Konami Digital Entertainment and FIFA announced Thursday that they will work together to promote football-focused esports. To that end, two FIFAe World Cup competitions featuring Konami’s football simulation title eFootball will be held for mobile and console platforms starting today.
Financial terms of this new partnership were not disclosed.
The FIFAe World Cup will begin qualifying rounds around the world today (Oct. 10) in-game across competitions on consoles and mobile, with each platform crowning a FIFAe World Champion. According to the announcement, 18 nations have been invited to be represented at the final events—to be selected based on different factors such as “player base and previous performances of competitors from the respective countries.” The participating member associations of the inaugural FIFAe World Cup featuring eFootball on mobile and console include:
- Argentina
- Brazil
- Costa Rica
- England
- France
- India
- Indonesia
- Japan
- Korea Republic
- Malaysia
- Morocco
- Netherlands
- Poland
- Portugal
- Saudi Arabia
- Spain
- Thailand
- Türkiye
The FIFAe World Cup 2024 in-game qualifiers will feature players from around the world who have won through an in-game qualifier and National Nomination Phases. When users proceed with the in-game qualifiers, they can receive in-game rewards up to 50 eFootball coins, 5,000 eFootball points, 30,000 Exp, and three skill training programs.
The competition schedule:
- Oct. 10-20: Three-part in-game qualifiers.
- Oct. 28 – Nov. 3: National Nomination Phases in the 18 competing countries.
- TBA: Final round of FIFAe World Cup 2024 to be held as an offline event at “the end of 2024.”
Konami’s football game eFootball (which is very popular in Japan) is serving as a replacement for EA Sports’ ultra-popular FIFA title, which was discontinued when EA ended its longstanding deal with FIFA to create its own football title, EA Sports FC.