I was in direct contact with a few people in PLE, I understand the situation. The problem with East is that it's the league for most eastern/balkan countries, so it's a fundamental league to player/talent development in the region. Merging is no possibility, so either Riot finds a TO or come up with a better solution that doesn't hurt the region. The other problem is that the lack of funds isn't only present in East (or Portugal as I mentioned in the original post), and that should be the main focus.

Of course it's not only on Riot but you can't tell me that the stuff going on right now is okay. Yes, up and coming orgs might not have a brand like a 2 decade old team, but somehow these up and coming orgs are what's keeping tier 2 (or what's left of it) alive. With the possibility of partnered teams having "academy teams" in tier 2 might have saved a few slots but most of tier 2 will be free agent teams in no time. You said Riot isn't making profit to be able to add some more money into tier 2 but they have money for a helicopter show (Champions 2023), so the problem isn't with money, the problem is where they decide to spend that money.

The real problem is that Riot doesn't give a single shit about anything below tier 1... it gets most of the money, obviously, and there shouldn't be a problem with that, if they would also care about tier 2. Talents and teams are underpaid or never even paid, most of the EMEA scene runs on the sole passion and time commitment of the talents/players. Champions Seoul had a prize pool of 2,25 million USD for 16 teams. All of the 24 Challengers leagues in 2024 had a combined prize pool of 1,3 million USD through 2 splits for around a 100 teams. I'll let that sink in. Out of the 10 leagues in EMEA only 1 (Polaris) was confirmed to have paid out prize money. Now, can we blame the tournament organizers for this? Yes, maybe. But most of the blame has to be taken by Riot because of the lack of funding in the tier 2 leagues. Of course, these people are not asking for millions of dollars in tier 2, but you can't fucking keep a team with proper salary sustainable with 4 thousand dollars for 4 months (Challengers Portugal 1st place prize money). The organizations don't make any money, the tournament organizers don't make any money. Because how could they? There's nothing to make money from. If you can't keep a sustainable tier 2 your tier 1 will degrade fast, that's how esports works. That's when Riot should come in, but so far we have seen half of EMEA fall apart. We were promised a Split 3, but not a single league has organized one in EMEA. Because teams/orgs have ran out of money. We have seen SAW, Acend, now GoNext leave the scene. We're already half a foot in the grave, if Riot doesn't get their shit together we will see much much worse things in no time. Be prepared for more to come.
Thank you.