NickRunTheFUTMarket , Hypocrisy and Women in FC 27

Photo: EAFC27

The latest EA Sports FC controversy isn't really about women playing football.

It is about whether women should be in Ultimate Team, whether their cards should be capable of outperforming men's cards and, perhaps most importantly, whether some of the arguments being made about the issue actually make sense.

FIFA/FC YouTuber NickRunTheFUTMarket has found himself at the centre of that debate this week after criticising the inclusion and effectiveness of women's players in FC 27 Ultimate Team. His comments have sparked discussion all over social media this week.

There is an important distinction to make here in this debate. Some of the criticism is completely legitimate. Some of it isn't. So let's break it down.

There is a genuine gameplay argument here

Let's start with the part Nick is right to discuss. EA Sports FC is a video game.

It has an underlying gameplay engine, and certain combinations of attributes, body types, animations and physical characteristics can make particular players significantly more effective than their real-life reputation would suggest.

That isn't controversial. The FC community has been discussing the effectiveness of smaller players, agility, balance and responsiveness for years.

The current discussion is essentially that some female cards are particularly effective because of the way the game's mechanics interact with their physical profiles.

Community discussion this week has repeatedly focused on smaller body types being extremely difficult to defend against and the way physical battles can behave differently against highly agile players.

That is a legitimate criticism of the game. Some of the dribbling mechanics are ridiculous, but have been so for many years.

If a 5'4" player is consistently able to shrug off much larger defenders because of an unintended interaction between agility, balance, animations and the game's collision system, EA should fix the gameplay.

It doesn't matter whether that player is male or female. It is a gameplay problem. This is where his first signs of hypocrisy are revealed.

But then the argument changes. The problem begins when the criticism moves from:

"These cards are too effective because of the gameplay mechanics."

to:

"These players shouldn't be better than Messi, Ronaldo or Mbappé."

Those are completely different arguments. Nick has said he has no problem with women being in EA Sports FC.

His argument is that he would prefer them to have their own Women's Ultimate Team and that he doesn't want female players outperforming famous male players in Ultimate Team. He has also argued that Ultimate Team should be about using the "best players in the world", arguing having male and female players together is unrealistic.

But this is where the logic becomes complicated.

Ultimate Team isn't a simulation of real-world football ability. If it were, there would be an enormous number of players who should never be usable.

There are cards in Ultimate Team that become elite because of a particular combination of pace, shooting, agility, body type, animations, playstyles and other gameplay mechanics.

Players who were nowhere near the best footballers in the world can become extremely effective cards.

That isn't a bug. It's fundamental to Ultimate Team. There are also special cards including former players, some of which are dead, and other cards with players out of position etc. So the game has never been realistic by that logic, so drawing the line at women seems very convenient.

So what does "best" actually mean?

This is the question that needs answering. If "best player" means the best real-world footballer, then the argument falls apart very quickly.

Because FC has never worked that way. A player's real-world reputation doesn't determine how good they are in every single gameplay situation.

If "best" means the most effective player inside FC 27, then Nick's argument becomes much stronger.

But then the solution isn't to remove women. The solution is to fix whatever gameplay mechanics are making particular cards disproportionately effective. That is a very different argument.

The hypocrisy in the wider debate

There is another strange part of this controversy. Some people are arguing that women shouldn't be included because they aren't as good as elite male footballers.

But nobody plays Ultimate Team exclusively according to real-world football hierarchy.

People routinely use cards because they are fun. They use players because they have five-star skills or because they use them because they fit a formation or because they use them because of chemistry.

They use them because an Evolution has transformed an otherwise ordinary player into a monster. They use them because the card is broken.

The entire appeal of Ultimate Team is taking players from different eras, leagues and backgrounds and creating a team that wouldn't exist in real football.

That is why the argument that women being effective somehow violates the fundamental purpose of Ultimate Team doesn't really hold up.

Another point that is overlook is nobody is arguing that women are better than men in real life at playing football. That's obviously untrue. But the female ratings are made relevant to other female players, not as a comparison to male players.

That does mean that female players perform just as well or better than many male players. It's a video game, if the women were rated compared to the male standards then it wouldn't make any sense.

"Nobody asked for women in Ultimate Team" is also a weak argument

Another part of Nick's argument is that he doesn't remember the community asking for women to be included in Ultimate Team.

But that's not really how game development works. Players don't vote on every feature before EA adds it.

The same argument could be applied to hundreds of additions throughout FIFA and FC history.

And there is an important difference between saying:

"I personally don't want this feature."

and saying:

"Nobody wants this feature."

The first is an opinion. The second is a factual claim that requires evidence.There are clearly FC players who enjoy having women in Ultimate Team. There are also clearly players who don't.

The existence of disagreement itself disproves the idea that there is one universal community position. If you don't want to use women in the game then don't, but don't try to make a sweeping statement on behalf of everyone else that isn't you. That isn't how the world works.

The strongest argument against women in Ultimate Team

There actually is a coherent argument someone could make.

You could argue that mixing men's and women's football into the same competitive Ultimate Team ecosystem creates a balance problem if EA doesn't accurately model the differences in physical attributes and gameplay.

You could argue that women and men should have their own competitive mode because it would allow EA to balance that ecosystem differently, and makes the game more realistic.

You could argue that Ultimate Team should more closely represent the relative levels of men's and women's football.

Those are all arguments someone can make. You can disagree with them. But they are legitimate arguments.

Here's what isn't an argument

"This woman is better than R9 in FC, therefore women shouldn't be in Ultimate Team."

That's not an argument about game design. That's an argument based on real-world reputation being transferred into a video game.

And it doesn't explain why the card is too effective. If the problem is that a 5'4" player can turn instantly, retain the ball through challenges and exploit animations that larger defenders can't deal with, then talk about that.

Show the gameplay. Compare the animations. Show the statistics. Demonstrate the interaction. Ask EA to fix it.

That's proper criticism.

Simply pointing at a woman's card and saying she shouldn't be better than Ronaldo doesn't actually identify a problem with the game. If you want realism, then why aren't you complaining about the many other unrealistic elements of the game?

This seems to be a double-standard on his part.

You can dislike women's football without sexist undertones

This is another point that has been lost in the online shouting match.

A person is allowed to say:

"I don't watch women's football and I don't want to use women's players on FC27", which is a fine position provided you have legitimate arguments.

That's a personal preference. It doesn't automatically make someone sexist.

Likewise, another player is allowed to say:

"I love having women's players in Ultimate Team." That doesn't make them wrong either.

The problem comes when a personal preference gets dressed up as an objective argument.

"I don't want them in my Ultimate Team" is a preference.

"The game is broken because women are in Ultimate Team" requires evidence.

"These specific cards are broken because of their body types and animations" is a testable gameplay claim.

Those distinctions matter a lot.

EA deserves criticism too

Perhaps the biggest irony is that EA is getting somewhat lost in this argument.

If the community is genuinely finding certain players, male or female dramatically more effective because of their physical profiles, EA should be answering questions about its gameplay engine.

This isn't the first time FC players have discovered that particular body types, animations or attributes can produce enormous advantages.

There is already widespread community discussion about exactly those mechanics.

So instead of arguing endlessly about whether a particular woman should be allowed to outperform a particular man, the better question is:

Why does the game produce that outcome? That's something EA can actually fix.