As the home of football history, we are excited to include eSports in our collection, to represent a new era of football that takes the competitions on the pitch into the virtual realm. At the FIFA eClub World Cup earlier this month, the FIFA World Football Museum was on site to add eSports into our collection for the very first time.
eSports and FIFA
Over a very short period of time, competitive gaming has transformed into the global phenomenon that is eSports. It is much more than gaming, creating links between sport, gaming, amateurs and professionals, and the virtual and physical world. Competitive FIFA, meaning the game bearing the name of the governing body of football produced by EA Sports, has even been part of the FIFA tournaments portfolio since 2004. FIFA has grown the number of eSports tournaments to three, the FIFA eWorld Cup, the FIFA eNations Cup and the FIFA eClub World Cup, which had its fourth edition this year between 7-9 February in Milan, Italy.
We were on site at the FIFA eClub World Cup, as it was a great opportunity for the FIFA Museum to experience the excitement and add eFootball to the collection. The tournament’s focus on clubs meant that we could add a new type of club to our archive, the eSports club. The very first jersey to enter our collection came from ‘Gaucho’ of Borussia eSports, the eSports division of German Bundesliga club Borussia Mönchengladbach.
Australian eSports FIFA team ’Team FUTWIZ’ also added the first jersey to our collection from a club dedicated entirely to eSports. But, American eSports club Complexity moved the museum into an entirely new territory, as both champions ‘Joksan' and 'MaXe’ added their hoodies to the museum collection. Overall, we are very happy to have had such a great reception from all of the clubs participating in the tournament, who can now say they have a firm place in football history.