EA Sports relaxed over FIFA 16 boycott threat

Senior executives at software giants EA Sports are reported to be relaxed over the threat of a boycott of FIFA 16 from supporters of Championship leaders Sevco.

Details of the clubs involved in FIFA16 started to emerge earlier in the week with confirmation coming yesterday that no Scottish clubs outside of the Premiership will be included.

FIFA 16 is the biggest selling football game worldwide accounting for around 25% of the company’s sales. In the last audited accounts 12,450,000 units were sold worldwide for the 2013 edition with sales for the 2014 game expected to be around 15,000,000. Sales in the UK for 2013 were around 2.5m.

With EA Sports confirming that there will be no lower league Scottish clubs involved furious fans of Sevco set up a petition which attracted 2,000 signatures within 24 hours. The twitter account for FIFA 16 has 3.06m followers with the official advert on You Tube being viewed 2,500,000 times.

It’s believed that a red card protest- similar to the Say No To Liquidation protest in 2012- has been discussed to get the message across with social media campaigns also planned.

The petition states: “Rangers were not included in the final list of teams for FIFA 16, we would like to know why? And to have them included in an updated version.”

Among the most popular comments are:

I’m a bitter, deluded fool with an entitlement complex. Weearrapeeepul- Tom Kelly

we should bein the we are the most successful club on the planet- Andy Lee

I’m a big fan of FIFA and to not have my favourite team in it will be sad- Ian Milne

Rangers are a good team and shld be in fifa- Liam Stewart

I simply will NOT buy the game if my Beloved Rangers arn’t included in it. I spend a lot of money on FIFA POINTS and it’s your move or your loss- Ben Munro

EA are money grabbing fools who are all that is wrong with the games industry, just fix it- Rhuraidh Garness

No Rangers ? no buy simple ! WATP- John Wilson

Iv always got the game every 1 that’s come out and rangers are my team won’t be wasting my money on any more unless we bk in- William Stevenson

With the Ibrox trademarks and intellectual properties held as security by Mike Ashley EA Sports have been unable to come up with agreement with the sportswear giant.

A spokesman for EA Sports said: “We can confirm we did not reach a licensing agreement with Rangers and they are not in FIFA 16.

“However, newly-promoted Hearts will feature in the game with the other 11 authentic clubs from the Scottish Premiership.”

With the new regime at Ibrox refusing to repay the £5m loan owed to Mr Ashley the finances of the club are believed to be concerning with little likelihood of further borrowing.

Meanwhile on the park Mark Warburton is believed to be close to completing a deal for John Eustace despite interest from a number of other clubs.