FIFAe World Cup

The FIFAe World Cup, formerly the FIFA Interactive World Cup (FIWC) and the FIFA eWorld Cup, is an esports tournament series held by FIFA. From its inception until 2023, the tournaments were held on the latest incarnation of the FIFA association football video game series. The open qualifying format for the tournament allowed millions to compete in the initial online stages, which resulted in the FIWC being recognized as the largest online esports game by Guinness World Records. Due to FIFA and EA Sports parting ways after the release of FIFA 23 and EA launching their own esports circuit known as EA Sports FC Pro for the EA Sports FC series, the FIFAe World Cup has shifted to a football-focused tournament series, with Football Manager and Rocket League having tournaments in 2024.

The last FIFAe World Cup champion from the FIFA series was Manuel Bachoore from the Netherlands.

History
The inaugural FIWC took place in 2004 in Switzerland, over the years the tournament has grown significantly. In 2010, the FIWC first appeared in the Guinness World Records – but it was not until 2013 that the competition saw the current record of more than 2.5 million players signing up.

On 1 October 2015, the FIWC 16 kicked off, marking the 12th edition of the tournament. For the first time in the history of the competition Xbox One and PlayStation 4 players competed against each other. With the integration of the new consoles the number of participants increased significantly, compared to previous years when the FIWC was only available on PlayStation 3. 2.3 million players attempted to qualify for the Grand Final in New York City. On 22 March 2016, Mohamad Al-Bacha from Denmark won the FIWC title in the Apollo Theater, beating Sean Allen from England in the final match.

In 2018, the FIFA Interactive World Cup (FIWC) was renamed to the FIFA eWorld Cup (FeWC). The 2018 Grand Finals was held between 2 August 2018 through 4 August 2018 in the O2 Arena in London, England. 32 finalists (16 on PlayStation 4 and 16 on Xbox One) competed in the group stage and round of 16 on 2 August 2018, with the second leg of the round of 16 and the quarterfinals taking place on 3 August 2018. The semi-finals and final took place on 4 August 2018.

In October 2020, the FIFA eWorld Cup was rebranded as the FIFAe World Cup as part of FIFA's launch of its FIFAe esports tournament series.

Due to EA and FIFA not renewing their licensing agreement after FIFA 23, the 2023 FIFAe World Cup was the last edition involving EA's football video game series. EA themselves announced a replacement tournament circuit known as EA Sports FC Pro to coincide with the series rebranding to EA Sports FC starting with EAFC 24, with its world championship known as the EA Sports FC Pro World Championship.

On 23 June 2024, FIFA announced that the FIFAe World Cup would return that year with a Rocket League tournament, which consisted of national teams. FIFA later announced on 27 June that the FIFAe World Cup would also feature a Football Manager tournament, officially known as the "FIFAe World Cup of Football Manager".

Online qualification
The FeWC online qualification took place on PlayStation and Xbox networks, and was accessed through the latest version of EA Sports FIFA on Xbox One and PS4. The players qualified via the console playoffs, where the top 16 players made it through to the eWorld Cup finals. Players could also qualify for the FeWC by competing in one of the FIFA Global Series tournaments throughout the season, with the top 16 at the last event automatically qualifying for the FeWC.

In the 2022 and 2023 editions, games were played on PlayStation 5 console only. 128 players were selected for the FIFA Global Series Playoffs, which included 74 via the Regional Global Series Rankings and 54 via Partner Leagues, such as eMLS and the Virtual Bundesliga.

Grand Finals
32 players competed at the Grand Finals of the FeWC. The participants were divided into four groups (two for each console) with the top 16 players moving on to the knockout stage. While the Group stage, Round of 16, Quarter-finals and Semi-finals were played on one console (Xbox One or PS4), the Final was a two-leg match with one game on each console. The Grand Final is a multi-day event with draw and competition being broken up into three days. The winner is crowned in a live show at the end of the event.

In the 2022 and 2023 editions, which were all exclusively played on the PS5, the Group Stage consisted of double round robin single-game groups. Before the 2022 edition, these were two-legged matches in a single round robin format.

World ranking
In 2016, the FIFA Interactive World Cup World Ranking was introduced to help seed the players in the tournament according to their previous results. The ranking taook into account both the qualification phase for the then-current edition and previous FeWC Grand Finals.

Qualification
The national associations that will participate in the FIFAe World Cup of Football Manager are invited based on how many players are actively playing that year's Football Manager. From there, each association will host qualifiers to determine who qualifies for the final event.

Qualification
The 16 national teams that take part in the FIFAe World Cup are decided via the nationalities of the players that made up the Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) Majors for that year. Once the national teams have been announced, players qualify for the tournament via winning their national association's qualifiers, thereby earning the right to represent their country.

Prize fund
The FeWC 2018 champion, Mosaad Al Dossary, received $250,000 in prize money and a ticket to that year's edition of The Best FIFA Football Awards, where he had a chance to meet the greatest players in the real football world. FIWC 2015 Champion Abdulaziz Alshehri from Saudi Arabia was able to meet Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi among many others, while 2016 champion Mohammad Al-Bacha talked to Marcelo Vieira and Manuel Neuer. The runner-up received $50,000 in prize money.

The winner of the FIFAe World Cup 2023, the final edition held on the FIFA series of games, received $300,000 in prize money.

The 2024 FIFAe World Cup of Football Manager will consist of a $100,000 prize pool.

Broadcast
The FeWC Grand Finals is streamed live on YouTube and Twitch. For the first time, the Final Showdown of the FIWC16 was also broadcast on TV and was shown in more than 100 countries around the world. Fox Sports 1 showed the Final live in the United States. The show was moderated by host Kay Murray. Former US footballer Alexi Lalas and Spencer Carmichael-Brown (Spencer FC) analyzed the matches, Leigh Smith and John Strong commentated the games. The trophy was handed over by former Spanish International David Villa.