By Sagar V. Mankar Big news in the world of virtual football! FIFA, the international governing body of football, has announced a new partnership with Konami, the company behind the popular eFootball game. This collaboration will bring eFootball to the prestigious FIFAe World Cup.
This collaboration follows FIFA’s split with Electronic Arts (EA) in 2022, ending a 29-year relationship. EA was the official developer of FIFA-branded football simulation games since 1993. However, the partnership dissolved due to financial disagreements, as FIFA reportedly requested more than $1 billion per four-year World Cup cycle. As a result, EA rebranded its popular game series as EA Sports FC in 2023, with minimal changes to gameplay.
With the end of the EA partnership, FIFA needed a new title for its annual esports tournament, the FIFAe World Cup. Earlier this year, FIFA teamed up with SEGA to feature Football Manager and with Psyonix to include Rocket League in the tournament. The first-ever FIFAe World Cup featuring Football Manager concluded last month, where Indonesia claimed the top prize. The debut FIFAe World Cup featuring Rocket League is set to launch in December this year.
As for the newly announced partnership with Konami, eFootball will make its debut in two FIFAe World Cup tournaments later this year—one for mobile devices and the other for consoles. Qualifying matches are already underway, and champions will be crowned at the end of each event. This marks a significant step for FIFA in its quest to expand its esports offerings.
For the inaugural year of this competition, 18 nations have been invited to participate in the final events. These countries include Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, England, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Morocco, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Thailand, and Türkiye.
eFootball, Konami’s current football simulation game, was developed as a successor to the long-running Pro Evolution Soccer series, which lasted nearly 30 years. Since transitioning to a free-to-play model in 2019, eFootball has amassed 700 million downloads worldwide.
Konami’s senior executive officer, Koji Kobayashi, expressed excitement about the collaboration, saying that this partnership allows eFootball to grow within the esports space in collaboration with FIFAe.
“At Konami, we have continued to take on challenges in the development of football simulation and esports, We are very pleased to be able to contribute to the promotion of eFootball in a new dimension through this collaboration with FIFAe.”
Romy Gai, FIFA’s chief business officer, echoed similar sentiments, stating that this partnership with Konami aligns with FIFA’s goal “to promote football globally.”
The 2023 FIFAe World Cup was the last tournament to feature EA’s FIFA-branded game, closing a long chapter in the history of FIFA’s partnership with EA. Now, with new partners like Konami, FIFA is charting a new course in esports.