FIFA has announced that it has partnered with Konami following the football giant’s split from EA last year, with its FIFe World Cup eSports tournament coming to eFootball as a result of the initiative.
FIFA’s last licensed football title was FIFA 23 before it called time on its partnership with EA, and will now offer two FIFAe World Cup for eFootball later this year for mobile and consoles.
FIFA has been one of the most successful titles not only as a consumer game but also as a competitive sport, triggering the growing popularity of esports betting on bookmakers, which you can see in certain territories in Konami’s home country, Japan, for example.
Speaking in a joint statement, FIFA and Konami commented:
The objective of this collaboration is to further boost the joy of the global football community through esports. By allowing players to represent their nations through dedicated competitions, this initiative will take the connection with the community to a new level.
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Meanwhile, Konami’s Senior Executive Offer, Koji Kobayashi, added:
At Konami, we have continued to take on challenges in the development of football simulation and esports. We are very pleased to be able to contribute to the promotion of eFootball in a new dimension through this collaboration with FIFAe. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to FIFA for providing us with this opportunity. We can’t wait for the FIFAe World Cup to begin. We look forward to sharing the enthusiasm, excitement, and joy of our players around the world through the FIFAe World Cup.
FIFA had previously said that it plans on making its own rival franchise to EA’s new EA Sports FC series, although so far nothing official has materialised on that front. Earlier this year it was claimed 2K had acquired the FIFA license and planned to release FIFA 2K25 this year, but nothing has come of that yet.