Interview: ELITE FE Founder Minaleyy on women’s representation in Counter-Strike esports

Women’s esports has seen significant developments in recent years, most notably with the creation of dedicated tournaments like ESL Impact in the Counter-Strike 2 scene.

Introduced in 2022 by tournament organiser ESL FACEIT Group (EFG), the league has witnessed notable female talent over the past few years. Brazilian esports organisation Imperial Fe, in particular, has been making headlines this year. The team became the first women’s roster to qualify for Intel Extreme Master (IEM) Katowice.

Esports Insider sat down with Léa ‘Minaleyy’ Mussault, Founder of ELITE FE, an organisation supporting female CS talent, to discuss the state of women’s representation in the game’s esports ecosystem.

French content creator Minaleyy began her CS journey in 2019, competing in a LAN event and later becoming a streamer. In 2023, she launched the ELITE Discord community to help women build in-game skills and provide mental health support through regular meetings and lessons.

Through her experience, Minaleyy believes that women’s representation and inclusion remain issues in the CS2 scene despite some ongoing improvements. She noted that Women in Games Association’s training program, EFG’s ESL Impact Women’s circuit, and things like the Tradeit League have shown promise.

“However,” Minaleyy said, “obstacles remain, including toxic gaming environments and the under-representation of women in top-level competitions. As explained earlier, this situation is however evolving in the right direction, proven by the representation of Imperial Valkyries in T1.”

Minaleyy argues that more investment from CS stakeholders is necessary to create lasting change. Some esports organisations, such as NAVI and Astralis, have exited women’s Counter-Strike for the time being. However, additional circuits by organisers BLAST and PGL could offset this trend by incentivising the signing of female rosters.

“We won’t be able to include women if no one is committed to making it happen,” Minaleyy explained. “It’s a never-ending loop: if there aren’t enough tournaments, there won’t be enough women’s teams created, and vice versa. For me, the initiative must come from private organisers.”

The streamer herself strives to create more competitive opportunities for female CS talent. The first ELITE FE tournament was organised in April 2024. This year, ELITE FE will hold a series of six tournaments supported by French esports organisation Team Vitality and case opening platform Skin.Club. Kicking off on February 23^rd, each event will feature a €1,000 prize pool.

The organisation also hosts the ELITE FOR ALL competition once a year, which allows both male and female participants.

Said Minaleyy: “I think this is essential for the global esports ecosystem because, in the long term, we need to increase the representation of female players so that there are more opportunities to be invited to T1 tournaments, which currently only consist of male players. […]

“The objective is to develop the global sports ecosystem by creating more visibility for women’s CS2 and secure a second women’s team in addition to Imperial Valkyries in T1 tournaments next year.”