The conversation on whether esports will feature in the 2024 Olympics heated up this week after International Olympics Committee president, Thomas Bach, stated: 'We want to promote non-discrimination, non-violence, and peace among people. This doesn’t match with video games, which are about violence, explosions and killing.'

However, he isn't completely against the idea of certain esports being a part of the Olympic Games, saying: 'If somebody is competing at playing football virtually or playing other sports virtually, this is of high interest.'

That leaves FIFA and Rocket League as clear candidates to break down the barrier between traditional sports and esports by becoming the first ever video games to be played in the Olympics.

IOC president Thomas Bach is only interested in 'non-violent' sport themed esport games

The FIFA video game series has been a household name for years but with Rocket League's rapid emergence, a new football game that has overtaken Pro Evolution Soccer as FIFA's biggest rival.

The latter features rocket-powered battle cars flying around an arena in a three vs three football match. It was released to all PlayStation Plus subscribers for free back in 2015 and in January this year, Rocket League surpassed 25 million players.

Impressive numbers but FIFA commentator Leigh 'Deman' Smith wasn't impressed. He started our conversation by saying: 'I mean FIFA doesn't need a great deal of defending really with so many traditional football clubs involved these days in the esports side of things.'

Football clubs from all around the world have been entering the esports scene by signing FIFA players including big European names such as Wolfsburg, Schalke, Paris Saint-Germain, Roma, Valencia, Manchester City, West Ham United and Ajax.

Valencia do also have a Rocket League team but they have struggled to find much success in international tournaments. Both games have large esports organisations involved with Fnatic partnering Roma's FIFA players and Cloud 9 recently acquiring a Rocket League team.

FIFA esport tournaments have attracted interest of some of the world's biggest football clubs

Both commentators agreed their games are easily accessible to non-esport fans, making them ideal candidates for the Olympics. Retired Rocket League player turned commentator, Callum 'Shogun' Keir said: 'Rocket League is one of the most accessible and easy to understand esports out there.

'Anybody can watch it and understand what the objective of the game is, no builds or money management, just score goals and win. It's an ideal target game to be pushed, as esports starts to show up more and more on our television screens.

However, Deman countered: 'FIFA is instantly recognizable to anyone in the public. They see it, know that it's a computer game but understand anyway as it's football.

'Rocket League is similar in that it has a ball and goals, but then you have rocket powered cars flying around the screen, you will confuse the average viewer initially who won't have played the game themselves.

'It's most likely the reason Sky Sports wanted to cover the Fifa Interactive World Cup on their channels for the finals in London and ESPN with all the FUT Champions stops earlier in the year.'

TV coverage has been a big talking point in esports this year and FIFA has lead the way with coverage from BT Sport in addition to the Broadcasters Deman mentioned.

Rocket League also had television coverage recently with the Rocket League Universal Open being broadcast on NBCSN and Syfy as well as the Gfinity Elite Series being shown by BT Sport and the BBC.

Rocket League - Biggest prize pool: £116,000 - Top earner: Kuxir - £34,000 - Tournament finals format: 3 vs 3 in a best of seven series - Predecessors: Rocket League is the successor to Super Acrobatic Rocket Powered Battle Cars Television: BT Sport, BBC 3, NBC, Syfy Advertisement

FIFA 17 - Biggest prize pool: £310,000 - Top earner: Gorilla - £195,000 - Tournament finals format: 1 vs 1 across two legs, one on each console, away goals count - Predecessors: Yearly releases since FIFA International Soccer in 1994 Television: Sky Sports, BT Sport, ESPN Advertisement

FIFA may appear to be the most popular, but Rocket League is drawing in huge viewing figures. The RLCS 3 attracted around 200,000 viewers on Twitch, the FIWC final only received just over 5,000 viewers.

And on top of that, many people argue Rocket League is more skillful. West Ham's professional FIFA player, Jamie 'Jamboo' Rigden recently took to Twitter to express how impressed he was with Rocket League and claimed the game had a higher difference in skill compared to FIFA.

Watching the Rocket League championships makes me realize just how much of a skillgap there is on these games compared to fifa — Jamboo (@WHU_Jamboo) August 13, 2017

This is the biggest advantage Rocket League has over FIFA according to Shogun: 'Top rocket league competitors have a natural ability to be as creative as possible when starting chances for their team and they know the game inside out. Floor, wall, or ceiling, they know almost every shot that can be played and how their opponents will react.

'Rocket League has the appeal of being incredibly pure since it's a physics game. No blaming the game for a bad touch or goofy goalkeeping [we've all seen the videos]. It's all on the player to make their vision a reality.

'One team is not inherently better than the other, everyone on the pitch has the same boost, usually the same car, and the same chance to win. The only difference is the skill of the players.'

Rocket League's Universal Open was broadcast on TV, Shogun says the game takes 'pure skill'

FIFA players try to create teams of players with the best stats possible and have to rely on AI for goalkeepers to save shots and for players off the ball to make a run.

That doesn't mean that FIFA is easy though, Deman says the reliance of AI in FIFA is overstated: 'In FIFA 17 the AI was strong when defending but while people love to argue about RNG [random number generator, the randomness of something in a game], it was always the same pro players reaching the finals this season. Which tells me it's a lot about skill.'

Both games are easy to understand but difficult to play, Rocket League has shown phenomenal growth fora game that has only been out for two years but as pointed out by Deman, FIFA is still ahead in prize fees: 'In terms of future for FIFA, it's looking very bright, the prize fund increased 10 fold last season for FIFA 17 from 20k to 200k for the winner of the FIWC alone and £1.3m overall for the FUT and FIWC competitoins.'

And according to Deman, FIFA's esport competitions will keep growing: 'Next season promises to be even bigger with EA getting fully behind esports, employing a full team of dedicated staff to manage the season. The new game has a new Champions Channel which will also highlight the best games each week as they push towards more global content from the very best players. As for tournaments and prize pool, that's down to EA, we are still awaiting the announcement for their plans, which I presume to be big with it being a World Cup year.'

FIFA is a huge game title with fantastic support from some of Europe's biggest football clubs but Rocket League is continuing to push forward with a passionate community and exciting matches. Both are worthy of being medal sports at the Olympics but it's still hard to choose one over the other, which game do you prefer?