EA Sports have revealed they are exploring changing the name of their popular FIFA franchise.
The gaming giant put out a press release announcing a record-breaking FIFA 22 launch that saw 9.1 million players join the game and and 460 million matches played.
But the most interesting bit of information came at the bottom of the statement from Cam Weber, as he said naming rights with FIFA are being reviewed and a huge change could come.
"As we look ahead, we’re also exploring the idea of renaming our global EA SPORTS football games," Weber wrote. "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.
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"The future of football is very big and very bright. Our priority is to ensure we have every opportunity to continue delivering the world’s greatest interactive football experiences. Thank you again for your support and feedback on this year’s game. We look forward to creating the future of football with you."
The most popular football video game by some way, EA have over 300 individual licenses and as a result have access to 17,000 players, more than 700 teams and 30 leagues, as well as the Champions League and Europa League competitions.
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Their FIFA rights are completely separate, however, and an end to the partnership would be massive news.
The first football game EA Sports produced was FIFA International Soccer (EA Soccer in development) on the Sega Mega Drive in 1993, with former Arsenal and England star David Platt one of the cover stars.
The franchise has since soared to incredible levels, with yearly editions manufactured and released since FIFA 95.
Konami recently changed the name of their PES franchise to eFootball starting with this year's game, in addition to making it free-to-play.
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However, reviews have been wholly negative - with eFootball 2022 already the worst game in Steam's history - as well as a shocking low 0.5 rating on Metacritic.
Featured Image Credit: Image: EA Sports