They tried to qualify into tier 2.
The problem is that doing both GCC circuit and T2/T3 circuit take a lot of time (and sometime the game are played in the same time) and the cashprice is far better in GCC. But for the next split, Riot did some changes, and now the team that qualify to GCC will be granted a free spot in promo-relo, so we might see more chance to have GC team in tier 2 (But, well, doing both T2 and GCC will be really exhausting for this teams.. To me every team that go in T2 should be granted a direct place into GCC without having to go in GC EMEA so their calendar is more light, and it's an incentive to tryhard the T2.)
Take in note 2 GC BR team will qualify to BR T2 for split 3, and it's probably the region where the gap between GC and Male are the mush closer (some team where really, really close to qual last time)