Football is not like NFL or NBA where you just make a single contract with the league and you get everything. Instead you have to go and make a lot of contracts all over the place. The system is just much more fragmented.
Basically EA could just not pay this money to FIFA and call the game EA Football or something and have all the same content except the FIFA name on the box and the world cup (and the national teams that come with it)
I was questioning how much of protection does player statistics have. At least in the US factual information like who’s playing in which team isn’t protected by copyright or trademark.
For famous players, that may even mean they can introduce brand names that otherwise would be ruled confusing. You can’t start selling Louis Vuiton bags, but Messi clothing and shoes won a legal battle against the older Massi brand (https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54193973)
That said, using the names would definitely get you sued but at 250m/year a court case could be worth it.
So while I suspect having the correct number on an in game jersey might run into issues simply linking team names, player names, and player statistics is just factual information.
