The fnatic Counter-Strike: Source squad has had its status in the fnatic organisation changed from that of an academy team, to being a professional team.

As the name would suggest, Fnatic Professional players are full time gamers, who make a living from playing games - and this squad joins 3 other professional squads at Fnatic - Counter Strike 1.6, Quake Series and World of Warcraft - with the WC3 squad having disbanded only days before.

Managing Director of Fnatic, Sam "zr0" Mathews, had the following to say:

When Blaze first started bugging me on MSN back in the beginning of the year I was adamant that Fnatic would not take on a Source team. However after many more months of Blaze spamming me on MSN, we decided as a team that this would be the perfect opportunity to add our first Academy team; Counter-Strike: Source. Blaze was a remarkable player when he was in Fnatic at the very beginning - when he played CoD and after some research I had strong faith in the team of players that he had and where they were going.

I think it was a gamble that has rewarded Fnatic significantly over the last months, both from a results point of view but also because they are the perfect representatives of Fnatic players. They are professional, mature, focused and FUN; this is why I am extremely happy to be making this team finally part of the Fnatic Professionals!

Certainly the finest Counter-Strike: Source team to be known in Europe, and perhaps the world, this line-up as accumulated 7 gold medals, at various events, and Cadred.org offers the strongest congratulations to them for becoming a professional team.

The Fnatic.CSS line-up:

Blaze
proph
darky
AirRaid
xertion