FIFA 23 may have been the first edition of the franchise to feature women’s clubs, but it appears EA Sports FC plans to things a step further—and that step is simply too far, according to a particularly angry group of gamers.
Amid leaks that EA FC will allow players to pair men and women together in its Ultimate Team mode, some supposed FIFA fans have cried foul, complaining that it’s not “realistic” to have Alex Morgan and Mbappe on the same pitch or with similar attributes. Whether it was ever realistic for Messi and Pelé to do the same thing is beside the point too, apparently.
This swath of fury-filled fans, as gaming journalist Dom Sacco pointed out, say that women are smaller, weaker, and less skilled than their male counterparts, and therefore, should never intermingle with the men in Ultimate Team, or at the very least be pretty much unplayable statistically. Some FIFA players even claim they won’t play EA FC because women could potentially be in the same match as men.
Whether these people actually do end up boycotting EA’s first non-FIFA soccer game remains to be seen, but regardless, their complaints don’t make a lick of sense.
Firstly, if the issue is “realism,” then you wouldn’t want to play Ultimate Team anyway because the whole point of the mode is to essentially create a dream team of players with outrageously inflated stats. And if we’re being honest, FIFA in general has been infuriating to many because of the various bugs, animations, and unrealistic attributes seen throughout its history. So if you want realism, maybe play real-life football.
And secondly, the idea that women can’t possibly match up with men in a video game because of the physical and skill differences simply ignores logic. Modern-day male footballers are, by and large, bigger, stronger, and more skilled than at any point in history. Sure, there are exceptions, but football has certainly evolved and become better as a whole.
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Simply put, if you snagged 11 of the best players from the 1960s and time-machined them to now, they wouldn’t stand a chance against even the worst teams, including Chelsea. So what the hell does it matter if women footballers can’t hang with the men when the older players’ stats aren’t accurate compared to current players?
If you’re that upset that EA FC possibly, maybe, could be including women in Ultimate Team, I’d suggest getting a new hobby.
