With one UAE Pro-League club already in the game, it's clear that the EA FC 24 Coins league has plenty of fans who are eager to see more Middle Eastern content come to the annualized franchise. There's certainly a large target market there with EA Sports already investing into licensing the top flight from Saudia Arabia, so why not extend the courtesy to one of their neighbors? With the 2022 World Cup due to be hosted in Qatar, a focus on the Middle East is certainly warranted.
With over 1.3 billion people estimated to call India home, the South Asian country has a lot of fans that are hungry to see their own professional league represented in EA Sports FC 21. The Indian Super League doesn't have the high-budget balances that clubs in the Chinese Super League provide, but the six-year-old Indian professional competition features ten teams that deliver plenty of entertainment for the masses all the same.
The league is home to India's best-ever player, Sunil Chhetri, who has accumulated some 72 goals in 112 appearances for his country. Other international players like Miku, David James, Tim Cahill, and Iain Hume have all played in the league at one point or another, with the bulk of the league's rostered players hailing from the home country itself. With over a million football fans attending ISL matches last year alone, there's evidently a large domestic audience interested in the Indian Super League.
While most football fans will think of Major League Soccer when it comes to football in the USA, the country's second-tier league hosts some 36 teams split across two conferences. There are plenty of second divisions already in EA Sports FC 21. with the likes of England, Germany, France, and Italy all having their second divisions included in the upcoming game.
Here's the catch about the USL: 15 of those 36 teams are official affiliates of MLS clubs, which means many of those are 'B Teams' of clubs in the US top flight division. This will make the league less attractive to some, but all-in-all it adds an explosion of clubs in North America. These clubs managed to pull in some 2.8 million spectators to stadiums around the country last year, with many more fans tuning in to watch matches online. Suffice to say, there's definitely a lot of interest in US second division football.
While there's no promotion or relegation between the USL and Major League Soccer, EA Sports FC Coins it's inclusion would still have another huge benefit in EA Sports FC 21: it would allow for a much fuller version of the US Open Cup to play out, and that'd make Career Mode with an MLS (or, er, USL) team much more interesting. Plus, there'd be plenty of sensible options to send MLS players out on loan to: as things currently stand, a Career Mode MLS experience often involves loaning out youngsters to other MLS teams, and that's just something that doesn't happen in real life. With the authentic-looking game mode getting a renewed focus from EA Sports, what better time than now to make the US-based football experience more authentic than ever?