On March 10, Electronic Arts announced that it was launching an investigation regarding allegations made towards an anonymous employee of the company. According to screenshots that circulated on social media, an EA employee reportedly sold Football Ultimate Team (FUT) cards to players for cash, which would be a violation of Electronic Arts’ User Agreement. Late on Friday, EA Sports provided an update on the investigation.
In a Pitch Notes article on the EA Sports website, the company re-iterated that it was conducting an investigation into the allegations. While EA acknowledged that the investigation was in the early stages, the video game giant stated that its early findings appear to show that questionable FUT activity took place “involving a very small number of accounts and items.”
Although the activity appears to be relatively isolated, EA made it well-known through this letter that any actions of this nature are unacceptable. Electronic Arts stated that once the investigation is complete and it is able to verify the nature of these allegations, it will then proceed to remove any of the cards sold from the game, as well as permanently ban any FIFA player who was involved with buying FUT cards.
EA ended off the letter by explaining these alleged activities fall out of its traditional “content granting” rules. Electronic Arts stated that it does, at times, grant FUT content in certain circumstances. These circumstances include replacing cards that were accidentally deleted, testing new items, as well as granting special items to football players and other dignitaries.
EA noted that due to the ongoing investigation, all content granting will be suspended for an indefinite period.
