Electronic Arts announced it is removing Russian national teams and clubs from two of its sports games, FIFA 22 and NHL 22. In both cases, the respective sports' international associations had suspended Russian national teams and clubs from real-life competitions until further notice.
EA Sports stands in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and like so many voices across the world of football, calls for peace and an end to the invasion of Ukraine.
In line with our partners at FIFA and UEFA, EA Sports has initiated processes to remove the Russian national team and all Russian clubs from EA Sports FIFA products including: FIFA 22, FIFA Mobile and FIFA Online. We're also actively evaluating related changes to other areas of our games. We will keep our communities up to date on any actions taken, and thank players for their patience as we work throu these updates.
Following the IIHF's suspension of all Russian and Belarusian national and club teams from IIHF competitions, we will be removing these teams from NHL 22 within the coming weeks.
We stand with the people of Ukraine and join the voices around the world calling for peace.
Russian drivers have also been banned from participating in UK motorsport events, which means Formula 1 driver Nikita Mazepin won't be able to compete in the Grand Prix scheduled to take place at Silverstone on July 3rd. We'll have to see whether EA adopts similar measures for its F1 game.
The news comes after the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov asked gaming companies such as Xbox and PlayStation to leave the Russian market while the conflict rages on. He also called for developers and publishers with offices located in Russia, such as Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Riot Games, Gameloft, and Wargaming, to close them.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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