Riot can’t find a way to host the event this year up to the standards it’s set, the company might be forced to postpone it or move the tournament to an online format.
