2022 LEC Spring to be played remote due to rising Covid-19 cases in Berlin

Fans will need to wait a little longer before they can watch their favorite teams duke it out at the LEC studio after it was announced that the 2022 LEC Spring Split will be played remotely to start the year.

LEC released a tweet updating League viewers of the current situation at hand and went into detail behind the reasoning for keeping things remote to start the season.

“Due to the ongoing restrictions as a result of Covid-19 and the rising number of cases in Berlin since the beginning of the year,” The statement explains in its first sentence. “Our first and foremost priority is always the health and wellbeing of the players, coaches, team personnel, and our staff.”

Berlin currently holds a fairly low vaccination rate, with over 30% of the population unvaccinated. As a result, Covid-19 cases have spiked dramatically since the introduction of the Omicron variant.

Germany has reported nearly 6 million infections and more than 100,000 deaths since January 2020 since the pandemic began. Post-Christmas 2021, Germany has also seen a new wave of cases.

As a result, all ten LEC teams will be competing remotely from their training facilities, at least for the first few weeks of the 2022 LEC Spring Split. Though, the post did not leave out the possibility for LEC teams to return later on in the Spring Split.

“We will continue to assess the COVID-19 situation on a weekly basis and hope to welcome players back to the studio as soon as it is safe to do so.”

This will not be the first time LEC teams will need to compete remotely, and has been done throughout all of 2020 LEC Summer and sporadically throughout 2021. 

The 2022 LEC Spring Split will begin shortly starting on January 14th. (LEC schedule) Ten LEC teams will compete across eight weeks in a double-round robin format where the top six teams will qualify for the 2022 LEC Spring playoffs.

Until then, stay tuned to Esports.gg for the latest League of Legends news and updates.