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EA Sports reportedly did not use Kylian Mbappe in the EA FC 24 launch because of Paris Saint-Germain's (PSG) request. The Ligue 1 club were aware that the forward was not going to sign a new deal and thus did not want him used on the cover.
As per a report in Le Parisien, PSG asked EA Sports to change their cover star from Kylian Mbappe. The gaming company chose Manchester City's Erling Haaland ultimately.
The new game cover was unveiled earlier this month and the Norwegian featured alone on the Standard Edition cover.
The Ultimate Edition cover and the launch video featured several stars, current and former, from men's and women's football. However, the FIFA 23 cover star, Kylian Mbappe, was missing.
The report now claims that PSG did not want to include the forward as they knew he was going to leave the club. The move forced EA to switch to the Manchester City star and included several stars and legends on the Ultimate Edition cover.
EA move from Kylian Mbappe on FIFA 23 cover to EA FC 24
EA Sports ended their partnership with FIFA after almost three decades. The commercial deal was discontinued by the Canadian company after they deemed the licensing fee too high.
As per a report in FOX Sports, FIFA were demanding $1.2 billion for every four years to use the name, logo, and reproduce the game every year.
Speaking to ESPN regarding the rebranding, EA FC's brand vice president David Jackson said:
"We came to the name really quickly. Because we wanted to have something that was universally translated across the world in terms of football. Chinese Super League clubs, MLS clubs, obviously English and certain European clubs, all utilise the suffix of FC. And it translates pretty quickly into it being part of the football fabric. So we got to the name really relatively quickly."
Andrew Wilson, the Electronic Arts chief executive, stated that they were now looking forward to working with more companies as the FIFA contract had them deal with just FIFA-approved organizations. He told NY Times:
"It was really about how can we do more for the players, more for the fans, how can we offer them more modalities to play, how can we bring more partners into the game, how can we expand beyond the bounds of the traditional game."
FIFA have stated that they will continue producing games under their name, but have not revealed any more details. For gamers, Kylian Mbappe will go down as the last star on the EA FIFA cover.
