At long last, FIFA 16 will feature women's teams

FIFAand official licensee Electronic Arts have announced that EA SPORTS™ FIFA 16 will feature 12 women's national football teams for the first time in the game’s 23-year history when it launches in September this year.  

Ten years ago, one of the most reviled men in football, FIFA’s chief Sepp Blatter famously quipped, "Let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball. They could, for example, have tighter shorts." Unfortunately this was fairly indicative of FIFA’s attitude to women’s football at the time, but perhaps times are changing.

This year, the women’s World Cup tournament will be held in Canada and to mark the occasion FIFA 16 will feature the women’s national squads of Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Sweden, and the United States of America.

Despite Ubisoft’s claims that women are too hard to render, EA has managed to digitally model over 200 female players including USA’s Abby Wambach, the leading international goal scorer for women as well as men. Wambach has now reached a staggering 182 goals scored in international matches in comparison to Cristiano Ronaldo’s 52.

As part of the Protein Gender Report, our Gender Issue article looked at how the age of the lads’ mag is over with new ‘gendered’ publications taking a more considered and socially conscious approach to their subject matter, hopefully the lad-centric worlds of football and computer gaming are paying attention.