In a 2 March social media post, video game giant EA Sports announced it was removing the Russian national football team and all Russian-based clubs from its world-leading FIFA 22 video game in response to the Kremlin’s horrifying invasion of Ukraine.
The copy-led official statement posted across EA Sports’ Instagram and Twitter feed said that the Russian team would be remove from FIFA 22, FIFA Mobile and FIFA Online in what the gamesmaker said was its own small protest response against the war and that it would also ensure a thorough evaluation in terms of related changes to other areas in its games portfolio.
“EA Sports stands in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and, like many other voices in the world of football, calls for peace and an end to the invasion of Ukraine,” said the US video game multinational in its statement. “We will keep the community posted on any actions we take and thank players for their patience as we work on these updates.”
A statement from EA SPORTS FIFA: pic.twitter.com/v3pZvpblgS
— EA SPORTS FIFA (@EASPORTSFIFA) March 2, 2022
EA Sports’ elimination of Russian teams has already begin but would take some time’ to complete.
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This is not the first time that the video game industry has protested the war. Last week, at the start of the invasion, several video game development studios based both in Ukraine and in other parts of the world publicly expressed their rejection of the Russian invasion and also started donation campaigns to seek support for the Ukrainian people.
Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov has also asked Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox to stop supporting the Russian market by blocking all video game console accounts based in Russia and Belarus, canceling the participation of teams and players from these two countries in events of eSports and suspending all video game events in Russian and Belarusian lands.
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