MINO RAIOLA revealed at least 300 players have joined Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the fight against EA Sports’ use of player name and image rights in FIFA 21.
The super agent insists he will not give up the battle with EA Sports, world football governing body Fifa and the players’ union Fifpro.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Mino Raiola are working out how to take on Fifa, Fifpro and EA Sports over image rights used in FIFA 21Credit: Instagram @iamzlatanibrahimovic
Ibrahimovic took to social media on Monday calling for an investigation into FIFA 21, alleging EA Sports used the AC Milan striker’s name and face without permission in their video game.
Spurs star Gareth Bale followed up Zlatan’s tweet with his support to find out who allowed the developers to use his rights.
And Raiola claimed this is ‘the beginning of something new’ with hundreds of players also demanding answers from the sport.
He told The Telegraph: “It won’t just be Zlatan or Gareth Bale. We have around 300 requests from players.
“We will go until the end, if necessary, against Fifa and Fifpro and everybody who sells rights they don’t have.
“This is one of the biggest disgraces involving Fifa who want to weaken the players to become slaves.
“But I will not allow that. Zlatan is not a marionette, Zlatan is not someone you can tell to do something he doesn’t want to do.
“The nice thing about this is that it is being brought by players. He is committed to the cause.
Gamers can use the AC Milan striker in the latest edition of the game
The powerful agent has already received 300 requests from players trying to get to the bottom of the issueCredit: Getty – Contributor
“The question is very simple: Fifa and Fifpro are profiting from the rights that EA Sports happily buy from them but they buy rights that they don’t have.
“The individual image rights of the player are not with Fifa, Fifpro or AC Milan. They belong to the player himself.
“If EA Sports wants to continue the business like they do we will bring them to court but not only that we will bring to court everyone who is selling the rights that they don’t have. So if that is Fifpro, that’s Fifpro. If that is Fifa, that’s Fifa.”
Ibrahimovic opened the debate with his tweet which explained he is not a member of the union Fifpro and therefore questioned who had given EA Sports permission to his likeness.
He said: “Who gave FIFA EA Sport permission to use my name and face? @FIFPro?
“I’m not aware to be a member of Fifpro and if I am I was put there without any real knowledge through some weird manoeuvre.
“And for sure I never allowed @FIFAcom or Fifpro to make money using me.
“Somebody is making profit on my name and face without any agreement all these years. Time to investigate.”
Gareth Bale weighed in on the debate, adding: “Interesting… what is @FIFPro? #TimeToInvestigate.”
EA Sports told SunSport they are allowed to use the pair’s details due to deals they have in place with AC Milan and the Premier League.
A statement read: “We are aware of discussions around licensing of players in EA Sports FIFA. The current situation being played out on social media is an attempt to draw FIFA 21 into a dispute between a number of 3rd parties and has little to do with EA Sports.
“To be very clear, we have contractual rights to include the likeness of all players currently in our game. As already stated, we acquire these licenses directly from leagues, teams, and individual players.
“In addition, we work with Fifpro to ensure we can include as many players as we can to create the most authentic game.
“In these instances, our rights to player likenesses are granted through our club agreement with AC Milan and our long-standing exclusive partnership with the Premier League, which includes all players for Tottenham Hotspur.”
Zlatan Ibrahimovic calls for investigation into FIFA 21 as EA Sports ‘use his name and face without permission’
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
