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Asia's Olympic body has given esports an event of its own, and in the same week had to say what that means for the Asian Games. The Olympic Council of Asia, whose Executive Board sets the Asian Games program, signed a host city contract with Kuwait on September 19, 2026 for the first Asian Esports and Mind Sports Games, to be held in 2027. Nine days later, on Monday, September 28, it issued a statement saying it had taken no decision to remove esports from the Asian Games, the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported from Nagoya.
The statement answered press reports of the day before. They rested on a document of the council itself: the decisions of its Executive Board of November 26, 2024, which record a unanimous vote to take esports off the Asian Games program after the Aichi-Nagoya edition now under way in Japan. The council has not said what became of that vote.
So two things are certain at the end of September and one is not. Kuwait has a contract. Esports is a medal sport in Aichi-Nagoya. Whether it will be one at the next Asian Games is a question on which the council's 2024 document and its 2026 statement do not read the same way.
Olympic Council of Asia, announcement of the Kuwait contract; Xinhua, September 28, 2026, for the medal events.
What Kuwait signed
The council's own announcement is short. It says the host city contract for the inaugural Asian Esports and Mind Sports Games was signed with Kuwait on the sidelines of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, on the day of their opening ceremony, and that the event is the first to be created under the presidency of Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad Al-Thani, the council's president.
Related readRiot pauses under-18 accounts in Brazil as the ECA Digital takes effectIt gives one figure: 4,000 athletes. It gives no dates within 2027 and no list of disciplines. The program, covering both esports and mind sports, is to be announced in due course. Sheep Esports, which reported the contract on September 27, names chess, go, checkers and bridge as the kind of mind sports concerned, and notes that no game title has been revealed.
A second edition is already under discussion. The council says it is talking with the Philippines about hosting in 2029, and that a decision is expected at its General Assembly in Doha in 2027.
A host city contract is the document by which the owner of a multi-sport event hands its organization to a city or a country and fixes what each side owes the other.
What the council said on September 28
The statement was issued in Chinese, Sheep Esports reported, and carried by Xinhua, whose dispatch was published by the Malaysian daily The Star on September 29. It was made in the name of Husain Al Musallam, the council's director general.
According to both reports, it made three points. The council has not made or issued any decision to remove esports from the Asian Games, and the claim circulating online does not match its work. Esports will continue within the Asian Games, and the council will keep supporting its development in Asia. And the new games in Kuwait are meant to give Asian athletes one more stage: they will not lower the standing of esports inside the Asian Games.
Al Musallam added that the popularity of esports in Asia was a key consideration for the council in making these arrangements, Xinhua reported.
Related readHow a 2019 Scandal Reshaped Esports Player Rights in KoreaWhat the 2024 board document says
The document behind the reports is public. It is titled Decisions, 90th OCA Executive Board Meeting, is dated November 26, 2024, and is signed by Timothy Fok, the vice president who chaired the meeting, and by Al Musallam as director general. The meeting was held virtually.
One of its items concerns esports. The board unanimously approved a proposal of the council's Esports, Martial Arts and Mind Sports Committee to remove esports from the Asian Games program after the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, and approved a separate Asian Esports and Mind Games. It also approved the committee's proposal to form an Asian Mind Sports Federation with its own games.
The vote did not come from nowhere. Sheep Esports traces the idea through 2024: in April of that year the council's committee for esports and martial arts discussed new esports competitions and festivals, after the attention the discipline had drawn at the Hangzhou Asian Games, and on June 30, 2024 the council announced an Asian Games Esports Festival, first planned for 2025 and then every two years. The board's decision came five months later.
Another item of the same meeting unanimously approved the signing of an agreement between the council and the government of Kuwait. The document does not say what that agreement covers.
The 2024 decision has not been withdrawn in public
Sheep Esports wrote on September 28 that the council had not said whether the board's decision was canceled, amended or no longer considered final, and that it had made no public statement reversing it before that day. The outlet said it had put the question to the council in writing.
The sequence, as the council's own documents and the two press reports give it, runs over 22 months.
