Women's football has been soaring in popularity in recent years, and more representation of the women's game in EA Sports FC can only make EA Sports' new game better.
EA Sports FC is the brand-new football game being released by EA later this year, with the publisher creating the game after its 30-year relationship with FIFA ended last year following a dispute over the license price of the FIFA branding. EA's CEO Tom Wilson claimed EA would be better off without FIFA and that the only value FIFA provided was “four letters on the front of the box”, so now running solo, EA Sports has the chance to make the best football game in years.
And, if EA wants this game to become the best, then EA FC 24 will need to include much more women's football content. FIFA 23 saw big strides made for women's football, with the publisher making a big statement by including Chelsea's Sam Kerr on the FIFA 23 cover alongside Paris Saint-Germain's Kylian Mbappe.
This was the first time in history that a woman graced the cover of a FIFA game, and the introduction of women's competitions such as the Women's Super League (WSL), the UEFA Women's Champions League (UWCL) and the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) was fantastic, especially considering the only way to use women players in past FIFA titles was in international teams which were inaccurate and never updated.
Despite all the improvements made, there's still a lot more to be done for women's football to get the coverage it deserves, and there are some great ways that EA can do this in EA FC 24.
More women's football in EA FC 24 is a must
Firstly, a major reason why more women's football is needed in EA FC 24 is to match the popularity of the women's game in real life. Over the last year or so, the appeal of women's football has been proven by attendance for some of the fixtures.
Chelsea and Manchester United's FA Cup final clash had an attendance of 77,390 at Wembley, a world record attendance for a domestic women's fixture. Arsenal sold out the 60,000-seater Emirates Stadium for their UWCL semi-final in May, and European champions Barcelona had 91,648 in attendance when they faced Wolfsburg in the Champions League last year.
With this much appeal, why are only three women's leagues available to play in FIFA 23, and why can these teams only be used in kick-off? When you consider much smaller and less-known men's leagues are available to be used across all game modes in FIFA 23, it's a bit confusing.
Another reason why women's football needs extra coverage in EA FC 24 is to boost representation. With the number of women's players in FIFA 23 extremely limited, it's rare you will see these players anywhere in the game apart from when using these in kick-off.
The most popular game modes in FIFA 23 are Ultimate Team and Career Mode, yet you can't use any women players or teams in these two modes. There have been demands to have women players and teams integrated into these game modes, or at least receive their own version of these game modes in recent years, and EA FC 24 is the perfect place to do this.
We already know there's no issue with men and women players mixing in-game with these two genders already mixing in the Pro Clubs game mode, so why can't they be in Ultimate Team? If EA were to introduce women players to EA Sports FC Ultimate Team, it could easily be a success as it will give Ultimate Team players even more choice for their FUT teams than ever before.
According to leaks, EA will be introducing women's players into EA FC 24 Ultimate Team, with reliable FUT leaker @FUTSheriff revealing women ICONs are set to feature in Ultimate Team. Not a separate mode, but in the Ultimate Team we currently use, which would be a fantastic move by EA if true.
