FC Barcelona star Gerard Piqué launches new esports team

22 December 2021

For a while, FC Barcelona defender and former Spanish international Gerard Piquè had been hinting at his affinity for the worlds of international esports and last week, the big news was finally announced. During a massive event in the beautiful Palau Sant Jordi in the city of Barcelona, Spain, Piqué announced the creation of a new esports organization under the name KOI, in collaboration with Spanish Youtube phenomenon Ibai Llanos. The idea is to develop KOI into a successful lifestyle and esports organization that competes both domestically and internationally. With this step, Piqué is following an ever-growing line of elite athletes getting involved in the world of esports.

About KOI

The new esports team will be competing in various games, starting with League of Legends where they will be active in the Spanish League of Legends Superliga. This league works very much like any other sports competition in that it runs for three months and sees ten different teams competing to win as many points as possible. The season's champion is decided with the help of a knock-out stage after the regular competition has ended.
The Superliga is the official League of Legends competition for all esports teams with a base in Spain. It's organized by the Liga de Videojuegos Profesional (LVP), the association that's also in charge of the competition's streaming rights. In this regard though, Ibai and Piquè told listeners during the introduction of their new esports team that all KOI games will also be broadcast on his own Twitch channel and not just on the LVP's channel.
Based on the timing of the introduction of KOI, the earliest the team could enter the Spanish LoL Superliga is in a few weeks time. The league will be kicking off on January 10th, 2022, and KOI looks set to be one of the ten participating teams. An interesting side note is that, if KOI enters the Superliga coming January, one of their rivals will be Piqué's current club and employer, FC Barcelona.

KOI and international esports

Naturally, the sky is the limit when it comes to the ambitions of KOI, as the inauguration of the team also revealed some of the plans for the future. Besides League of Legends, Ibai and Piqué also want to enter other esports, including Valorant and Fortnite, and they also aim at setting up a content creation department. In relation to this last point, KOI used the introduction of their organization to present a team of twelve streamers and influencers as well.

Credit photo: KOI