EA is investigating claims of an employee selling FIFA 21 Ultimate Team cards

FIFA 21
(Image credit: EA)

EA, the developer and publisher of FIFA 21, is investigating claims that an EA employee has been selling in-game FIFA 21 Ultimate Team items directly to players for huge profits.

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As first reported by Eurogamer, the hashtag "EAGATE" first appeared on Twitter earlier this week, along with unverified screenshots of direct messages that were allegedly sent by an EA employee. These messages claimed to show the employee offering to sell in-game FIFA 21 items to players for thousands of euros. 

The tweets show that this person was trying to sell some incredibly rare FIFA 21 Ultimate Team cards. These items in particularly rare, including a 97-rated Prime Icon Ronaldo, as well as other Prime Icon players such as Patrick Vieria and Johan Cruyff. 

To obtain these sorts of cards in the game usually, players would either need to earn coins to buy them on the market - which is no easy task, considering how rare and highly sort after they are - or get exceedingly lucky and find them in a pack. The odds of that happening though are incredibly small, which is why EA Gate is so controversial. 

Outside of this, EA is in the midst of a promo for FIFA 21 Ultimate Team, offering to give out free packs to players just for signing in. The free packs are on offer for anyone who has played FIFA 21 since it first released in October 2020, and marks the beginning of the FUT Player Days campaign, aimed at rewarding returning players with fancy in-game items.

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Hirun Cryer

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.