IESF Welcomes Six New Members From Three Continents
Published: Apr 21, 2021 - Last Updated: Jun 25, 2024
The International Esports Federation announced this week that its numbers have been swelled by six further nations agreeing to become members. The six members come from three continents, further enhancing the global aims of the group.
The countries that signed up did so through their respective national esports organisations and are outlined below:
- Armenia – Armenian Esports Federation
- Croatia – Croatian Esports Federation
- Djibouti – Djibouti Esports
- Lithuania – Lithuanian electronic sports association
- Honduras – Federación Hondureña de E-Sports
- Suriname – Esports Suriname
“Welcome Aboard!”
Speaking about the six new members that are part of the IESF, Mr. Boban Totovski, the Secretary General of the IESF commented:
“I am happy to send my sincere congratulations to our newest members and wish them; welcome aboard! We are excited to have more countries and communities as part of the IESF family. We hope that by supporting national federations in those countries, we can stimulate the growth of the esports communities there and everywhere else.”
What Is The IESF?
The six new countries now part of the IESF swell the number of members to 104 across five continents.
The mission statement for the IESF is to “promote esports as a true sport beyond barriers, working on behalf of our member nations from all across the globe.”
In order to achieve this, the IESF has a number of initiatives aimed at developing esports on a global scale including improving training and education across the esports industry through the organisations International Esports Academy.
They are also trying to organise a global standardisation for Esports around the world, so that players in all countries are playing what the IESF term as a ‘fair and clean competitive space” for esports events.
As part of that, the organisation also hosts the Esports World Championship, the IESF’s flagship competition where a number of national teams compete against each other across selected esports games (Dota 2 and CS:GO).
Not All Nations Represented
While there are a great number of nations represented in the IESF, there are some notable exceptions from membership of the organisation at the moment.
One notable absentee from the list is South Korea, which is arguably the beating heart of the international esports community. This is somewhat surprising given that other big esports centers in Asia, such as Japan and China, are members.
The Fighting Esports Group Korea, which specialises in fighting esports games, is an affiliate member of the organisation, however.
There are also some notable absences in Europe too where France and the United Kingdom are both not yet members, although Wales has become a member, which means that it is likely that rather than applying as the UK, it may well be down to the individual countries, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland to apply individually, should they wish to do so.
Other European countries not yet signed up include Latvia, Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Spain, and Iceland.
Regardless of their absence, the news that the IESF continues to grow its numbers is a positive one for those seeking to embrace a more structured and unified global approach to esports competition.
Since: August 10, 2015
