Rumours surrounding the date of the Australian WCG 2009 Finals, have been in circulation within the community for over 2 months, with the Counter-Strike community (or Gaming Cafes rather) being notified to run qualifiers less than a month away from the confirmed national final dates.

DICE have just received word that the Australian 2009 WCG Finals will be postponed until further notice. This means that the Melbourne WCG Qualifier that was planned to run next week, will be scrapped.

Rumours are that there is a stalemate between CBN Media and the lead event sponsor, Samsung, in regards to the funding needed for this years WCG. The decision to postpone it was alledgedly because the lead sponsor still havn't provided CBN Media with the necessary funding to run the event - which apparently is significantly less of what was supplied in the previous year.

Even more alarming is that there have been talks (rumoured) about the Australian WCG Finals being replaced by the WCG Pan Asia tournament, an event that in the past never supported the Counter-Strike title in Australia.

As to whether or not the date will effect the DICE National Cup is still unknown.

More information to come...

Update: We've spoken to Charlie Brown from CBN Media, the man in charge of WCG 2009 who has confirmed the following:

• WCG 2009 is definitely postponed
• Pan Asia tournament will run at the planned WCG 2009 location - Sydney's Olympic Park
• CBN Media organised everything they could (floorspace, media, etc) but is awaiting the funds from WCG before continuing out anymore work
• They are aware of the national event on the 1st and 2nd of August run by DICE, and will try to do what's politically correct and hold WCG 2009 at the end of August, or later (pending funds of course)
  
• Ultimately the balls back in WCG's court again
• A formal press release will be announced on CBN website this coming Tuesday