“Without any warning, we received notice the night before Thanksgiving from Nintendo that we could no longer operate,” it said.“This was especially shocking given our discourse with Nintendo the past twelve months.”The statement also accused the CEO and co-founder of Panda, a Smash Bros tournament with a Nintendo licence, of trying to sabotage Smash World Tour’s 2022 events by telling tournament organisers last year that it was shutting down.“However, we quickly found that many organizers were concerned about joining up in 2022.They told us that they had been told by Alan, the CEO and co-founder of Panda, that we were going to get shut down and were not coming back in 2022.”According to the statement, Nintendo reassured Smash World Tour that Panda’s licence was not exclusive, and that it would speak to the Panda CEO about his alleged behaviour.The statement claimed that despite applying for a licence in January, Nintendo was slow to process the application – particularly after the Panda Cup was announced in May – and only informed Smash World Tour in November that it could no longer continue, just a few weeks before the annual championships."