Many people complained about the inclusion of women to Ultimate Team, and misogynistic comments flooded FUT forums and EA announcements. Personally, I was excited that I’d actually be able to FIFA 24 Coins use the women I see play at Prenton Park every other week, for the second-best team in Merseyside, Liverpool Women.

However, EA has seemed to forget that it added women to the game at all. The latest promo, FC Pro Live, ties select players to esports pros, and the players will get buffs the further their affiliated pro goes in the tournament. Players will be hunting after the likes of Randal Kolo Muani or completing the objectives for Diogo Jota (who, for some reason, won’t upgrade like the others), but there’s not a single woman in the promo.

I’m not going to say that every promo needs to include exactly 50 percent women and 50 percent men, but what’s the point of including women in Ultimate Team at all if you’re letting their gold cards languish while the annual difficulty curve leaves them behind? I still use Alex Morgan as a super sub, but I have no female players in my first 11. Of course I snapped up the Triple Threat Leanne Kiernan, but that’s because she was selling for discard price and I’m hoping she’ll get an Evolution before too long.

If women are being excluded from promos, then what’s the point in them being here at all? A cynical player might look to pack weight. We’ve all seen that promo cards have been more difficult to pack this year, and part of that is due to the introduction of women to the player pool. If there are around twice as many cards but promos have the same number of players as previous seasons, they’re going to be twice as hard to pull. This means players will need to buy FIFA 24 Coins buy more packs, and pour more money into EA’s surprise mechanic machine.