Earlier this week, we shared that EA Sports FC 25 will launch on September 27th for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch, and PC.
Further details have emerged, including the highly requested addition of a fully featured single-player career mode for women’s football. For the first time in the franchise, EA Sports FC 25 players can create a manager or player career in one of five major women’s football leagues; England’s Women’s Super League; the United States’ National Women’s Soccer League; France’s Division 1 Féminine; Spain’s Liga F and Germany’s Frauen-Bundesliga. Players will also be able to retire their women’s pro players and cross over to a men’s league as a coach. According to the developers, big licenses are a calling card of EA Sports’ flagship titles, and as a demonstration of their commitment to full parity, this was an essential part of equality in the women’s career mode treatment.
Game design director Pete O’Donnell had this to say, “The key thing that we wanted to do was present the women’s career authentically, and make it feel like it really was, not just like ‘men’s career with women players,”
EA Sports FC 25 will be the second team sports game to fully establish a women’s career mode after NBA 2k21 introduced “The W” for the WNBA. Since then, the mode has evolved into an independent mode with its own unique features.
In an effort to reflect the reality of women’s football, the women’s career mode emphasises grassroots and academy football, which play a huge role in developing talent for parent clubs. For the first time in the franchise, the youth academy component of a manager’s career will also include playable events for both women’s and men’s careers.
Interestingly, women’s careers will have unique financial models which have been developed in close consultation with experts in women’s professional football, including former Gotham FC midfielder Nicole Baxter and 2007’s World Cup winning goal scorer for Germany, Simone Laudehr – both of whom are employed by EA Sports. “The key kind of differences, within women’s football, is the finances,” O’Donnell said. “They’re managing tighter budgets, they’re negotiating a lot shorter contracts, and women’s football is a lot more people moving at the end of contracts when they’re out of contract, adapting to different salary structures, and the realities of smaller transfer portals,” he continued.
As a result, the contract negotiations for top women’s players are a lot more competitive. This, said O’Donnell, helps the women’s career mode feel distinct, encouraging players to consider and meet wholly different challenges.
While a women’s career mode may not appeal to some, this is an exciting and long-awaited breakthrough for many. In Australia, women make up more than 22% of the participation base and this number is expected to rise closer to 50% by 2027. During the 2023 Women’s World Cup, hosted by Australia and New Zealand, the Matilda’s clash with England’s Lionesses attracted a national average audience of 7.13 million viewers, hitting a peak of 11.15 million concurrent viewers at one point during the live broadcast. In April 2024, the 2023–24 A-League Women season set the record for the most attended season of any women’s sport in Australian history.
There is simply no denying that the addition of women’s career mode to the latest instalment of the EA Sports FC franchise is not only a commercially wise and socioculturally attuned step for EA Sports and sports games across the board but an essential and obvious decision.
As a football player, manager, and women’s football fan myself, I’m looking very forward to testing out this new feature… unless my player gets transferred to Tottenham.