Electronic Arts doesn’t want to spend a lot of money on applying for a FIFA licence and would instead continue to run the annual football, or for others, gambling game under their name.

Jeff Grubb, writing for VentureBeat, said on Giant Bomb’s Grubbsnax that multiple sources have confirmed FIFA’s farewell to Electronic Arts and EA Sports, so the football (soccer, depending on your region) game could soon hit stores under a new name. EA Sports Football Club, or EA Sports FC, could be the new name for the series. He has already seen the trademarks for it. At first, he thought it might just be the name of a feature, such as an online mode.

So he started asking his sources and found out that it’s more than that: the FIFA name is being dropped by Andrew Wilson, so in autumn 2023, their annual game will likely be called EA Sports FC 24. So the patents from Electronic Arts that have surfaced in the past have indeed indicated that the relationship between FIFA and EA has soured and that Wilson’s company is not just losing exclusivity on the Star Wars rights (LucasFilm Games has already given them to Quantic Dream and Ubisoft/Massive!).

Grubb added that Electronic Arts is ready to drop the FIFA name because they have another name, and they should have shown a trailer by now, so it wouldn’t be surprising if some announcement from the publisher comes soon. Their ten-year contract with FIFA is due to expire in November, so the change could come after the World Cup in Qatar, so the last FIFA game, FIFA 23, could precede that, and the men’s and women’s World Cup could appear in it.

It is not official, but it is almost certain that the name is not essential to the publisher. If the Ultimate Team mode (i.e., gambling), which makes terrific money from microtransactions, remains in the game, then the name is irrelevant. Hopefully, they won’t ignore the PC version as they have in the past two titles…

Source: VGC