Kylian Mbappe and Samantha Kerr are the faces of FIFA 23. Source: EA Sports.
For the first time in history, a female footballer has made it on the global FIFA game cover with Australian and Matilda’s captain Samantha Kerr given the honour.
EA Sports made the announcement on Twitter, which also revealed Frenchman and Paris St Germain star Kylian Mbpape to be featured alongside Kerr.
“Two phenomenal forces up front. One ultimate strike partnership,” said EA of the duo.
“A most powerful pair,” commented Xbox.
It’ll be the third time Mbappe has featured on the cover but a first for Kerr who has seen much success playing for Chelsea FC and the Matildas.
She was recently awarded the Golden Boot to make it her seventh in the past six years, after helping Chelsea win a third consecutive Women’s Super League title back in May. Off that she was also voted English football’s woman player of the year with over 40 per cent of members in the Football Writer’s Association poll giving her the honour.
In another milestone, while playing in the Asian Cup earlier this year, she surpassed Tim Cahill to become Australia’s all-time leading goal scorer to now have 56 goals in total.
Although Kerr is the first woman on the global cover, others have featured nationally including her Matildas teammate Steph Catley who was on Australia’s FIFA 16 game cover.
As of 2021 FIFA has sold over 325 million copies worldwide and even got a Guinness World Record as the best-selling video game franchise in the world with FIFA 18 alone selling 25.4 million games.
In May it was announced that FIFA and video game company EA would not renew their partnership over licensing costs and restrictions that wouldn’t allow EA to expand their gamer experience.
Any football game to be released through EA starting in 2023 will be called EA Sports FC and have no affiliation to FIFA.
The full game reveal for FIFA 23 is set for July 20.
