Russian teams permanently out – These things are changing now

FIFA 23, the new offshoot of Electronic Arts’ sports game series, apparently won’t offer an opportunity to play with Russian teams.

Redwood City, California – As a result of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, various companies decided during the year to no longer offer their products in Russia or to discontinue their services. Large companies in the games industry also condemned the invasion of Ukraine and drew consequences. The developer of the largest sports simulation FIFA, which appears on PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch and PC, removed all Russian teams from the game with a patch. When the successor FIFA 23 was announced, the manufacturer EA again decided to make cuts due to the political situation.

FIFA 23: Electronic Arts shows a clear stance

What happened? In the previous offshoots of the sports simulation, Russian teams were still present. In addition to the Russian national team, club teams and the entire Russian Premier League were often playable. Only in FIFA 22 did publisher EA take teams out of the game after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. With FIFA 23 officially announced as the new title in the series on July 20th, it is also clear how the war of aggression against Ukraine will affect the new game. The publisher Electronic Arts also spoke publicly.

How does Electronic Arts express itself? The Russian teams will not be present in FIFA 23 either. The manufacturer Electronic Arts made the following statement to the website Eurogame.net: “EA Sports stands in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and, like so many voices in the world of football, is calling for peace and an end to the invasion of Ukraine.” In addition, the brief statement reads: “In agreement with our partners at FIFA and UEFA, EA Sports will not be adding the Russian national team or Russian clubs to FIFA 23.”

What is the impact? The Russian teams weren’t of great importance in the FIFA cosmos, as the teams were banned from pan-European competitions even before the war of aggression against Ukraine. However, it is now no longer possible to buy talents from Russia for the career mode and the “Team of the Week” cards will no longer be available either.

However, players of Russian nationality are still included in other clubs. Basically, this cut only affects teams playing in Russia. But overall, there are few Russian players who are world-class, so most fans probably won’t notice the cuts anyway. Whether the teams will ever return to Electronic Arts’ game series remains to be seen.