The International e-Sports Federation, IeSF for short, is hosting an ASSEMBLY Summer 2014 Qualifier tournament in Helsinki on July 31st. The interesting thing about this specific tournament, is that females have been prohibited from competing in some of the events.

Professional online gaming has taken great steps and long strides forward as it is rapidly becoming globally accepted as actual sport. From League of Legendsscholarships, to $10 million Dota 2 tournament prize pools, eSports has come a long way in the last few years.

Recently, word of an eSports event preventing women from playing Hearthstone by Blizzard Entertainment, has created a buzz on Internet portals such as Reddit.com. Commenters were appalled and sarcastic when offering their input about the segregation. Some felt the Hearthstone should be separated by sex much like other sports, tennis, football, basketball. Others felt that online games require skills of the mind over physical strength which should result in uni-sex competitions.

The organizers of the qualifier tournament were pressed on the issue by PC Gamer, "Your information is indeed correct, the tournament is open to Finnish male players only," said Markus "Olodyn" Koskivirta, head admin of the Assembly Summer 2014 Hearthstone IeSF Qualifier, "In accordance with the International e-Sports Federation's (IeSF) tournament regulations, since the main tournament event is open to male players only. This is to avoid possible conflicts (e.g. a female player eliminating a male player during RO8) among other things."

Being that eSports is still relatively new, controversies about it will arise and fall as it sets its up to be as common and normal as the NFL or MLB.