Nikolay Vesnin admits management mistakes and names the first quarter of 2027 as the point when teams will see how far the repayments have come.
FISSURE have paid off around half of the prize money they owe from their Counter-Strike 2 tournaments, CEO Nikolay Vesnin wrote in an open letter on Wednesday. The organiser plans the next major round of payments for the first quarter of 2027 and says it will report publicly on the actual progress at the same time.
Vesnin wrote that “we acknowledge the debt in full” and turned directly to the clubs still waiting: “I also want to apologize to the teams and players who are still waiting for their prize money.”
Payments have been made since the summer. According to the letter, the money from the tournament FISSURE held in China this year, FISSURE Playground 3 in Suzhou in September, covered around half of the CS2 debt. Before an October tournament, FISSURE also sent a first wave of payments to some of the Dota 2 teams they owe. The letter gives no total and no figure for what is left.
Why the money ran out
Vesnin puts the problem down to commercial and financial planning in 2025. FISSURE expected a major deal with a partner from the international English-speaking betting market, and it was never signed. The organiser also failed to bring in enough partners from outside betting, and one tournament fell short of the lineup targets in a commercial agreement, which cost money. Costs went up while revenue did not, and there was no plan for things going wrong.
Were these management mistakes? Absolutely. And responsibility for them lies with the company’s leadership, including me personally.
The promises in the letter
- A repayment schedule agreed with each club individually.
- All available money from completed projects goes to repayments.
- The next major phase of repayments in the first quarter of 2027.
- A public report on the actual progress of payments in the same quarter.
- Prize pools for new tournaments secured before the events begin.
- New commercial projects should help clear the old obligations, “not create new ones”.
The first quarter ends on 31 March 2027. That is the date the clubs, and everyone else, can hold FISSURE to. The next CS2 event, FISSURE Playground 4, follows from 18 to 30 August 2027 in Georgia with a $1.25 million prize pool, so the promise of secured prize money will be tested about five months after the report.
Fifteen clubs and three cancelled events
In June, FISSURE confirmed that they still owed prize money from their 2025 tournaments to 15 CS2 organisations: 3DMAX, Astralis, Aurora Gaming, FURIA, G2 Esports, GamerLegion, Legacy, Lynn Vision, MIBR, paiN Gaming, Team Falcons, Team Liquid, The MongolZ, TYLOO and Wildcard. Legacy went on to win FISSURE Playground 3, beating G2 3-0 in the grand final.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2025 | FISSURE Playground 1 and 2 are played |
| January 2026 | 100 Thieves COO Graham “messioso” Pitt says on X that payments for the 2025 events are hard to collect |
| 3 March 2026 | FISSURE cancel three events: April 2026 in Shenzhen, July 2026 and July 2027 |
| June 2026 | FISSURE confirm debts to 15 CS2 organisations |
| Summer 2026 | First repayments |
| 8 to 13 September 2026 | FISSURE Playground 3 in Suzhou, $1 million prize pool |
| October 2026 | First Dota 2 payments; Playground 4 announced |
| 4 November 2026 | Vesnin’s open letter |
| First quarter 2027 | Next major repayment phase and public progress report |
| 18 to 30 August 2027 | FISSURE Playground 4 in Georgia |
The April event in Shenzhen was called off because of a clash with IEM Rio, and the two July events because FISSURE no longer wanted to run tournaments during the players’ break. Vesnin also made clear that FISSURE intend to carry on:
We are not going to throw away thirteen years of work because of the mistakes we have made.
