FIFA has teamed up with the biggest rival studio to EA Sports and its FC games

Despite loads of players still referring to the FC games as 'FIFA', football 's international governing body has signed with EA Sports ' biggest rival for its esports series.

FIFA has reached an agreement with Konami and eFootball as the game the FIFAe World Cup will be played on.

Konami made the Pro Evolution Soccer series which really rivalled EA Sports' FIFA games through the 2000s.

Pro Evolution Soccer kept going until 2020 when it was eventually rebranded as eFootball and became a free-to-play game.

Although UFL is on the horizon to hopefully shake things up in the world of football games, eFootball is the only other competition EA Sports FC really has at present - and even then it's safe to say it's not stiff competition either.

EA has cornered a huge part of the market with a lot of exclusive licensing agreements with the majority of the top European leagues which left Konami's offering picking up what was left.

But now eFootball will host FIFA's official esports World Cup tournament.

Koji Kobayashi, senior executive officer at Konami, said: "We have continued to take on challenges in the development of football simulation and esports. We are very pleased to be able to contribute to the promotion of eFootball in a new dimension through this collaboration with FIFAe."

Romy Gai, chief business officer at FIFA, said: "We are incredibly excited to join forces with KONAMI. This collaboration aligns perfectly with our mission to promote football globally and to provide a platform for players to showcase their skills."

Two different FIFAe World Cup events will take place later in 2024 on console and mobile. The qualifying round has already started.

18 nations have been invited to participate, including England, Argentina, Brazil, France and Spain.

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