



You might not be aware of this, but there are currently two Fifa scandals going on. One is an astonishing tale of corruption, bribery and cover-up over many years.



This article is not about that. There are lots of other articles about that on the Guardian today, by writers who follow the men’s game and the fallout from Fifa’s decisions far more closely than I have. This is about the other scandal.



This is about women in Fifa 16.



This year, the women’s World Cup tournament will be held in Canada, and for the first time 24 teams will take the field (the men’s game has 32). Also for the first time, 12 of those teams will be represented in EA’s upcoming Fifa game. Despite Ubisoft’s claims that women are too hard to render, EA has somehow done the impossible and digitally modelled more than 200 of them, each a recognisable simulacrum of a real human person who is very good at playing football. World class, in fact.

For some reason, some people are troubled by this development. Some of them seem genuinely not to understand that women are capable of existing, playing both football and videogames, and enjoying the intersection of those things - never mind that men might enjoy the women’s game too. Others seem concerned that the mere existence of imaginary versions of women in a simulated version of a sport they enjoy will harm them, or possibly society, in unimaginable ways. Perhaps feminism will be involved, as it was with Mad Max so very recently.

Sepp Blatter suggested that hotpants would significantly improve the women’s game by making it more fun to watch

It’s not as though the women’s game has been embroiled in scandal, compared to the men’s game. Ten years ago, for instance, Sepp Blatter suggested that hotpants would significantly improve the women’s game by making it more fun to watch, a sentiment that would be right at home in the YouTube comments under yesterday’s EA announcement.



And in Canada this year, the women’s teams will be playing on artificial turf, potentially putting them at a higher risk of injury. A lawsuit that could have changed the situation was refused a quick hearing and was dropped in January after it became clear the timescale for a decision was impossible. And some players were threatened in the process. Incidentally, the men’s World Cup is always played on grass.

By comparison to the men’s game, obviously, these scandals are nothing at all. And we’re talking about pretendy videogames here, not ones that involve flesh-and-blood humans – we’re talking about representation, not reality. This “scandal”, the one where women who play a sport are represented in a videogame about that sport, is not a scandal at all, no matter how many people are horrified or bemused by the possibility that such a thing could happen.

In Fifa 15, the last instalment of the franchise, there are more than 16,000 players. All of them are male. (Many of them are not as good at football as the women’s World Cup players.) There are 23 players in a World Cup squad. This suggests that approximately 1.7% of the players in Fifa 16 will be female.

But one of them is Abby Wambach, the USA’s top goalscorer, playing her last World Cup and doing so as an out gay woman. Alex Morgan and Hope Solo will be there – in fact the entire US women’s team, who are a joy to watch, will be playable, so I can finally live my dream of playing football for the USA team in the guise of these 23 astoundingly talented and powerful women. Sadly Homare Sawa, who led Japan to victory in 2011 and is slated to play her sixth world cup next month, doesn’t seem to have made the cut – Japan isn’t one of the 12 teams listed. But maybe next year EA might go as high as 3.4% female, and include all 24 world cup teams.

Women play football. Women play videogames. EA has done a good thing for representation in both those fields by responding to these facts, and to the daft outrage about their decision. And those who don’t like it can take their balls and go home.