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Geekay Esports will play in the Rainbow Six Siege Europe MENA League in 2026. The Saudi organization announced its return to the top league of its region on its official account, and Esports Insider reported the news on February 25, 2026, describing Geekay as an affiliate team of the BLAST R6 2026 season.
The move ends a year away from the first tier. Geekay had played in the MENA League, the former league of the Middle East and North Africa, from 2023 to late 2024. In 2025 it failed to qualify for the new combined league and spent the season in the European second tier, where it collected several titles. Its statement on X put the return in those terms: after a successful 2025 at the second level, the team now wants to prove itself on the big stage.
Esports Insider, February 25, 2026, and Ubisoft's season outline of February 15, 2026.
From the MENA League to the second tier
Geekay's absence from the top level followed a change of map. For 2025, Ubisoft, the publisher of Rainbow Six Siege, merged the MENA League with the European league as part of a reform that cut the competitive structure from nine regions to four, according to Esports Insider. From 2025, the teams of the Middle East and North Africa competed in the same region as the European clubs.
The door into that league was the Challenger Series, the qualifying competition that hands out places in the regional leagues. Geekay played the 2025 edition, held from April 10 to May 4, 2025, and finished sixth. That was not enough: the team missed the Europe MENA League for the 2025 season and stayed one level below it.
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A 2025 built outside the top league
Geekay used its year in the second tier to collect titles. Esports Insider listed three results. The team won Major 2 of the Saudi eLeague 2025, beating Twisted Minds 3-2 in the grand final, a series decided in the last of five maps. It beat Team Secret 3-0 at the R6 Central Combine 2025. And in August 2025 it won the R6 North Rainbow Rumble 2025.
The win over Team Secret stands out because of who Team Secret are. They reached the grand final of the Six Invitational 2026 in Paris this month, the world championship of Rainbow Six Siege, where they lost to FaZe Clan, who became back-to-back world champions, Esports Insider noted.
Rainbow Six Siege is one of several games for Geekay. Its chief executive, Kishan Deepak Palija, cited success in Rocket League, Overwatch, PUBG, Fortnite, EA FC and Honor of Kings, and said the organization now considers itself ready to compete at the top of Rainbow Six. "As I said, 2026 is a big year," he said in the comments reported by Esports Insider.
The Challenger Series is the open road into a regional league
Its open qualifiers accept teams of every level, Ubisoft says. In 2026 the two grand finalists of each region qualify directly for both stages of their regional league. Geekay returns by another route, as an affiliate team of the season, Esports Insider reported.
What the Europe MENA League looks like in 2026
The league Geekay joins has a new shape this season. Ubisoft published the outline of the 2026 season on February 15, 2026, on the final weekend of the Six Invitational. The Europe MENA League keeps a group stage of ten teams, and the top six advance to the finals of each stage.
Related readMISA Esports, three-time TCL champion, leaves League of LegendsThere are two stages in the year, one in each half, and each crowns its own champion. The standalone Regional League Finals, which used to close the season in each region, have been removed. Results also earn Six Invitational Points, or SI Points, which Ubisoft describes as the currency of the global ranking of the scene. They are awarded at the Season Kickoff, in the Regional Leagues and at the Majors.
The structure around the EML grows as well. There are five regional leagues in the 2026/27 season: Europe MENA, North America, South America, Asia-Pacific, and China, which joins as a new region with its own qualification path. The teams of all five race for the same Majors and for the same world championship.
Not every league uses the same format. North America and South America share the European shape, ten teams with six through to the stage finals. The Asia-Pacific League plays an eight-team group stage, and only its top four now advance, down from six. Each regional league sends its top four teams to the Majors, Ubisoft says, with a separate allocation model for the Asia-Pacific League, and the Chinese league qualifies separately for the May event.
The first weeks: Season Kickoff and the May Major
The season opens with a Season Kickoff, which Ubisoft describes as the new opening stage for Tier 1 teams, with SI Points, places at the May Major and a prize pool at stake.
In the Europe MENA League, the Kickoff is played as a ten-team single round robin, in which every team meets every other once, in best-of-one matches, a single map per match. The group stage begins on March 30. The top eight advance to finals played in double elimination, where a team is out after two series lost, in best-of-three matches. The EML finals are set for April 15, and the top four qualify for the Major.
Related readpaiN Gaming closes its Dota 2 division ten weeks after returning| When | Stage | What is at stake |
|---|---|---|
| From March 30 | Season Kickoff group stage, ten teams | Eight places in the Kickoff finals |
| April 15 | Season Kickoff finals | Four places at the May Major |
| May 8 to 17 | BLAST R6 Major, Salt Lake City | SI Points and the first international title |
| From June 8 | Stage 1, ten-team group stage | Four places at the Esports World Cup |
| Second half of 2026 | Stage 2 | Places at the November Major |
| November 6 to 15 | BLAST R6 Major, Japan | SI Points |
Ubisoft season outline of February 15, 2026; Major dates as announced by BLAST and Ubisoft on February 14, 2026.
The May Major will be played in Salt Lake City, Utah, from May 8 to 17, 2026. A Major is one of the two large international tournaments of each season. Its format, as set by Ubisoft, opens with an eight-team double-elimination phase in the GSL format, sends the top four on to a 16-team Swiss stage, where teams with the same record meet each other, and finishes with eight teams in double elimination. Matches are best-of-three, and the grand final is a best-of-five.
The Esports World Cup and the road to Brazil
The second part of the year brings a mid-season event. The Esports World Cup, the multi-game tournament, is part of the Rainbow Six circuit in 2026, with a prize pool of US$2,000,000, of which US$750,000 goes to the winner. Four places go to the Europe MENA League, and they are decided on Stage 1 results.
The field adds a qualifier for the MENA area alone, which gives one more place to a team of the region, and Team Secret, who enter as the defending champions. The winner of the Esports World Cup qualifies automatically for the Six Invitational 2027.
That world championship is played in Brazil in February 2027, in a city still to be named. Its field is built from three sources, according to Ubisoft: the 14 best teams in the SI Points standings at the end of the season, the winner of the Esports World Cup, and the winner of the Last Chance Qualifier of each of the five regions. Esports Insider recalled that the Europe MENA League serves as a pathway to that event for its best-performing teams.
The second Major goes to Japan from November 6 to 15, 2026, and its places come from Stage 2 of the regional leagues. Ubisoft and BLAST, the tournament organizer that runs the circuit for the publisher, renewed their partnership on February 14 through the 2028/29 season, so the international events Geekay is now aiming at keep the same operator for the next three years.
The teams Geekay will face
The league gathers some of the most decorated clubs of the game. Esports Insider named two of them. Team BDS were runners-up of the Six Invitational 2025, and G2 Esports won the Six Invitational in 2019 and again in 2023.
For Geekay, that is the measure of the step up: a team that finished sixth at the Challenger Series in 2025 starts this season in the same ten-team league as former world champions, with the Season Kickoff as its first test. Esports Insider called the return a promotion to the main regional stage after Geekay's 2025 in the second tier.
The first match day is fixed: the Europe MENA League group stage of the Season Kickoff begins on March 30, and four of its ten teams will be on their way to Salt Lake City by the middle of April.
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