After FC Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and SC Freiburg, the Virtual Bundesliga (VBL) can welcome another newcomer to the coming season: Fortuna Düsseldorf.
The Rhinelanders want to build on the existing content. Content creator and Fortuna fan Jan ‘Packsi’ Dreker, who will remain on board, has already established numerous formats on Twitch. These include classic gaming sessions with FIFA and Football Manager, but also FIFA live tournaments with professionals like Shinta Appelkamp, Emmanuel Iyoha, Jordy de Wijs and Felix Klaus.
“Fortuna-Weg”: Focus on gaming, eSport only as a sub-area
The club then expands this field to include eSports and the VBL. In doing so, the second division team would like to “go down a path that fully suits the club”. A few weeks ago, fans were able to take part in a survey on the “Block F95” fan and member portal in order to define this “Fortuna path”. As a result, Fortuna wants to focus on gaming.
“The involvement in eSports through participation in the Virtual Bundesliga is a partial aspect,” says the official statement: “The focus is on creating authentic gaming content with which the F95 community can identify players from the Fortuna professional squad will also be regularly brought in. Non-gaming content – for example live games of the women’s and girls’ teams, talk formats or ‘All about F95’ – will continue to have a fixed and important place on the Twitch channel of the club. It is important to Fortuna to combine gaming and eSports with the topic of sustainability.”
Information on the latter will follow. The club also announced that when looking for players they would rely on regionality, “which ideally has a close connection to the club.”
That’s why the red-whites award a place in the VBL squad through a series of scouting tournaments at the end of September and beginning of October, “in which gaming-enthusiastic Fortuna fans can take part”. Information on dates and registration will be forthcoming in the near future.
“VBL criteria” part of the licensing process
With the entry of Düsseldorf and the other newcomers, the next year with record participants in the Virtual Bundesliga is in the offing. Whether all 36 first and second division clubs will start with a team in the virtual Bundesliga, as provided for by the “VBL criteria” in the licensing process that will apply to the 2023/2024 season, is still open. Union Berlin, for example, was still reluctant to respond to a kicker eSport request. SV Elversberg, 1. FC Magdeburg and VfL Osnabrück are also still missing.
Anyone who does not provide a team faces unspecified sanctions. However, these consequences would not have any influence on the game operations of football professionals, and as with other licensing criteria, exceptions are possible “in justified cases”.
