Until today, the Fnatic.css players have been part of the organisations Academy division, a section designed to hone promising young talent to a professional calibre, and to support games that are not currently on the professional circuit. The other section, the ‘professional’ tier, is reserved for players who have already reached a highly skilled level, and are good enough to make a living from gaming.

Today, Fnatic have announced that they have promoted their Counter-Strike: Source players to professional status, after 9 months with the organization. The team has been shining at the top of the European Source scene ever since they joined Fnatic, securing seven first place finishes at a variety of European LAN events. The players will now earn a salary for their participation in tournaments worldwide, and can finally enjoy the coveted lifestyle of professional gamers.


Sam "zr0" Mathews, Fnatic’s Managing Director, issued the following statement:

"When Blaze first started bugging me on MSN back in the beginning of the year I was adamant that Fnatic would not take on a Source team. However after many more months of Blaze spamming me on MSN, we decided as a team that this would be the perfect opportunity to add our first Academy team; Counter-Strike: Source. Blaze was a remarkable player when he was in Fnatic at the very beginning - when he played CoD and after some research I had strong faith in the team of players that he had and where they were going.

I think it was a gamble that has rewarded Fnatic significantly over the last months, both from a results point of view but also because they are the perfect representatives of Fnatic players. They are professional, mature, focused and FUN; this is why I am extremely happy to be making this team finally part of the Fnatic Professionals!"


In addition, Mark "AirRaid" Koks, team leader of Fnatic.css, made the following comment:

"We are extremely happy to be in Fnatic Professional now, with the upgraded support we can focus on just playing Counter-Strike: Source even more to try and keep dominating the European elite scene, like we have been doing the last months."


The line-up consists of the following players:

Quint 'Blaze' Spierenburg
Sandor 'proph' de Munck
Luuk 'darky' Verink
Mark 'AirRaid' Koks
Milan 'xertion' Veeger

Fnatic.css now joins the organization’s CS 1.6, World of Warcraft and Quake divisions as fully fledged professional gamers, leaving only Unreal Tournament and Pro Evolution Soccer in the academy.


Source: fnatic.com