In a situation that has escalated very quickly, there are now reports from The Telegraph that three hundred players are considering legal action against game developers EA Sports over the mammoth FIFA franchise.
The issue was raised just a few short days ago by Zlatan Ibrahimovic who took umbrage with the use of his likeness in EA’s annual soccer simulator. The issue of image rights was further brought up by Gareth Bale, this meant that EA Sports had two of the biggest players in the game on their backs over these issues.
This issue has seemingly snowballed as super-agent Mino Raiola told The Telegraph that three hundred different players were considering taking legal action against EA Sports over these image rights issues.
The launch of FIFA 21 saw the game top sales charts for October 2020, this series has become one of EA Sports’ biggest series ever. So much of this success comes from the likeness and names of teams and players that feature in every game mode, specifically in FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT). This legal challenge could pose an issue to the series as the FUT game mode is one of FIFA’s biggest attractions and any issues with player likenesses would hamper the experience for players.
It’s quite possible this will end with EA paying players more for their image rights to continue making their annual cash cow.
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