The mayor of Rio de Janeiro intends to turn the city into "the world capital of e-sports"

Eduardo Paez, mayor of Rio de Janeiro, held a meeting with representatives of the Brazilian esports industry. During the event, the politician announced the creation of a coordination center that will directly interact with the city's leadership on the development of e -sports. Paez also announced his plans to turn Rio de Janeiro "into the esports capital of the world."

Rio de Janeiro recognizes esports as an important sport that adheres to key sports principles such as discipline, perseverance, social inclusion and competition. Today we met with several representatives of this sphere. We are creating a coordinating council directly connected with the mayor's office. Let's make Rio de Janeiro the esports capital of the world.

At the end of last year, Rio de Janeiro hosted the Intel Extreme Masters Rio Major 2022 in CS:GO discipline. The championship failed to break viewing records, but attracted wide attention from fans from all over the world, who bought out all the tickets for the event in a matter of minutes and forced the organizers to open more seats.

Counter-Strike is rumored to return to Rio de Janeiro in the spring as ESL intends to host the Intel Extreme Masters Spring 2023 championship.

Interestingly, the words of Eduardo Paez are contrasted with the recent statement of Ana Moser, the Minister of Sports of Brazil, who refused to classify eSports as a real sport. However, the legendary FalleN managed to correct the policy by talking about the potential of the industry and the advantages of eSports for the development of the country and society.