- November 26, 2024The Executive Board approves removing esports from the Asian Games after Aichi-Nagoya and holding a separate event.
- October 2025The council and Tencent Esports sign a ten-year memorandum at the board's 101st meeting, in Bahrain.
- September 19, 2026The host city contract with Kuwait is signed as the Aichi-Nagoya Games open.
- September 27, 2026Press reports say Aichi-Nagoya is the last Asian Games with esports.
- September 28, 2026The council says it has taken no decision to remove esports from the Asian Games.
Esports at the Asian Games so far
The council has carried esports for almost two decades, on a rising scale. Sheep Esports recalls that it was part of the Asian Indoor Games, a smaller event of the council, from 2007 to 2017. It came to the Asian Games in 2018 in Jakarta and Palembang as a demonstration event, without medals in the official count, and became an official medal sport at the Hangzhou Games, where it produced seven gold medals, according to Xinhua.
Related readHow foreign esports players can compete in the UK: visitor rules and visasAichi-Nagoya is larger again. The program has eleven medal events, Xinhua reported, and Sheep Esports counts 13 games across them, with more than 30 nations entered. Esports is also on the program of the Asian Youth Games since the 2025 edition in Bahrain, the outlet notes.
A place in the Asian Games carries consequences that a separate event does not automatically share. Sheep Esports raised one of them on September 27: South Korean athletes in Asian Games medal events can receive an exemption from military service, and the outlet wrote that a new, less established event could raise that question.
Who runs the esports competitions
Three bodies appear in the sources, and only the first decides the program.
The Olympic Council of Asia signed the Kuwait contract. Its Executive Board votes on what is played, on the proposal of its committees.
The Asian Electronic Sports Federation describes itself as a regional federation. In a release of March 13, 2025, it said it was founded in 2017 by five members and counted 36 member associations: 29 full members recognized by their National Olympic Committees, one development member and six provisional members. Its general assembly, chaired by its president, Kenneth Fok, ratified a constitution on March 12, 2025, with 34 member associations represented. The council's deputy director general, Vinod Tiwari, attended, and the release says the council remains dedicated to working alongside the federation.
The third is a company. Tencent Esports announced on January 22, 2026 a ten-year strategic partnership with the council, under a memorandum signed in October 2025. It became the council's Official Esports Technology Partner and launched a competition system meant to give technical support to future Asian Games and other major Asian events. Yati Zhang, a director of Tencent Esports, was appointed the council's Esports Manager. Sheep Esports reports that the system is in use across the eleven medal events of Aichi-Nagoya, and that Tencent's involvement in the Kuwait games has not been confirmed.
| Event | When and where | Place of esports |
|---|---|---|
| Asian Games | 2026, Aichi-Nagoya | Eleven medal events |
| Asian Esports and Mind Sports Games | 2027, Kuwait | Contract signed; program to be announced |
| Second edition of the new games | 2029, Philippines in discussion | Decision expected in 2027 |
| Asian Games | 2030, Doha | Stays, per the 2026 statement; removed, per the 2024 document |
Olympic Council of Asia announcement and board decisions; Xinhua, September 28, 2026; Sheep Esports, September 27 and 28, 2026.
What comes next
The Aichi-Nagoya Games run until October 4, and their esports events are still being played as the statement circulates.
For the Kuwait games, the council has yet to announce the dates within 2027 and the list of esports titles and mind sports. Its announcement says only that the program will come in due course. The choice of a host for 2029 is expected at the General Assembly in Doha in 2027.
The 2027 calendar already holds another event built on national teams. The Esports Nations Cup, run by the Esports Foundation, was postponed in August from November 2026 to November 2027, and Sheep Esports notes that it could make the end of 2027 crowded.
The next Asian Games after Aichi-Nagoya are in Doha in 2030. Sheep Esports wrote on September 28 that the council's plans for esports there remained unclear. The statement says esports continues within the Asian Games; a published program for Doha, or a new decision of the Executive Board, would be the text that settles it.
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