The Durban University of Technology (DUT) E-Sport Team, recently participated in the FIFA 2022 League which was organised by African Cyber Gaming League (ACGL) on their site. This tournament was held over a period of six-weeks, with the finals being held in the first week of September 2022.

During the six weeks they were playing league games comprising of four athletes per group.

DUT had 10 representatives and out of the 10, there were five athletes who made it to the Top 10 of the competition. Ntokozo Radebe (Jaythegoat), Thamsanqa Myeni (thamie myeni12) and Sifiso Dlamini (Mafiswana) are the top three in the log.

Ms Takalani Mfamadi, DUT Sport Officer said that the DUT E-Sport team won a grand prize of R8000, and that amount will be used to buy TVs and other required facilities that will help grow the club. She further explained that the individual winner of the competition was gifted R2000 to motivate student participation more in E-sport and it will be awarded on their USSA Tournament on the 1st of October 2022 which will be held in Cape Town.

For Ntokozo Radebe it was a cherry on top as he won the tournament.

“I am happy because my aim was to leave a mark in E-Sport, winning a grand prize was a bonus. I wanted E-Sport to be a success and I like how the team is growing. The year, 2019 was tough because we started E-Sport from scratch. We began with one team and two playstations. We did not have any TVs/resources because we were still testing out if it was going to be a good sport, but we were so passionate about it, so we pushed and here we are today,” said Radebe.

He also mentioned that they even used the HOD’s office when playing league games because they did not have enough TVs by that time.

“Now we have resources that we can use. The number of students who want to join/affiliate have increased compared to the previous years and we are now able to accommodate some students and we hope to have more resources so that we can accommodate as many students as per demand,” said Ms Mfamadi.

Coach, Simphiwe Dube said that preparations for the USSA Tournament had started from the beginning of this semester.

“I have selected athletes who will represent the team. They have fixtures lined up with other universities to practice and they have increased their training days. They are now training every day,” he said.

Pictured: The DUT E-Sport team.

Sinethemba Njoko