Saudi Arabia’s $55 Billion EA Buyout Puts It at the Center of Football Gaming and Global Sports
- Vismay Bisht
- 5 hours ago
- 5 min read
How the FIFA-EA Split Paved the Way for a New Era
In 2022, FIFA and EA Sports got divorced over money. The licensing cost FIFA required was almost double what EA had previously paid for using their name. They rejected the demand and took a more radical step; they kept all the deals it had taken them 30 years to build, got rid of the term 'FIFA,' and let the FIFA 23 football game be the last one under that title.
Both sides insisted they didn't need each other anymore. Then, separately, Saudi Arabia arrived on both sides of the breakup.
On August 4, 2026, EA officially became a private company. A consortium led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, alongside US firm Silver Lake and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, closed a $55 billion buyout reportedly the largest leveraged buyout in history. Regulatory filings put the real split at PIF 93.4%, Silver Lake 5.5%, Affinity 1.1%. PIF didn't cash out the 9.9% stake it had already held for five years; it rolled that in. The rest of the money came from roughly $36 billion in fresh equity and $20 billion borrowed from JPMorgan. Andrew Wilson stays on as CEO, and EA stays headquartered in California.
Here's where the ownership question gets specific, because it matters. When European regulators reviewed the deal, they didn't describe three partners buying a company together. Their approval refers to PIF specifically acquiring sole control of Electronic Arts full stop, no consortium language. Under EU merger rules, whoever holds the decisive stake is the one treated as legally in charge, regardless of who else is in the room. And the sliver not directly held by PIF isn't fully separate from it either: Affinity Partners' largest backer, by far, is PIF itself, which committed $2 billion to Kushner's fund not long after he left the White House.
None of that makes EA Sports FC a Saudi-run studio day to day. It makes PIF the party that gets to decide who does.
How EA Sports FC Became a Global Football Powerhouse
That ownership matters because EA Sports FC isn't just another game. FC 26 sold 12 million copies in its first month and topped the year-end sales charts in 16 of 17 European countries. The current edition licenses more than 20,000 real players across 750-plus clubs, 120-plus stadiums and 35 leagues. In research EA itself commissioned with the agency Two Circles, 62 million football fans worldwide said the game was the reason they became fans in the first place, not the other way round. For a lot of teenagers, EA Sports FC isn't a companion to watching football. It's the way in.
Saudi Arabia's Expanding Influence Across Football and Gaming
Meanwhile, on the actual pitch: Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 World Cup, awarded without real competition after FIFA restricted bidding to Asia and Oceania and Australia withdrew. Separately, in May 2026, PIF was named an official tournament supporter of this year's World Cup, a deal that explicitly folds in Savvy Games Group, PIF's gaming arm, and Qiddiya, the entertainment city PIF is building outside Riyadh. A Saudi gaming company is now formally attached to the real World Cup, not just the video game one.
Human Rights Concerns and the Debate Over Sportswashing
Human rights groups have criticized this buildup for years. Human Rights Watch describes it as sportswashing: using major events to generate good headlines that crowd out scrutiny of the host's record. Amnesty International argued Saudi Arabia's 2034 bid didn't meet FIFA's own human rights standards before the vote went ahead anyway.
Saudi officials call such criticism unfounded, and the crown prince has said publicly that he isn't bothered by the "sportswashing" label as long as the spending grows the economy. As gaming investment has followed the same path, some in the industry have started calling it gameswashing instead of the same strategy, aimed at where young people actually spend their time. EA was already there before: the Apex Legends esport tournament hosted by the Riyadh Esports World Cup, funded by PIF, is not exactly congruent with the messaging from EA during Pride Month when same-sex relations are illegal in Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, two US senators wrote to EA’s CEO in October 2025 about security concerns over a foreign government obtaining access to a games company that boasts several hundred million users.
It would be useful to clarify ownership because it's not all in one bag. PIF controls 85% of Newcastle United; the remaining 15% is held by a British company. In 2023, PIF acquired 75% ownership in four clubs of the Saudi Professional League but by April 2026, PIF sold 70% of Al-Hilal, one of the four, to Kingdom Holding Company which belongs to a different Saudi prince. The map keeps moving. EA is simply the newest, biggest name in a gaming strategy Savvy Games Group has run for years, including its roughly $1.5 billion purchase of esports organizers ESL and FACEIT in 2022 and its $4.9 billion purchase of mobile developer Scopely in 2023, alongside minority stakes in Nintendo, Take-Two and others. Saudi officials frame all of it as Vision 2030: the plan to build income streams that don't depend on oil. Critics call the same spending a way to buy soft power. Both things can be true of the same purchase.
What the EA Deal Means for Players and the Future of Football Gaming
So what actually changes for someone opening FC 27 this September? As of now, nothing that's been announced. Neither PIF nor EA has said anything about boosting Saudi clubs, adjusting player ratings, or steering Ultimate Team. Maxis, which makes The Sims, told players in January that the ownership change wouldn't touch its creative decisions. The clearest real link is EA Sports FC becoming the official licensed game of the AFC Asian Cup Saudi Arabia 2027 a deal signed in May 2026, before the buyout even closed, while PIF still held only its old minority stake. That's evidence of a friendly relationship built over years, not proof a new owner is rewriting the game overnight. Ownership makes future changes possible. It doesn't mean they're happening.
FIFA and EA once decided they didn't need each other, and they still don't. There's no confirmed business relationship between the two organizations today. But Saudi capital now sits close to both: sponsoring the World Cup that just wrapped up, hosting the one arriving in 2034, and owning the company behind the game millions of kids use to learn the sport in the first place. That's not the same as controlling either one. Whether the proximity is worth worrying about is a call every reader can make individually. But it's worth knowing exactly what was bought before deciding how uncomfortable to be about it.
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