publisher Electronic Arts has received a fair amount of backlash over the usual design decisions with their games. Loot boxes, static gameplay mechanics from year-to-year, and many more issues are consistent with fans. We’ve seen most of this before, but something new has just occurred that is a bit of unusual territory for EA and the FIFA brand. In this newest bit of controversy, EA has made the decision to remove Marco van Basten from the new FIFA 20 as a result of recent comments he made.
The publisher removed Marco van Basten from FIFA 20 after the former professional football player said “Sieg Heil” in a Fox interview with German football coach Frank Wormuth of Heracles. “Sieg Heil”, which is a salute meaning “hail victory” and used extensively by Nazis and white supremacists, was said to Wormuth as the interview concluded. Van Basten has since apologized, saying that he meant the comments in jest.
Fox has has suspended the commentator for one week while they consider what to do next. And van Basten’s salary will be donated to the Netherlands Institute of War Documentation in the interim. As for what EA did, in an announcement, they are said to have disabled “Marco van Basten ICON items from being available in packs, SBC’s and FUT Draft until further notice.”
This is of course not the first time FIFA, or football in general, has had to grapple with racism and Fascist nonsense. Rather recently in fact, a match between England and Bulgaria turned hostile when Bulgarian fans began taunting some team members with racist slurs, Nazi salutes and other jeers. FIFA and EA both responded then as well. FIFA 20 got a special “No Room for Racism” player kit DLC.
FIFA 20 is out now on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
Source: Game Rant
