The maker of the popular Pro Evolution Soccer video game series, Konami, has announced that it will launch a new international esports league, with help from soccer star, Gerard Piqué.
Konami is teaming up with eFootball.Pro, an esports company founded by the FC Barcelona defender in 2016 and has said that the league will be broadcasted globally when it is launched. The Chinese company Desports will look to expand this competition in China.
Both Konami and eFootball.Pro said that more details of this new league would be “unveiled soon.”
“The goal is to drive all that makes traditional football the king of sports, towards electronic football, towards eSports,” Piqué, the eFootball.Pro president, said in a statement. “We want to bind the best of both worlds to bring the public a new entertainment model that they love since the first day.”
“Konami has always been committed to delivering quality entertainment experiences to its customers, and eSports is an opportune market for reaching a growing audience,” added Hideki Hayakawa, Director, at the Japanese company.
https://t.co/V9VyTDU8Ue and KONAMI create together a football eSports competition.
More details soon! https://t.co/6txj3iKPis pic.twitter.com/W5kxDxTvyu
— eFootball.Pro (@eFootballPro) November 13, 2017
Meanwhile, it was also recently announced that Piqué will front a new video series from The Players’ Tribune, a platform built for athletes to connect with fans through content they can create. The new series, called Piqué +, sees the central defender interview prominent stars in soccer in the lead-up to the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
The first video has just been released featuring an interview with Piqué’s former Barcelona teammate Neymar. Other interviewees slated to appear include current Barca teammates Luis Suárez and Lionel Messi. TPT was founded by Yankees legend Derek Jeter in 2014 and currently has contributions from over 1,600 athletes.
FC Barcelona currently sits at the top of La Liga, holding a nine-point lead over Atletico Madrid, having most recently beaten bitter rival Real Madrid in the El Clasico derby last week.