Arsenal football player Zinchenko presents his CS:GO team

Ukrainian football player Oleksandr Zinchenko, who currently competes for London's Arsenal, has invested in a Counter-Strike team. The athlete announced this in a comment to HLTV.org.

The roster consists exclusively of inexperienced Ukrainian players, which were assembled by NAVI's former coach Mikhaylo "kane" Blagin. On the professional scene, the newly formed club will compete under the Passion UA tag.

Zinchenko assured that he intends to create a world-class organization, and will also be directly involved in the development of the team.

Passion UA was born out of my deep-seated love for gaming and my desire to contribute to the growth of esports in my home country, Ukraine. I am committed to building a world-class esports organization that will stand tall among the giants of the industry.

I would love to be as active as I can. Obviously, with my schedule, it's going to be a bit tough to be involved with the team every day, but if I have an opportunity to be with them, to join them at one of their bootcamps or wherever, I would be more than happy to do it. I already met the team. Not personally, because the schedule is so tough, but I would like to be as active as I can.

It is currently unknown when Passion UA will debut. Previously, this lineup under the Zen tag participated in the European qualifier for IEM Sydney 2023, where they bested Sprout and Movistar Riders, but lost to 1WIN in the decisive match.

 Passion UA's current lineup looks as follows:

Kyryl "marat2k" Samsoniuk
Dmytro "jambo" Semera
Vsevolod "s-chilla" Shchurov
Nikita "jackasmo" Skyba
Eduard "zeRRoFIX" Petrovskyi

Mikhaylo "kane" Blagin (тренер)

Origin: www.hltv.org