Global soccer's governing body FIFA has extended its commercial deal with Japanese video game developer Konami, through 2026.
Through a tie-up unveiled today, the eFootball game title produced by Konami will be one of the official competition games used during the next two iterations of the FIFAe World Cup, the governing body's annual showpiece competition.
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This year's FIFAe World Cup – the first edition of the tournament was held in 2018 – will take place in Saudi Arabia in December.
The initial collaborative agreement struck between FIFA and Konami became public last October, covering the 2024 FIFAe World Cup cycle (two tournaments ended up taking place, one on mobile and one via games consoles).
The extension was unveiled during the eFootball World Championship event taking place currently in Tokyo, Japan.
It signifies another cycle without FIFA publicly developing an in-house eFootball title – as was widely expected by the esports industry when soccer's worldwide governing body broke its long-standing ties with Konami rival EA Sports in 2023.
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By GlobalDataEA Sports stopped producing the FIFA game, which had been one of the most profitable franchises in video game history, generating a reported $20 billion in sales over the last two decades, in mid-2023 – at which point FIFA said it would now release its own video games.
However, the body has so far not managed to release a competitor to EA Sports’ FC series.
Komani, meanwhile, has been expanding its esports footprint, through the eFootball Championship 2024 Club Event with its European club partners, and has also jointly hosted the eJLeague eFootball tournament with the Japan Professional Football League.
The 2024 Konami-supported version of the FIFAe World Cup, according to reports, attracted around 14 million players to take part in the initial global qualifying stage.
The final of the console tournament was watched by over 400,000 viewers as a peak audience – a sign of eFootball's growing attraction and ability to bring in substantial audiences.
In June last year, meanwhile, FIFAe also partnered with car soccer video game Rocket League.
