Report: FIFA and EA Sports amicably split after two-decade-long partnership

FIFA, the international ruling body for Soccer, will end its partnership with EA sports after the Women’s World Cup 2022 taking place next summer, the New York Times said on Tuesday. Players will no longer see the FIFA branding on the popular game franchise.

Breaking News: Soccer’s global governing body and EA Sports are ending a partnership that created FIFA, one of the most popular video games of all time. The game has generated more than $20 billion in sales over the past two decades. https://t.co/S3X4eEUprp

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 10, 2022

FIFA and EA Sports go their separate ways

The decision comes after months of tense negotiations between FIFA and EA Sports, the creators of the game franchise. Now that no new deal has been reached, the popular soccer game will be called EA Sports FC.

The split was rooted in differing financial expectations — FIFA was asking for double the $150 million the parties had agreed to in a previous deal, signed a decade ago. Despite the removal of the FIFA name, players will not experience a large change in the gameplay. The world’s most famous clubs and stars will still be available to play in-game due to different licensing deals. However, players will no longer have access to the World Cup teams and other related FIFA events.

“It was really about how can we do more for the players, more for the fans, how can we offer them more modalities to play, how can we bring more partners into the game, how can we expand beyond the bounds of the traditional game,” said Andrew Wilson, Chief Executive Officer of EA Sports.

Both sides have split amicably and soccer’s international ruling body will be looking into its own avenues of video game creation. According to the article, EA sports’ decision is based on the calculation that any challenger will have a tough time going against EA’s dominance in the market.

For the last two decades, EA Sports’ FIFA has been the premier soccer game. No other video game has been able to match the licensing deals with more than the 300 organizations EA Sports has, and the company expects no other competitor will be able to in the future.

With EA Sports’ recent financial strategy shifting to FIFA Ultimate Team, a mode where players can collect their favorite soccer players through card packs, EA Sports has been able to leave the FIFA deal on the table. The game mode was worth as much as $1.2 billion to EA Sports as of last year.