The announcement of EA Sports FC 26 can’t be far away, as more information has leaked about the game.
With the football season over, barring the polarising Club World Cup, it’s prime time for an announcement from EA Sports.
And now, it has been claimed that Real Madrid and England midfielder Jude Bellingham will be on the cover of EA FC 26.
This is according to reliable leaker FUTSheriff, who also recently leaked the EA FC 26 Standard and Ultimate Edition release dates.
This will be the second year in a row that Bellingham has featured as the franchise’s cover athlete.
After impressing at Borussia Dortmund, where younger brother Jobe is now following in his footsteps, Jude has become one of the biggest names in football as one of Real Madrid’s galácticos.
The English midfielder has become a crucial player for the Spanish giants, recording 38 goals and 27 assists in 96 appearances.
Bellingham is in good company as Erling Haaland, Kylian Mbappe, Eden Hazard, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Lionel Messi have also been cover stars for EA FC and FIFA games in the past.
EA FC 26 new Ultimate Team Icons
As well as leaking the EA FC 26 release dates and cover star, FUTSheriff has also released a list of new Icons.
According to the leak, the following 12 legendary footballers will appear in EA FC 26 with Icon cards in Ultimate Team.
- Zlatan Ibrahimović – Sweden
- Andrés Iniesta – Spain
- Toni Kroos – Germany
- Marcelo – Brazil
- Giorgio Chiellini – Italy
- Francesco Totti – Italy
- Oliver Kahn – Germany
- Cha Bum-kun – South Korea
- Sara Thunebro – Sweden
- Alex Morgan – USA
- Steffi Jones – Germany
- Sissi – Brazil
The return of legendary Swedish striker Ibrahimović is somewhat surprising considering in 2020, he publicly lambasted EA Sports for profiting off his appearance, tweeting:
“Who gave FIFA EA Sport permission to use my name and face?
“I’m not aware of being 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.”
The addition of Kahn to the game could be well-timed too, with the possibility that Bayern Munich’s Allianz stadium could return for EA FC 26.
The same could be said for Roma legend Totti as the club signed a new deal with EA Sports which could bring back the Stadio Olimpico shared by Roma and Lazio.
There’s still quite a wait until you can gamble your money on EA FC Ultimate Team packs but there are plenty of esports betting sites to check out in the meantime.
In my seven years of esports writing, I’ve introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I’m most proud of the latter.
