Valve mandates approval of any Business relations between TOs and participants

After Esports World Cup announced the EWCF Partner program, that promised certain teams funding to grow their organisation, questions were raised whether this complies with Valve's T&C. In a recent update to their CS2 tournament operations requirement rulebook, they have possible given us their answer.

The change was made to the conflict of interest section. The updated rules states:

Tournament Operator and Tournament staff may not have any business relationship, including, but not limited to, shared management, shared ownership of entities, licensing, and loans, whether related to Valve Games or otherwise (each an "Entanglement") with any Participant unless approved by Valve and publicly disclosed.

An Entanglement is considered approved if (a) it is disclosed to Valve in writing and (b) publicly disclosed and (c) Valve has not objected to within 90 days of the disclosure to Valve; provided that only disclosures after the Effective Date of the Agreement shall trigger the 90 days period.

It is clear that Valve is putting a lot of efforts into levelling the playing fields for all teams, by disallowing any program that could be seen as discriminatory treatment.