No plans to include female players in FIFA

NewsPublish Date 14/08/2012 - 11:47am GMT+1

Rutter confirms EA Sports not currently considering inclusion of women's teams.

FIFA producer David Rutter has confirmed that EA Sports currently has no plans to include female football players in the FIFA series.

Speaking to CVG, Rutter said "We get literally thousands upon thousands of suggestions from our fans for new features and we have to evaluate those suggestions, such as the inclusion of female players in the game, against our resources, priorities and overall fan feedback. At present, we don't have plans to include female players in the game."

After the massively successful women's international Olympic tournament at London 2012, a petition has been set up by change.org to encourage EA Sports to include women's football in FIFA. The US based petition, where women's soccer is very popular, states "The US Department of State says that over 40% of soccer players in the US are girls".

The petition continues, "Young girls can't be portrayed by male video game characters. We want them to be able see themselves in the games they love, as the soccer players that inspire them.

"Don't restrict our choices to Messi, Rooney, Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo. Allow girls and boys to play with Wambach, Sawa, Morgan, Cristiane, Miyama, Rapinoe, Marta, Hope Solo, Mia Hamm, Birgit Prinz."

FIFA 13 launches on September 25 in the US and September 28 in Europe.

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FantasyMeister

So... 2,000 signatures later and the petition is still way off its target of 19,000. Just posting to say thanks to those of you for putting up with my Facebook spammage about it (and thanks for signing also to those that did!), but just a little surprised at the low overall turnout worldwide so far. I figure the petition needs more coverage because it can't, surely, be apathy in the gaming community?

Especially when you consider that the US Womens' Team are Olympic Champions, Japan were Silver Medalists and GB were quarter finalists (and scored some amazing goals along the way).

Posted 18:21 on 16 August 2012

Thanks for the petition link. Duly signed. I forget how many times I've asked EA to include female players in FIFA but I take every chance to do so.

P.S. At the time of writing they need 16,665 more signatures to hit their target, so pass the link on, share on Facebook, Tweet it and do whatever you can. Maybe if we hit that target within a few days the suggestion might actually get a more serious look from EA.

Petition Link: Change.org

Posted 13:05 on 14 August 2012