Ninjas in Pyjamas has closed its Young Ninjas academy programme for the foreseeable future, releasing every player and staff member attached to it, HLTV reports.
As we look ahead, we’ve made the difficult decision to put the Young Ninjas project on hold for the foreseeable future. While this wasn’t an easy decision, we believe it’s the right one as we evaluate the future of our competitive ecosystem.
The decision releases four players from their contracts: Rūdolfs “rud” Osmanis, Dawid “tein” Śladkowski, Joe “joeski” Holmes and Rasmus “Zitte” Johansson. All four are now free agents. Their final appearance in a Ninjas in Pyjamas jersey came at European Pro League Series 7 in June, meaning the roster had already been inactive for roughly a month before the announcement.
A productive pipeline goes quiet
Young Ninjas has been one of the more successful academy setups in Counter-Strike when measured by how many of its players reached tier-one rosters. Erik “ztr” Gustafsson, Linus “nilo” Bergman, Love “phzy” Smidebrant and Kacper “xKacpersky” Gabara all wore the jersey at some stage of their careers.
So did Roman “n0te” Hamze, who is currently in the middle of a temporary promotion to the Ninjas in Pyjamas main team — the clearest illustration of what the programme was built to do, and what the organisation is setting aside while it reviews its structure.
The statement ties the pause to an evaluation of the organisation’s competitive ecosystem, but does not say what that review covers, how long it will take, or whether the academy will return in its current form. No replacement development structure was announced alongside the closure.
For the four released players, the timing places them on the market outside the usual post-season shuffle. Ninjas in Pyjamas has not indicated whether any of them were offered places elsewhere in the organisation.
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