Italy and Portugal join VRL

Two new leagues will join the Valorant Regional Leagues (VRL) from the 2023 competitive season. These are Italy and the Portugal, as announced by Riot Games in a press release published on Tuesday 25th October.

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The Valorant Regional Leagues, now called Valorant Challengers, are regional competitions that were created in 2021 to promote Valorant esport on a smaller scale. While they already had seven regions, they will soon welcome two more. Indeed, Italy and Portugal will join the regions France, Turkey, DACH, Northern Europe, MENA, Spain and East in 2023.

Until now, these two countries were grouped together with Spain. However, several factors were important in Riot Games' decision to give them their own league. In Italy, Valorant is indeed one of the most popular games and the fans are very invested. Portugal, has a large community of FPS players and esport enthusiasts, as well as a already highly developed amateur scene, which makes it a major asset for the development of Valorant.

The stakes will be the same as for the other leagues, namely try to qualify for the Ascension tournament to perhaps get your place in VCT the following year.