FIFA 21 ditches the long-running EA Sports Football Catalogue

If you've played FIFA for a bit, you've probably amassed millions of EA Sports Football Catalogue credits.

They're in that little widget at the top right hand corner of your screen, the one that includes some numbers hardly anyone bothers with. As you play FIFA, you earn XP and you also earn Football Club Credits (FCC). You spend these credits to unlock items from the catalogue (you have to click in the right stick to get there). Items include boots and balls, all-star kits, and bits and bobs for online seasons and career mode.

The EASFC was initially created for FIFA 13 to reward people who put time into the game. At one point EA put FUT Coin reward boosts in the rewards, but the developer disabled that back in February 2014 because players exploited a glitch that let them earn more coins than they were supposed to. EA eventually pulled Ultimate Team items from the catalogue entirely for FIFA 20. I've been playing FIFA for years (your progress carries over from game to game), and I have amassed millions of these credits, all gathering dust there at the top of my screen.

Well, EA has decided to ditch the whole thing for FIFA 21. Most of the items that were traditionally redeemable from the catalogue have been redistributed to other areas of the game "to make them more easily accessible", EA said in a post on its website.

Here's how it goes down:

• Boots and balls - available by default when released through Title Updates and activated by Server Release updates.
• MLS All-Star Team/Adidas All-Star Team and Kits - available to everyone in Kick Off.
• Online Seasons Win/Draw/Extra Match - available in the Online Seasons Menu, and can be redeemed once per Season with no total limit.
• Financial Takeover - is a setup option when creating a new Career Mode save.
• Career Mode Rematch - is part of the Manager Career Mode end of match experience as an option.
• Scout Future Star - the item is no longer available but each Manager Career Mode save will feature a populated Youth Academy from the start.

Other previously available catalogue items, including the Manager/Player Career Focused Training, Co-Op Seasons Win/Draw/Extra Match, and International Manager Offer are not in FIFA 21.

Is this a surprise? The changes made to the EASFC for FIFA 20 showed what EA Sports thought of it. I suspect it wasn't used by the majority of players. My initial reaction was, oh yeah, the catalogue thing. I forgot about that! But there's something a little sad about seeing millions of credits amassed over years of play - in my case seven years of play - disappear into the ether, unspent, their destiny unfulfilled.

Oh well! Here's to you, EA Sports Football Catalogue, and all my credits. I hardly knew you.