English version of the interview :

G7 Creation

Where does the idea of creating G7 come from ? Who have thought about it first ?
Samuel «zr0» Mathews : Before the creation of the G7 there was a lot of comments from managers on several occasions about the need for a union of sorts for teams. We all felt strongly in regards to this matter, and I think this was expressed most at the CPL World Tour finals last year. Alex from SK, Myself, Craig from Team 3D and Toby from 4kings were all present and after a lot of discussions at that event we all went back with the mindset that a gaming teams organization had to be formed.

How much time passed between the first contacts and the official announcement of G7 creation ? Did some clans fear the fact of joining this organisation at the beginning ? If yes, what were all their fears about ?
I think everyone was eager to get this launched, and also had many opinions they wished to share about how the organization should be run. This was the most time consuming factor when setting up the G7, deciding on our mission so as to clearly present our goals to the world, deciding on the structure, and the initial members. I don’t believe any teams had any fears when joining most teams know and trust the other teams very well.


G7 Organisation

What are the requirements a club needs to join the organisation ? Have you planned to welcome new members soon ?
The idea behind a G7 team is that they are first and fore mostly professional; meaning they have contracts with all of their players, they are stable, they have well founded business model with sponsors, good website etc. There were a lot of reasons why the teams that are currently in the G7 were selected, mostly it came down to peoples knowledge of the other organization, if they were of the same caliber of the likes of SK, Team 3D etc in professionalism. We will of course be opening up our doors to other teams who show the same qualities, for example we have already announced the addition of Complexity from America, and team Meet your Makers from Denmark, and will be looking to more in the near future.

In the G14 (the fourteen most powerful football clubs), each member has a voice, on which can be added additional voices : a champions league title worths 2 points, an UEFA cup worths 1 point. Do your organisation work this way ? If yes, what's the voice repartition ? Otherwise, why didn't you take that kind of voice repartition whereas it seems G7 naturally comes from G14 ?
On the contrary the G7 is not a mirror of the G14, football is extremely well founded and modeling something like the G7 straight off of the G14 is definitely not possible, at least in esports current state. At the moment our main goal is to help grow the sport, which means that our actions wont always be in the best interest of the member teams, but also the whole community. This lies in the fact that if we help to nuture, and grow esports, then that in turn will help grow our separate companies.
In the G7 each member team has equal vote.

Have the G7 clubs' representative planned to schedule meetings in order to define its policy for the future ? If this is planned, what are the different subjects the clubs discuss ?
We have had several meetings, and will be having more at the likes of the WCG in Monza, and the WSVG event in the UK. Recently our goal has been working on creating an agenda to tackle in the coming months, this is nearly finalized and we will be releasing it to the public soon.


G7 purpose

On your website, we can notice one of your mission statements is "to promote and improve professional Electronic Sports in all its aspects and safeguard the general interests of the member teams." Reading this, especially the second part, aren't you afraid that G7 would be seen as an organisation only going for the member teams ?
Definitley not, like I mentioned earlier, our overall goal presently is to grow esports as a whole, by doing this we will be of course safeguarding the general interests of the member teams, because it will grow the market that these member teams are participating in. Also if you consider what the statement “safeguard the general interests of the member teams” means, we are clarifying that by growing and promoting esports, are safeguarding the general interests of the member teams.

We can read that G7 could become sort of an electronic sport federation. However, in a sport like football, FIFA federations or UEFA are supposed not to have any relationship with the clubs. Isn't there a contradiction to see a federation only composed by a few teams ?
The ideal is that we become a gaming team’s federation, meaning we represent all gaming teams through the G7. This is of course not realized yet, but that is because the G7 is in its infancy, however as we add more teams and stabilize the organizational structure it will hopefully lead to this.


G7 Actions

The proliferation of international tournaments over the past few years has resulted in the fact that big competitions occur at the same time, at a point where the teams have had to favour some tournaments over others. Therefore it would be smart to set up some kind of an international schedule in order to avoid these issues. Is the setup of such a schedule a part of your aims ? If yes, have you started to discuss it with the tournament organisers to set the wheels in motion ?
That is actually one of our aims, to set up a global esports calendar. However to set something like this up requires A LOT of cooperation with tournament organizers, we have begun to speak with organizers but I believe its going to take all organizers to work together through some form of organization, with the G7 as a member of that organization in order to realize this goal. The problem lies in the fact that most organizers are generally concerned in growing their organization and see other event organizers as competitors. I feel this is beginning to change but I don’t think a global esports calendar will be realizable in the immediate future, but will definitely come into play as esports grows, and we will be there to help push it along.


One can notice that there are differences in the CS and War3 rules between the big international tournaments which are ESWC, CPL, WCG, and WEG. According to your website, the G7 affirms its commitment to give out its thoughts about these rules, however the G7 has not voiced its opinion on this matter since its creation. Does this silence mean that your organization actually agrees with what is going on, or on the contrary does it prove that your group is not as active as you would have wished ?
Yes one of our aims is to focus on the formation a standard set of rules which organizers can base their rules off, so that teams and players know when they are competing at an event which uses these rules it will help to ensure a fair and accurate tournament. However realizing this, again takes cooperation with the leagues, and organizers. We have been initializing this but such matters are always delicate, we feel that no progress will be made if we try to force organizers into using the rules. We have to establish trusting relationships with the organizers which takes considerable time and cooperation. It also means that our progress is kept silent as it wouold be to realy to releas

The G7 has been quiet on the international scene ever since it was created : no big action has been taken by this organisation apart from interceding on behalf of mousesports during the German WCG qualifier. Which actual actions have been taken by this group since its creation, besides the previously mentioned situation ? Is it a choice not to be media-hyped ?
We have been consulted on issues from organizers, and expressed our opinion, given advice, even made one organization revoke a heavily controversial rule which would have affected the entire community participating in this event.
We do not wish to overly publicize our achievements as this isn’t nessecary and does nothing but make the organization seem like a big PR campaign for the teams rather than one that actually does anything. Also yes to some extent we have not achieved as much as we hoped to in the first 6 months, but in should be taken into account that the G7 teams is an organization where each manager from the team puts in his own time to help make things happen. That means during this intensive summer season activating a lot of our goals isn’t as quick as it would be in the winter when there are less tournaments.

Few days ago, the International E-sports Symposium took place in Seoul, South Korea, and gathered the leaders of the biggest international competitions. The formers discussed some matter such as 'can electronic sport be considered a sport, or what's the place for esport in the media'. According to you, should the G7 representatives have been invited to this colloquium ? If yes, may your inactivity explain the fact that you have not been invited ? If you think so, what have you got to do to get a bigger impact on esport ?

We were invited, and I did attend as the G7 representative, I was part of the discussion panel on stage with WSVG, ESL, KODE 5 and WEG. Just because we don’t publicise our activity does not mean we are inactive. We found the esports symposium very productive, and we made a lot of progress with the organizations which were resent including the likes of the WSVG, KODE5, ESL, WEG, and WCG.


G7's assessment

If you had to do an assessment of the G7 since its creation, what are the positive and negative points of your group in your opinion ? What are you planning to do in order to wipe out these negative points for the next season ?
The positive points include the way we have been received, both In the community by the organizers which is very important. The teams are cooperating very well with no major set backs or conflicts.
I think the most negative point is the amount of time each member team is able to put into the G7. I feel that in the future it will be necessary to hire a professional coordinator who works full time on the G7, but this will only occur once the teams are able to support such a person, both financially and with well formed G7 practices and agenda.


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