Championship Gaming Series (CGS), the only worldwide gaming league, today announced the official 2008 team rosters for London Mint, Birmingham Salvo, Berlin Allianz, and Stockholm Magnetik. The 2008 rosters include 26 returning players and 14 who will be putting on CGS team jerseys for the first time.

The UK and European teams will depart for an all-expenses-paid trip to Los Angeles next month to compete in the 2008 CGS UK Final and 2008 European Final on June 27 and June 28. The winning UK and European teams will then compete in the globally-televised 2008 CGS World Final July 14-28 on DirecTV, BSkyB, STAR, ESPN STAR Sport and Eurosport.

Earlier today at the CGS 2008 UK and European Qualifier and Draft, General Managers selected one Franchise Player and four Protected Players from their 2007 team rosters. This evening, the four General Managers drafted players to fill the remaining five positions on their teams with players from the draft pool. In addition, each GM selected a complement of reserve (“taxi squad”) players.
“I was thrilled when I heard HeatoN call out my name,” said Sondre ‘REAL’ Svanevik, a CSS player selected first during the CGS 2008 UK and European Qualifier and Draft. “I trained really hard coming into this event and it’s immensely satisfying to be chosen as the first draft pick.”

The Fnatic Counter-Strike: Source (CSS) team turned in a series of strong performances over the weekend, including a second-place finish in the UK/European CSS competition behind Birmingham Salvo. By the end of the European Draft, every member on the Fnatic CSS team had been drafted as a CGS starter, in the case of Milan ‘xertion’ Veeger and Quint ‘Blaze’ Spierenburg – or placed on one of the CGS European teams’ taxi squads, as in the case of Luuk ‘darky’ Verink, Mark ‘AirRaid’ Koks and Sandor ‘proph’ de Munck.

CGS players are sorted into three different classifications: Franchise, Protected and Draft. When choosing players for their team roster, GMs select a single Franchise Player from the previous year, who remains on his or her respective team for the 2008 season and is ineligible for trades. A GM also selects up to four Franchise Players, with the remaining team members selected from the draft pool.

CGS teams are comprised of five Counter-Strike®: Source® players, two Forza Motorsport® 2 players, one male and one female player for Dead or Alive® 4 (DOA4) and one FIFA 2008 player.