EA Sports has announced that FIFA, football's governing body, will no longer lend its name to the company's flagship series of football video games following the end of their nearly three-decade partnership next year.
The California-based company will instead rename the series EA Sports FC from the 2023-24 season onwards after the parties failed to extend their licensing deal, which was worth an estimated $150m per year to FIFA.
In a statement announcing the rebrand, EA Sports said future editions of the game would retain the rights to the likenesses of 19,000 players across 700 teams as well as 100 stadiums and 30 leagues under 300 licensing deals with other organisations.
The firm also wheeled out representatives from major leagues such as Premier League, La Liga, and Bundesliga; the governing bodies of the game in Europe and South America, UEFA and CONMEBOL; and sporting apparel giant Nike in an apparent show of strength.
"Our vision for EA Sports FC is to create the largest and most impactful football club in the world, at the epicenter of football fandom,” said Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts, EA Sports' parent company.
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“For nearly 30 years, we’ve been building the world’s biggest football community - with hundreds of millions of players, thousands of athlete partners, and hundreds of leagues, federations, and teams. EA Sports FC will be the club for every one of them, and for football fans everywhere.”
FIFA-controlled competitions such as the World Cup will not feature in future EA Sports FC games, but not much else will change for the series' estimated 150m fans.
Meanwhile, FIFA promised a “number of new non-simulation games [that] are already under production” and will launch ahead of the 2022 World Cup that kicks off in Qatar in November.
FIFA said it plans to create a “new gaming model” and cited the recent launch of its streaming service FIFA+. “I can assure you that the only authentic, real game that has the FIFA name will be the best one available for gamers and football fans," FIFA president Gianni Infantino said.
For generations of fans, the FIFA name has become synonymous with gaming rather than the institution, a number of whose officials were convicted on corruption charges following an FBI-led investigation that also resulted in the removal of long-time president Sepp Blatter.
The final EA Sports FIFA game will be launched this autumn, the bookend to a partnership that has generated more than $20bn in sales revenue since the release of the first FIFA game in 1993.
The last EA-FIFA deal was signed 10 years ago, and negotiations to extend the pact reportedly broke down after FIFA demanded that its licence fee be doubled as well as the ability to attach its brand to other digital products, including video games.
The request non-exclusivity proved to be a step too far for EA, and the sides agreed to go their separate ways after directs talks between Infantino and Wilson failed to yield a breakthrough, according to the New York Times.
Photo: FIFA22 game boxes are seen at the store in Krakow, Poland. (Pic: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
