fnatic have announced that their Counter-Strike team will not participate in the upcoming ESL Pro Series Nordic Season III.

The ESL Pro Series Nordic Season III will see its official kick off tonight, even though the second season has yet to be concluded. Meanwhile, fnatic, who were supposed to play Norwegian side ArticNova, have now chosen to drop out of the online league.

Patrik "cArn" Sättermoen explains that they are not able to allocate the necessary time for an online league such as the EPS, seeing as there are more important upcoming offline events in near future.

"It was a tough call for us to pull back from the upcoming EPS season after two seasons in which both we ended up in the grand final. The reason for our withdrawal is that we can't justify allocating the necessary time for an online league, with several important offline events around the corner, Patrik "cArn" Sättermoen told fnatic.com

"I truly believe in the concept of having local leagues where new teams and players can blossom, but at this stage we will not have the time to support the league."

"We wish ESL the best of luck running and I truly hope there won´t be as much trouble in the upcoming season as in the second, where me and my team suffered a lot from DDos attacks, which contributed to some of our losses in the latter part of the season."

HLTV.org has attempted contacting the league organizers regarding whether fnatic will be replaced, but so far without any luck.

(22:38:30) (ESL|JKN) ehm(22:38:34) (ESL|JKN) are you droppping the season or?(22:38:39) (ThGiRTeG\citanf) yupp(22:38:49) (ESL|JKN) spoken to flabbert?(22:38:56) (ThGiRTeG\citanf) cArn has already spoken to flabbert(22:39:33) (ESL|JKN) Okay fine(22:39:46) (ThGiRTeG\citanf) :D(22:39:48) (ThGiRTeG\citanf) gOoDl UCk(22:40:42) (ESL|JKN) thanks I guess, lol :P g00d luck with no masters :O(22:40:54) (ESL|JKN) next season I guess(22:41:17) (ThGiRTeG\citanf) what I know we have already qualifed for the global finals 2011 :D(22:41:47) (ESL|JKN) and after that you don't wanna play more masters? :P(22:42:06) (ThGiRTeG\citanf) who wanna play a online league when everything is always the same, getting ddosed all over againanryyyyyy