The legendary Argentinian footballer Diego Maradona is finally returning to EA Sports FC later this week.
Maradonawas pulled from what was then known as the FIFA seriesback in March 2022, following a legal dispute.
However,EAhas now confirmed that Maradona will be returning to the series, and will be added toEA Sports FC 25on February 14.
At the time of writing EA has not provided VGC with information on how Maradona will be available in the game, but it’s likely that he will be added to its popular Ultimate Team mode, almost certainly as one of its most highly rated and rarest players.
EA announced in 2022 that Maradona had been “suspended” fromFIFA 22due to “a third party legal dispute”.
The issue appeared to stem from a debate over who owns Maradona’s likeness rights, with an Argentinian court deciding in 2021 that EA had potentially negotiated with the wrong party, and that it had to remove Maradona from the game until it could be determined who it should have dealt with.
According to a report on Argentinian news websiteInfobaein November 2021, the court found that EA had signed a commercial agreement with Stefano Ceci, the player’s former manager. However, the court came to the conclusion that Ceci had no legal authority to make such deals, and wasn’t able to prove that he did.
Further reading
Maradona’s lawyer Matias Morla claimed that Maradonahad granted the rights to the ‘Diego Armando Maradona’ brandto his company Sattvica before his death, but in March 2021, Sattvica was banned from using Maradona’s brands, following a complaint filed by two of Maradona’s daughters. The ban was overturned later that year, with Maradona’s daughters and Morla continuing to wage a bitter war over who owns the player’s rights.
Maradona has remained present inKonami‘seFootballseries throughout his suspension from FIFA /EA SportsFC, but it’s not immediately clear who it agreed its rights deal with.
