Over the past year no team has been more dominant in the arena of professional Counter-Strike than SK.swe. According to a comment from the CPL, they will not be attending what most consider the Super Bowl of their sport. Rumors are running rampant but the facts remain, as confirmed by CPL’s Commissioner Justin Blanchard, SK.swe will not be at CPL Winter.

“SK.swe chose to not participate in the winter CPL event in order to provide their German division an opportunity to gain some experience and see what they can do,” said Blanchard.

The rumors had already begun over the past week as different sources have reported different things. The initial rumor was that the SK organization was putting pressure on the CPL to allow it to send both its Swedish team and German team.

A rule instated by the CPL over two years ago, expressly prohibits multiple teams from the same organization to attend a CPL event. Before that rule was implemented, Xtreme3, syndicate and Riot-Squad all sent more than one team under the same tag. Frank Nuccio, CPL Commissioner at that time, announced that the CPL would no longer allow multiple teams to participate under the same name, in order to help push the sport forward.

The question now becomes: Is this rule really helping to push the sport forward? The CPL refuted the rumor that SK.swe was putting pressure on them to change the rule.

“No, my understanding is that the German team competed at the Qualifier on their own and paid their own way for it,” explained Blanchard.

SK’s organization was obviously left with a decision between a German team that won a qualifier and a team that is ranked as one of the best in the World.

According to the CPL, Andreas “bds” Thorstensson confirmed that the Swedish team would not be in attendance.

“Andreas Thorstensson confirmed that the German team is coming,” said Blanchard.

A brief conversation between Thorstensson and GotFrag left more questions than answers, confirming the news however not giving any further comment. SK’s organization will be releasing a statement later today with more information on this story; we’ll have an update at that point.