Yesterday EA Sports announced that it will remove the Russian national team and Russian clubs from the game fifa 22. The announcement came as the Russian invasion of Ukraine entered its second week. As the news spread, the game’s community began to react.
Here is the original statement:
In addition to the national team fifa 22 contains three Russian Premier League teams – Lokomotiv Moscow, Spartak Moscow and PFC CSKA Moscow. All three will be removed.
What is interesting about this statement is that it does not reveal the fate of individual Russian players in the game. Clubs and teams will be removed but players are understood to remain.
Community reactions to the news have ranged from supportive to concerned to downright insane.
Some asked if EA could do more to support Ukraine beyond what is ultimately a step to ensure continued smooth PR.
Some did not want every Russian citizen to be tarred with the same brush.
Others expressed a desire for FUT cards from Ukrainian football manager Andriy Schevchenko. Schevchenko played for Dynamo Kyiv, AC Milan, Chelsea and the Ukraine national team in the 90s and 2000s. He returned to Dynamo Kyiv in 2009 and retired in 2012 to pursue a career in politics.
Even more begged EA not to remove Lev Yashina Soviet soccer player widely regarded as one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time.
Aside from the memes and glitches that always accompany posts like this, there was also a lot of anger for EA saying anything at all. Aside from the usual explosions of whataboutism and questions about what such a move does, the broad sentiment was a sense that EA’s motives were far from genuine.
There’s no reason to believe them are not real. A demonstration of support in a game by fifa 22Size, Value and Importance of to EA is a sensible one. EA has previously shown that it is willing to pull content from the game based on it serious real events. Nevertheless, the community is quite skeptical about the announcement.
We reached out to EA Australia this morning to confirm whether players like Yashin will remain in the game or if they all face the ax along with the clubs. We’ll update this piece when we know more.
This article is republished by Kotaku Australia. Read the original article.
