Sources: SunPayus, alex and Martinez — The return of the players that Movistar KOI was looking for to continue in Counter-Strike

January 7th, 2025, will be remembered as one of the saddest days in the history of Spanish Counter-Strike. On this day, Movistar KOI, previously known as Movistar Riders, announced the cessation of the Spanish club’s operations in the Counter-Strike section. This marked the end of one of the most important erastion. This marked the end of one of the most important eras of the Spanish CS at the national level.

From 2017 to 2025, it was established as the best national team with one very clear goal in mind: to maintain a Spanish core. The dissolution of the team has lead to many critics and disagreements from the national Counter-Strike scene towards the organization, as well as many doubts and questions regarding the closure of the section.

The departure of Álvaro "SunPayus" García to an established international roster such as ENCE, together with an IEM Cologne that put all the eyes on the Spanish AWper at the end of 2022 and the subsequent departures of Alejandro "alex" Masanet and Antonio "Martinez" Martinez to Ninjas in Pyjamas and 9z Team, respectively, lead to significant challenges for the Spanish organization in maintaining the essence and core of the Spanish team.

Throughout its history, long-term planning of the team and adaptation to difficulties along the way have characterized the Spanish team. From Movistar Riders' to KOI's era, the Spanish organization’s long-term plan always remained clear, to try to recover their lost star players, SunPayus and Alex. As in any other sport, news travels fast, and both players were not at their best level in their respective teams (Falcons and NIP). Throughout the year, KOI had this dreamy idea in mind that started to make more sense after SunPayus was placed into the inactive roster by Falcons, in October 2024.

Although the Spanish AWper wanted to continue progressing in international teams with a different project to the one KOI was planning, during the exchange window that took place after Shangai's Major, a small chance to have the Spanish player back at KOI on a temporary loan arose. This happened mainly because his transfer to HEROIC was facing certain difficulties, as an unexpected turn of events occurred within the Danish organization. On the other hand, Alex was placed on the inactive roster by Ninjas in Pyjamas in October 2024, leaving the door open for a potential return to the Spanish team.

This first plan faded quickly due to the transfer window which ended up with SunPayus in HEROIC, giving way to the second plan: the return of Martinez and Alex. On paper, this plan seemed affordable, with a potential roster that would have been formed by:

This quintet (with the fifth player still to be decided) made more sense for the organization, but it shared the same problem as the previous option, a significant outlay of money for the buyouts of Martinez and Alex. Alex’s return was not a major financial issue for the Spanish club, as the sale of the player to the Swedish club wasn’t a big amount of money, moreover, both the club and the player wanted to part ways. However, the problems came with the return of Martinez, as 9z made a six-figure outlay for the Spanish AWper.

Considered as one of the few Spanish players in his role able to make a difference in a Tier 1 team, the sale of 9z would put the Argentinian team in the same problem that KOI was in: the impossibility of a short-term replacement in addition to the high buyout amount they would have to pay. The negative answer by the Spanish Club management made the viability of the economic project impossible.

On top of that, the management's doubts about being able to build a team capable of qualifying for all Majors also arose. Everything led to the decision to temporarily cease activities. Both the Sunpayus and Alex operations and the Martinez and Alex operations did not even get to the point of asking the teams or advancing information, since the accounts were not approved internally.

During the community uproar prior to the officialization of the cessation of activities, as later clarified by KOI's CEO, Adam Adamou, through his social media, the team's goal was to create a Top 10 roster. This suggests that the team would take a new direction with respect to the Spanish project, opening the horizon for a possible new international roster. According to sources close to Sheep Esports, it’s far from the truth as KOI had superficial talks with the teams in the American region in addition to previously having rejected the possibility of acquiring 3DMAX’s roster.

This is to some extent due to KOI management's refusal to accept betting sponsors, which makes it very difficult for a Tier 1 Counter-Strike project to be financially viable. KOI quintet's spending for the whole year 2024 was approximately €500,000, an affordable price to achieve economic viability without having to depend on betting sponsors and derivatives. The amount to be disbursed for the buying of the 3DMAX roster (including salaries and performance bonuses) was about €1.000.000 per year, a figure that excluded the possibility of achieving an economically viable project without relying on the previously mentioned sponsorships. The spending that KOI would have had to make to bring back Martinez and Alex was estimated to exceed 50% of the 2024 budget, only including the buyout of both players.

After learning about the Spanish Club’s intentions, the players were laid off to explore their opportunities for next year. Being an important symbol for Counter Strike nationally in Spain, other clubs weren't hesitant to show interest: Rebels Gaming, Team Heretics, and GiantX, besides the interest of other international teams. Despite the interest of the three Spanish Teams, discussions to bring the players in did not make much progress. Therefore, there’s still no return of both GIANTX or Team Heretics to Counter Strike momentarily.

Meanwhile, the players will be competing under the name Iberian Soul with a quintet formed by: