With Europe in love with soccer, (or European Football as it’s also called) it would make sense that the topic of including women in the FIFA Games would come up at Gamescom, which is the largest European trade show dedicated to the games industry. However, EA went on record saying that at least for 2014, women will not be included.

There is a bit of a disconnect between the US and the European market over the game. While soccer is not very poplar in the United States, which prefers the hard hitting world of NFL Football, the soccer that is viewed is mostly filled with women’s teams, who do things like make Olympic history on a regular basis. But in Europe, the focus has always been on the men’s teams.

So you have the US market craving women’s soccer, though the sport in general isn’t very popular, and Europe not really wanting women in FIFA too much, though the sport is incredibly popular.

This came to a head when Fernanda Schabarum of Boca Raton, Florida, in the United States, created a petition to include women in future FIFA soccer games, published by Electronic Arts. The petition is here: https://www.change.org/petitions/tell-ea-sports-to-include-female-characters-on-their-soccer-games

The petition earned over 10,000 signatures. But that was apparently not enough to convince EA to include women in the 2014 version of the game. However, EA says that it has not closed the door on women getting into the game at a future date.