In early March, EA issued a lifetime ban to a FIFA Ultimate Team player who racially abused Arsenal football legend Ian Wright on social media. EA was praised for taking a strong stance against the former player, and Wright himself applauded the company’s actions, saying: “they stepped up for me.”
“We are committed to continuing our work in positive play, through actions that will make our communities fun, fair, and safe for everyone,” EA said at the time.
Despite EA’s welcome efforts here, its FIFA game is far from free from racist behaviour. And while it’s the controversial Ultimate Team mode that often grabs the headlines, a Eurogamer investigation has found extensive racist user generated content in another online mode that flies under the radar: Pro Clubs.
Pro Clubs is an online mode in FIFA 21 that allows you to create a virtual player and play your position on the pitch with teammates in 11v11 matches. You’re also able to create a club, fighting for points in an online ranking mode. EA describes Pro Clubs as “a true representation of online football”.
It’s this ability to name clubs and players in Pro Clubs that provides racists with an opportunity to force disturbing content on other players – and given FIFA’s 3+ age rating, children may unwittingly be exposed.
Toxic user generated content in Pro Clubs has been around since 2008, when the mode made its debut in FIFA 09. Racist players, using the “banter defence”, have abused the commentary system to, for example, set their player’s commentary name to “banana” in order to nickname black players with the term. Some players would also change their player commentary name to “negro” (using footballers whose surname is Negro), or “Khune” (using the commentary for Itumeleng Khune, the South African goalkeeper for Kaizer Chiefs F.C.), to cause offense. Players have also reported running into racist caricatures via custom-made player faces.