England Football today announced Alfie Calder as the winner of the EE Connected Club Cup, the inaugural esports FIFA 22 competition.
Alfie from Nottingham won the title after competing in the final against five of the nation’s top grassroots FIFA 22 players at Wembley Stadium connected by EE.
Each of the finalists also played against England footballers, Beth England, Jess Carter, Declan Rice, Aaron Ramsdale (Arsenal’s goalkeeper, pictured right), Jarrod Bowen, Abdou Jobe, Jamie Clarke, Harry Boorman and Will Palmer and Excel Esports pro FIFA esports player Spencer ‘Gorilla’ Ealing, in exhibition matches.
Hosted at Wembley Stadium, the final of the Connected Club Cup saw grassroots gamers and fans follow the action live on England Football’s Twitch channel as it was livestreamed over EE Full Fibre. Fans watched as Brad Colston from Burnley, Alfie Calder from Nottinghamshire, Luke Downing from Norwich, Harvey Waters from Salisbury, Lolingo Weye from London and Ben Evans from Aylesbury went head-to-head.
England Football and EE announced the Connected Club Cup a few months ago.
The finalists competed in a two-leg round-robin tournament (each player played against every other player in turn) with matches played on both Xbox and PlayStation, all streamed over EE Full Fibre.
All semi-finalists won a signed England men’s shirt from Euros 2020 plus two tickets to watch England vs Germany at Wembley in September. As well as this, the finalists also won a subscription to EE Full Fibre.
“It has been such a fun day being able to meet and play with the England players from the men’s, women’s and deaf team was such a great experience. Winning the inaugural Connected Club Cup was the icing on the cake!”
Alfie Calder
And as well as the above, the winner also received a trophy, signed Xbox X Series and X1 signed controller (signed by England football talent) plus two tickets to a Wembley concert.
EE is lead partner of the Home Nations Football Associations, and Connected Clubs is a digital and football skills initiative.
The idea of the Connected Club Cup was to showcase the strength of an ultrafast gigabit connection powered by EE.
Connected Club Cup winner Alfie Calder said: “To come back from two nil down in the last match to win the EE Connected Club Cup final was incredible. It has been such a fun day being able to meet and play with the England players from the men’s, women’s and deaf team was such a great experience. Winning the inaugural Connected Club Cup was the icing on the cake!”
Navin Singh, Commercial Director at the FA, commented: “I am looking forward to following Alfie and all the other finalists’ journeys in esports, and hope that this competition has encouraged many more football fans and gamers up and down the country to get involved with the sport.”
Pete Jeavons, Director of Marketing Communications at EE, stated: “Through the Home Nations Football Associations, we have connected 70 grassroots clubs across the four Home Nations to date. Through EE’s products and services, we are helping to transform these grassroots clubs into community hubs. Our goal is to not only support the football teams, but also to host a variety of events and activities that bring the wider community together across the UK.”
For more information on the Connected Club Cup you can follow battlefy.com/connectedclubcup, and you can read more FIFA esports news here
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
