Superleague Greece side, Panathinaikos, has become the 21st football team to join the eSports revolution by forming a team that will initially compete in League of Legends matches, and former star Gilberto Silva leaves his role as Sporting Director by mutual consent.
The world of professional physical and digital sport got a little cosier this week as the Superleague Greece side Panathinaikos became the latest pro team to create an eSports division.
The oldest team in Greek football history reached out to their fans via social media to ascertain what eSports titles they would like to see their side compete in. The feedback included the obvious (FIFA17), the popular (NBA2K), and all the old favourites: League of Legends (LOL), Starcraft, Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO). The new eSports side will begin life competing in professional LOL events.
Club President, Dimitris Baltakos, pointed to the rise in the digital environment as both ‘entertainment’ and a ‘career’ as the reason for his club to get involved in the action. Quite simply, it’s where the Millennials eyeballs are currently focused.
According to eSportsBettingReport, Panathinaikos are the 26th professional sports team to create an eSports division. 20 of them are football sides with Panathinaikos becoming the first from Greece, joining the English Premier League (Man City & West Ham), Turkish Super Lig (Besiktas), Germany’s Bundesliga (VFL Wolfsburg & Schalke), Brazil’s Serie A (Santos FC), the Italian’s Serie A (Sampdoria), Spain’s La Liga (Valencia), Russia’s National FL (FC Dynamo Moscow) and Premier League (FC UFA), Portugal’s Primeira Liga (Sporting), Holland’s Eredivisie (PSV & Ajax), Denmark’s Superliga (FC Copenhagen), the Ukrainian Premier League (Dynamo Kyiv), Finland’s Liiga (Helsinki), and France’s Ligue 1 (PSG, Monaco, Lyon, Nantes).
Seeds are being sown.
With FIFA now looking at ways of making the best use of the explosion of interest in eSports, I don’t think it will be too long before we are looking at eSports fixtures mirroring those of the football teams domestic leagues, Champions League and international teams in the World Cup.
Gilberto Silva Leaves Panathinaikos Sporting Director Position
Former Arsenal, Panathinaikos and Brazil star Gilberto Silva has left his role as Sporting Director for the Greek club by mutual consent. The 40-year old was appointed to the role of Sporting Director in May.
Silva played a pivotal role in Brazil’s 2002 World Cup winning squad and finished his career at the Greek club after spending six years at Arsenal where he scored 17 goals in 170 appearances for the EPL side.
Silva played 78 times for Panathinaikos, scoring six times, and has a giant hairy anteater named after him living in London zoo, and I would rather have that thing in my FIFA17 side than the Brazilian.
