The ESL Pro League Season 14 tournament, which was scheduled to take place in Malta, will be held entirely online due to international communication restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic. All twenty-four teams that will take part in it (their full list is to be determined soon) will play remotely while in Europe.
The organizers mentioned that this tournament will be held «under different conditions compared to IEM Cologne». They point to the spread of the delta-variant coronavirus in Europe and lack of local government support as the main reasons why the tournament is going back online after a major event in Cologne was held largely without problems.
ESL officials also noted that they are still working to ensure that the remaining two major events of this year's event will be held in LAN format. These are IEM Fall, scheduled for late September – early October, and IEM Winter, which will take place in the first half of December in Asia.
ESL Pro League Season 14 should start almost immediately after the end of the summer break in the competition: the tournament will begin on August 16 and will last until mid-September. The competition will feature 12 partner teams, as well as 12 teams that will be determined by the results of regional qualification tournaments and ESL ranking.