India-based teams TSM Entity and Galaxy Racer have been invited to the upcoming season of the PUBG Mobile Pro League (PMPL) Arabia, with its first season happneing from May 18 to June 13.
Info about the two teams’ presence in the league comes via “sources familiar to the matter,” according to GemWire. The rosters have been stagnant ever since PUBG Mobile was banned in the country on Sept. 2, 2020. The game was banned by India’s ministry of electronics and IT (MeitY) for data privacy concerns.
Six months after the ban, it seems that the organizations have decided to move to another region to participate in PUBG Mobile esports competitions.
Twenty teams will be locking horns in the PMPL Arabia. Nine of these have qualified through the regional Club Opens (PMCO) in Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The remaining 11, including TSM Entity and Galaxy Racer, were directly invited to the competition.
According to PUBG Mobile esports’ official competition rulebook, teams are required to have at least three players on the roster that are “residents” of the team’s home region. In every match, two residents of the home region should be competing.
Currently, both Galaxy Racer and TSM Entity have fully-fledged PUBG Mobile teams in India, which doesn’t fulfil this roster criteria. The organizations could make some changes before the Pro League kicks off next month, though.
Galaxy Racer is a UAE-based organization so its return to the Arabia region isn’t surprising. The org entered India in July 2020 by signing the champions for the first season of the PMPL South Asia, Celtz.
North American esports organization, Team Solomid partnered with Indian org Entity Gaming to launch TSM Entity in March 2020. The roster placed second in the first season of the PMPL South Asia last year, behind Celtz.
