EA says that it's "exploring the idea" of renaming its FIFA series. If it did so, it would end an almost three decade association between EA Sports and the international football organization.
In a press release about the launch of FIFA 22, EA Sports' Cam Weber explained, "As we look ahead, we’re also exploring the idea of renaming our global EA SPORTS football games." The developer made clear that this wouldn't change its football games' extensive partnerships and licenses: "This means we’re reviewing our naming rights agreement with FIFA, which is separate from all our other official partnerships and licenses across the football world."
EA doesn't make clear why it's making this consideration at this time, although the FIFA name has gained less favourable associations in recent years. FIFA is the international governing body for association football, but has been mired in controversy for many years, including major corruption scandals.
EA also doesn't specify what the series could be renamed to, but repeatedly refers the series as "our EA Sports football games," rather than FIFA. EA and FIFA first partnered for 1993's FIFA International Soccer, with at least one new FIFA game released every year since. It has since become one of the best selling game series in history.
Weber makes very clear that, despite dropping one familiar license, EA Sports football games won't lose their commitment to recreating real-life professional football. "Through years of building our global franchise, we also know that authenticity is essential to the experience. That’s why we focus so much energy on the collective strength of over 300 individual licensed partners that give us access to 17,000+ athletes across 700+ teams, in 100 stadiums and over 30 leagues around the world. We continually invest in the partnerships and licenses that are most meaningful to players [...] The breadth of our partnerships and our ecosystem of licensed content will enable us to continue to bring unrivaled authenticity in our EA Sports football games, now and for many years to come."
This news comes shortly after Konami announced that it had changed the name of long-running FIFA rival, Pro Evolution Soccer (known as Winning Eleven in Japan) to eFootball. Unfortunately, that name change has been coupled to a game launch we've described as a tragedy.
We awarded this year's FIFA installment, FIFA 22 a 7/10 review, saying, "Microtransactions still loom large, but small iterative changes and the horsepower of new-gen consoles combine to make FIFA 22 feel like a worthwhile upgrade without needing anything revolutionary or terribly exciting from EA’s side."
Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.