And there is something for gamers, which is a wider appealing audience than esports fans' niche who are only watching Fnatic to play Valorant or watching Magnus and just all these.” The ambition is now to take that product to more markets and India is one of them.

Bin Homran described India as “one of the most important markets” because of its player base, games and influencer culture. com)“We had some challenges of some games that has a different version in India,” he said.

“I hope that publishers fix this.” “If publishers globalise their games, that would help me,” he said.

“I don't want to have, oh, when I play, I want to talk, I want to talk with one language. Let's play with the mobile.

Let's play this game. Let's play this game.”

The Foundation is already researching how it can increase its presence in India, including through qualifiers and tournaments. “My goal, hopefully one day, to have a qualifier in each of the different main markets.

So I want the qualifier to be physical there. So you have road to EWC India.”

“This is to see which Indian club or players qualify to EWC,” he said. “It's similar to this.

But it's only focusing on the Indian players and Indian clubs. That's the aim and the goal.

com) The Foundation is already looking at ways to increase its presence in India, including qualifiers and tournaments. Bin Homran has a specific idea in mind.

Bin Homran also rejected the idea that India lacks the ingredients to produce more top-level esports participation. “I don't think there's something missing in India,” he said, adding, “I think it's the alignment of the main stakeholders.

Because I own EWC. I don't own publisher's license.”

He believes that situation is changing as publishers look at how to globalise their games and improve their presence in India. “So as soon as everything is aligned, I think we can do it faster than ever,” he said.

The India plans are still being worked on. There is no city, date or tournament format announced in the interview.

“I hope one day or soon, we will have more stuff there,” he said. com) For now, Paris is serving a similar purpose for EWC itself.

The Foundation has taken a tournament that was built around Riyadh and put it in a different city, with a different audience and a compressed preparation timeline. Bin Homran's assessment is that the experiment has worked well enough to accelerate an ambition that had been further down the road.

The next destination is not decided. “I think we would see EWC rotating,” Bin Homran said.

“We don't know where or when yet.” And somewhere in that future rotation, the Foundation wants India to have its own route in.

“Road to EWC India.”