Lionel MessiAP
Updated on: 19 Jul 2026, 2:16 pm
Early last month, when the FIFA World Cup had still not begun, one Indian family, on a train from Chennai to Bengaluru, were excited about the upcoming tournament. In Tamil, they were discussing it. “When does FIFA begin?” one of them asked. “In a few days.” Nobody in India refers to the cricket World Cup as ICC. Nobody here refers to the Olympics as the IOC. The upcoming Commonwealth Games has never been referred to as the Commonwealth Sport, the body responsible for the conduct of that event. So how did the football World Cup alone come to be known by an abbreviation derived from the body controlling the sport.
Take a look around all the Indian media houses covering the World Cup. Some of them have sections called ‘FIFA’. Others have ‘FIFA’ in their headline without the words World Cup. A few have gone with ‘FIFA 2026’.
The answer lies in a video game, a genius marketing strategy and hundreds of millions of dollars.
In the early 90s, when the world of video games had initially exploded across the globe, FIFA wanted in. The governing body entered into an agreement with Electronic Arts (EA) to make FIFA-branded games. EA, who had already made a big splash in the US gaming market, saw an opportunity. That’s how FIFA International Soccer was born in 1993. Every year from then, EA used to make FIFA-titled video games. The cover would typically contain one of the best players at the time with the letters ‘FIFA’ in big, bold lettering. FIFA 98. FIFA 99. FIFA 2000. FIFA 2001. And so on.
Around the time when most of India’s millennials had become teenagers, an aspirational country started welcoming personal computers into their homes. Because the pricing was a touch high, a lot of kids used to download the game from torrents or getting a ‘cracked’ CD from their friends. For a lot of these children, FIFA acted like a gateway drug into an unreal world.
They couldn’t believe they could control David Beckham and Manchester United (the default club of choice for many Indians at the time) in a video game. All of them, first and foremost, used to see this as a ‘FIFA’ game and not a ‘football’ game because of the four-letter word on the cover or how the game was advertised. What none of them knew at the time was FIFA’s overall contribution to the games themselves ended with them lending their name on the cover. A former EA official had famously described the governing body’s contribution as ‘four letters on the front of the box’. They used to pay FIFA to use their name and World Cup-related branding for that. It was reported that the licensing agreement between FIFA and EA was worth anywhere between $125mn to $175mn on an yearly basis
The explosion of the budget smartphone market in India similarly catapulted the popularity of the FIFA gaming series on mobile phones. In the interim, EA kept tweaking, adding or subtracting things. They got into direct licensing agreements with 1000s of players, 100s of teams and a lot of leagues, including all of the top European ones. So even if the likes of Pro Evolution Soccer had better gameplay, only one game had real life names thanks to the agreements in play.
While hardcore gamers preferred PES, a lot of Indians wanted the actual thing. Why play with Man Red (Manchester United), North London (Arsenal) or Ravoldi (Rivaldo) when you could experience the thrill and feel of something genuine. Over time, the people who bought consoles saw the FIFA games as must have.
Take for example, Harish Rajagopalan, a Chennai-based techie who has played the games in different avatars for the last two decades.
“I have been an avid supporter of Arsenal for more than two decades,” he tells this daily. “The connection started with scoring tons of goals on FIFA playing for Arsenal as the first available team on demo. Now they have parted ways (more than on that later) but the brand recognition is forever, synonymous with the sport itself.” There a lot of Indians like Harish, casual gamers. There are also hardcore gamers.
Messi appeared on the cover of FIFA four times
This kind of popularity led to India qualifying for the World Cup, the online version. In fact, in 2022, the country was ranked inside the top 20. “As of February 4, 2022,” the All Indian Football Federation (AIFF) proudly states on their website, “India ranks among the top 20 nations in the world (19th) in the FIFAe Nations Series Ranking, beating heavyweights like Spain, Belgium and the United States of America among many others.
“The mission of the new eFootball project was to identify and develop the football gaming talents in the country as well as to promote fan engagement in the Indian football community through eSports.”
Saksham was one of those who traded his cleats for.joysticks. When a ligament damage in college put paid to his hopes of representing India on the field, he worked towards representing the country
Kylian Mbappe appeared on the cover of FIFA three timesFile
Having played FIFA from 2005, the ace gamer signed a contract with a team co-owned by former Liverpool and Real Madrid midfielder Nuri Sahin. “I started playing for country a few years into my professional journey and I got called up for national team,” he tells this daily. “I was part of the Indian national team that played at FIFAe World Cup in Saudi Arabia in 2023 and 2024, two different World Cups.
“FIFA was a path that bridged that gap for me. It was the closest thing to football for me and I got to hoist the Indian flag on international soil while playing at World Cup.I’ve seen lows but my greatest highs came through FIFA. Even my current job is due to my contribution in the game.”
Indeed. He now works at EA.
Over the last few years, post the split between EA and FIFA (the latter wanted more money to renew the deal and EA walked away), they have gone their own ways. EA Sports still makes games but they are called EA Sports FC while FIFA’s own titled games finally took off after multiple delays. India may be a relative speck on the EA-FIFA map but there are anecdotal stories about how Indian retailers continued to sell EA Sports FC as ‘FIFA’ even as late as 2024.
It’s why for the scores of people who grew up playing the game in India and elsewhere, the World Cup and the sport itself, at least for a brief while, came to be represented by a four letter word. It meant the world to them.
FIFA
Lionel Messi
FIFA World Cup
EA Sports
fifa 2026
EA Sports FIFA
