Team Falcons: The Saudi Club That Collects World Titles Across Games
A Dota 2 Aegis, a Counter-Strike Major, an Overwatch world crown and two Esports World Cup club titles. Who Team Falcons are, how they were built, and why not everyone is cheering.
In 2018 a Saudi player named Mossaad Al-Dossary, known as Msdossary, won the FIFA eWorld Cup. A year earlier he had co-founded a small esports organisation called Team Falcons. Eight years on, that club has won Dota 2's The International, a Counter-Strike Major, an Overwatch world title and the first two Esports World Cup Club Championships, and it spends the year chasing trophies in more than a dozen games.
The latest headline came on June 21, 2026, when Falcons swept FURIA 3-0 to win the IEM Cologne Major. In August, at the Esports World Cup in Paris, the club finished second in the Club Championship behind China's AG.AL, its first defeat in the competition's three-year history.
Who runs Falcons
Team Falcons was founded in 2017 in Saudi Arabia, with Msdossary as co-founder and chief executive. In August 2022 it hired Grant Rousseau as global director of esports, and its expansion accelerated after that. The organisation has never formally announced its owners, though the outlet Dot Esports has reported that it is believed to have connections to the Saudi royal family.
Today Falcons fields teams in Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, Overwatch, Rocket League, Apex Legends, Valorant, Rainbow Six Siege, PUBG, EA Sports FC, Trackmania and several mobile titles. In August 2024 it bought the Vegas Legion place in the Call of Duty League, which became the Riyadh Falcons before the 2026 season.
Building a Counter-Strike superteam
Falcons' Counter-Strike project started in October 2023 with coach Danny "zonic" Sørensen, who had won four Majors with Astralis. The early years were a revolving door: Snappi, SunPayus, Maden and dupreeh all signed within a few months.
The current core arrived in 2025. Nikola "NiKo" Kovač signed on January 3, René "TeSeS" Madsen and Damjan "kyxsan" Stoilkovski followed a day later, and AWPer Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov debuted at IEM Melbourne in April. On April 20, 2026, the club added veteran in-game leader Finn "karrigan" Andersen in place of kyxsan. Two months later it won the Cologne Major, NiKo's first, with m0NESY as MVP. Our Cologne report has the details.
An Aegis and an Overwatch crown
Falcons' biggest single win may be in Dota 2. At The International 2025 in Hamburg, the team beat China's Xtreme Gaming 3-2 in the grand final to lift the Aegis of Champions. At TI 2026 in Shanghai it went out in the playoffs, in a tournament won by Team Spirit.
In Overwatch, Falcons built a 2024 roster around South Korean veterans and former Overwatch League champions. It won the first Overwatch Champions Series World Finals in Stockholm in 2024, beating Crazy Raccoon 4-1. Its Rocket League team won the RLCS World Championship in 2026 and the Rocket League title at the Esports World Cup in Paris, and its Street Fighter 6 player Craime, from Chile, became the youngest Esports World Cup champion in history at 15.
The Esports World Cup machine
The Esports World Cup's Club Championship rewards clubs for results across every game at the event, which suits an organisation as wide as Falcons. It won the Club Championship in 2024 and 2025. In 2026, with the event moved to Paris, Falcons finished second with 4,600 points, 700 behind AG.AL, who clinched it on the final weekend through Trackmania. Second place was still worth a reported $5 million.
Its Apex Legends team took silver at the first Esports World Cup in 2024, and Falcons was nominated for Best Esports Team at The Game Awards 2025, an award won by Team Vitality.
The debate, and what comes next
Falcons' rise has not been universally welcomed. Some commentators have compared Saudi investment in esports, including Falcons' spending, to sportswashing. A few players have declined offers in public: Counter-Strike star Twistzz said he turned the club down because of his "morals" and his career priorities.
WGC's take: both things can be true. The questions about money and influence are fair and will not go away. At the same time, Falcons has won where it matters, on stage, and players like NiKo and Craime have given fans memorable moments.
Falcons defends its Counter-Strike crown at the PGL Singapore Major, from November 24 to December 13. Our Singapore preview has the field, and our Esports World Cup review explains how AG.AL ended Falcons' run. Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 are both free to play on Steam.