Tournament Director for ESL, Johan 'Junior' Godderis explained the decision:

What was behind the decision to remove Bad Company 2 from the list of games being considered for EMS next season?

BFBC2 was considered for EMS Season 7 but after careful consideration we decided against it. This was decided after talking to the BFBC2 admin team regarding the competitive side of the game. The biggest issue is the lack of demos/replays, next to that there is a lack of, or problem with, restarting rounds, along with no spectator mode and no decent scoreboard to track results.

What would need to change for Bad Company 2 to be considered for EMS in the future?

A demo/replay function, that's a real necessity for us to consider a game competitive on a high level. Without it you pretty much rely on a) having an opponent that doesn't complain fast and b) anti-cheat, which is not always conclusive to say the least...

We could maybe work around the other issues but not around the demo function or lack thereof.

Has ESL had any communication with DICE on the lack of competitive functionality? (I have heard in the past that there was a community meeting between DICE and ESL where some positive feedback was given on the possibility of future competitive support).

I can't say anything about those meetings because I'm not involved. From what I have learned is that to create a demo function, and therefore increasing the competitive side of the game, will not be added because it would take a huge amount of space due to the details in-game. If they will ever come up with a solution is not known as far as I'm aware. Thy might have learned a lesson for the future but I can't comment on that :)

Would ESL reconsider Bad Company 2 if any community-led solutions became available in the near future, for example a mod with extra features such as client-side demo recording? There are rumours that BC2 server files have been leaked recently and thus there may be an opportunity to create a competitive mod in the future.

If it is legal, and if it works properly, I don't wanna say reconsider as it sounds pretty definite, but we will definately discuss it again :)

This will come as another sorry blow to the already ailing BC2 community and it will be hard to hide the disappointment players will feel, however I cannot dispute the decision that ESL have made and must grudgingly agree with their reasons.

Once again the problems lie squarely with developers DICE, however no-one has yet been able to gather a useful response on the future of the game from them, thus the grumblings of the competitive community are likely to continue to go unheard and unnoticed.

source:cadred