Ceb announces Monkey Business withdrawal from Games of the Future 2025, citing tournament’s political ties » Esports | Esports.gg

Two-time The International (TI) champion Sébastien “Ceb” Debs confirmed on X that his team, Monkey Business, will not be competing at the upcoming Games of the Future 2025 event after hearing about negative reactions online.

The concerns reaching Ceb all stem from the tournament’s affiliation with the Russian government, which has faced international scrutiny for years due to their invasion of Ukraine. The former OG offlaner made it clear that he and his team will not involve themselves in any event that is “too politicized”, despite all the hurtful comments they see.

The announcement of Monkey Business, a roster consisting of retired players who made a name for themselves on the Dota 2 scene a few years ago, initially attracted a lot of attention from fans who wanted to see some of the great players of the past playing again.

Ceb, N0tail, and Topson during TI 2019 (Image via Valve)

Apart from Ceb, also included in the lineup are his former teammates Johan “N0tail” Sundstein and Topias “Topson” Taavitsainen, as well as Swedish streamer Janne “Gorgc” Stefanovski and former Team Secret and Cloud 9 stalwart Johan “pieliedie” Åström.

On the same day Monkey Business revealed its lineup, a Reddit post from Ghostik, a former Dota 2 pro player, quickly surfaced, calling out former OG players and questioning whether it was “worth taking blood money and being part of Russian propaganda.”

Ceb then responded on X that his team would take immediate action regarding the matter, and on December 9, he finally published their decision to withdraw from the tournament.

Games of the Future first faced criticism from the Dota 2 community in 2024 after being identified as a Russian-sponsored event, with some of its partners also having deep ties to the Russian government. The Russian President himself, Vladimir Putin, attended the opening ceremony of the Games of the Future 2024, along with several high-ranking officials from Belarus, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

The tournament has not yet announced which team will replace Monkey Business. Viking, one of the remaining teams in the event, lost two players following the individual eliminations of Max “qojqva” Bröcker and Niklas “Wagamama” Högström.

The first match of Games of the Future 2025 is scheduled for December 14 in Abu Dhabi and will still feature various retired and inactive Dota 2 pros, such as Aliwi “w33” Omar, Ivan “MinD_ContRoL” Ivanov, Jonathan “Loda” Berg, Xu “BurNIng” Zhilei, and more.

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