FIFA esports is growing

Since the release of the first game in the FIFA series, FIFA International Soccer with English midfielder David Platt on the cover in 1993, lots of things have happened within the world of the classic football video game.

In 2004 the first FIFA eWorld Cup took place in Switzerland and nowadays there are many national FIFA eLeagues around the world, like for example the ePremier League, Virtual La Liga and the Virtual Bundesliga. In the ePremier League players must first qualify through a qualification tournament to get into the club play-offs. The winner of the club play-offs enter into the Grand Finals where they are competing for a first prize of £20,000.

Many of the big football clubs in Europe have their own team competing in FIFA esports. Among those are PSG, Ajax, Olympique Lyon, PSV Eindhoven, West Ham and Manchester City. You can also find some of the biggest esports organizations competing in FIFA esports, such as Fnatic and Astralis.

FIFA betting available on many sites

Since FIFA esports has grown in popularity so has betting on various FIFA esports leagues and tournaments. Betting companies have of course taken notice and FIFA betting is now available on many betting sites online.

Depending on the competition there are many different bets and markets available. The most common is of course to bet on which player is to win a certain game, just like in any other sport. At bigger events such as the FIFA eWorld Cup live betting is also available, which means you can bet while a match is underway.

Just like when betting on traditional football many markets are available in FIFA betting. You can for example bet on the full time result, half time result, number of goals and the correct score.

More than 20 million players

The biggest event in the world of FIFA esports is by far the FIFA eWorld Cup. Over the last 10 years the competition has grown drastically, from 2.5 million players in 2013 to more than 20 million players in 2018. Of those, only 32 players qualify for the main tournament, which takes place in August of each year.

The last three eWorld Cup have been hosted in London. To even things out the final match is since 2016 divided into two rounds with one of them played on Playstation 4 and the other one on Xbox One. In 2019 the final was won by German Mohammad Arkous, also known as ”MoAuba” who beat the defending champion Mosaad Aldossary from Saudi Arabia. For his win Mohammad Arkous was awarded a prize of 250 000 dollars.

Since 2019 there is also something called the FIFAe Nations Cup where three players represent each national team. The first and so far only FIFAe Nations Cup was won by France beating Argentina in the final by 3-2. In 2021 the competition was supposed to been taking place in Copenhagen, Denmark but was cancelled due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

The number of people who views FIFA esports online are also steadily increasing. More than 47 million viewers watched the eWorld Cup in 2019 with a total watch-time of over 1,3 million hours.