August 24 – Major League Soccer (MLS) has agreed a multi-year agreement with EA Sports that will see them extend their partnership beyond the end of the FIFA23 video game license that ends this year before the game is renamed EA Sports FC.
August 1 – Brazil ended three weeks of FIFA esports competition winning the FIFAe Nations Cup 2022 at the Bella Arena in Copenhagen, Denmark.
July 18 – Germany have retained their position at the top of world eFootball with a second win in a row at the FIFAe World Cup 2022 in Denmark.
June 23 – From a starting entry of 84 nations, 24 have now qualified for the finals of the FIFAe Nations Cup 2022 to be held July 24 to July 30 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
May 19 – Copenhagen in Denmark will host the first-ever combined FIFAe Finals in July with the three championship – FIFAe World Cup, FIFAe Club World Cup and FIFAe Nations Cup – being played July 14-30.
May 11 – The separation of EA Sports and its FIFA gaming franchise from the world governing body will take another edition before completion. EA Sports will release a FIFA 23 title this year before renaming the world’s biggest football video game EA Sports FC.
February 9 – Esports tournament organiser BLAST will produce the 2021/22 edition of the ePremier League, the first time the esports heavyweight has entered the football gaming scene.
December 15 – The MLS esports league, eMLS, has released detail of its 2022 season which will feature all 27 MLS teams and a return to live events with three marquee tournaments hosted in-person at MLS stadiums.
December 3 – AS Monaco has agreed a two-year partnership with software game developer Strikerz Inc, to make its soon-to-launch online football game UFL, the club’s Official Football Gaming Supplier.
December 2 – Holland’s Eredivisie is partnering with esports operator DreamHack Sports Games (DHSG) to create an esports gaming festival that will be hosted Sports in Maastricht.
November 24 – The United Soccer League (USL), operator of second and third tier professional leagues in the US, has struck a multi-year deal with Konami Digital Entertainment that will see its teams and players featured in its revamped eFootball video game franchise.
November 3 – Inter Milan will launch their own esports platform this Friday (November 5) with the start of the Inter Esports Cup. The inauguration of the esports competition and platform comes during Italy’s biggest esports event, the Milan Games Week & Cartoomics.
October 21 – The blurring of ‘sporting’ boundaries and rights ownership that eSports throw up is brought sharply into focus again today with the EA Sports-sanctioned FIFA 22 Challenge.
By Paul Nicholson
October 18 – With EA Sports review of its FIFA license increasingly looking like bringing an end to its FIFA branded game at the end of the current rights cycle, FIFA has issued a statement saying that it will be widening its own gaming and eSports portfolio.
September 30 – One international match calendar FIFA is having no trouble expanding is its esports programme. Electronic Arts have announced a further growth of its competition ecosystem for the launch of the FIFA 22 game next month.