Serie A Gets in on ESports with FIFA

A brand new ESports tournament is set to hit Europe after the Serie A, in combination with marketing partner Infront Media, launched a brand new tournament for the FIFA game series.

The FIFA series is widely regarded as one of the most popular sports titles of all time. Their latest game, FIFA 20, reached 10 million worldwide players in October of last year.

Over the years, FIFA has been a staple of many football fans gaming collection. Only recently has the game delved into the world of ESports.

FIFA and Electronic Arts (EA) first introduced competitive online play in 2009 with their first iteration of the online game mode, ‘Ultimate Team’. Gamers could select any players to play in their sides against another gamer in an online match, with the best players earning promotion to higher divisions.

In FIFA 17, EA began looking to ESports and a more serious approach for online gaming with the introduction of ‘Weekend League’. Here, players would build squads as per usual, except it wasn’t just promotion on the line. Gamers could obtain better players as a result of performing better than everyone else.

Very quickly, EA and FIFA saw the market’s need for a competition to separate the best from the very best and ESports’ collaboration with FIFA began.

The Premier League, MLS and our own A-League have since jumped on board and teams from all of those competitions have registered players to represent their respective clubs in ESports leagues and competitions.

Now, the Serie A has also seen the potential in ESports and a tournament has been launched.

Qualification for the sport is limited to participants who are aged 16 and over, are willing to represent a Serie A top flight club such as Juventus, Inter Milan and AS Roma and they must play on the PlayStation 4 console.

Luigi De Siervo, Serie A Chief Executive has this to say regarding the announcement of the tournament.

“ESports are a phenomenon in continuous growth and expansion and represent one of the key sectors of business in sport.”

“We have the great opportunity to involve an increasingly broad and cross-sectional target, thus bringing us closer to the new generations. All fans will now be able to follow a new championship and the best will be able to represent their favourite team by challenging themselves with their gamepads.”

The ESports competitions, particularly those based around FIFA, have generated copious amounts of attention on popular video sharing platform YouTube and online streaming service Twitch.

FIFA has become a very niche area for people with large areas of reach on the aforementioned websites. Many ‘YouTubers’ have begun playing professionally and have attracted large amounts of fans as a result of their online exploits.

Many of these fans attempt to follow in the footsteps of these professional gamers and as a result, the attention generated for ESports and especially FIFA has spiked ever since ‘Weekend League’ was born.

Online play in the tournament will begin on Monday and Tuesday, with a Grand Final set for May later this year.

 

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Como 1907 and Connectome unite to enhance cognitive analysis

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Image credit: Christian Bertrand / Shutterstock.com

Last month, the Lombardy-based club announced the start of a new partnership with Connectome, a neurotechnology company now looking to apply their work to Serie A’s most exciting project.

Cognitive and physical performance

Through this innovative alliance at the heart of a rapidly rising football project, players will benefit from enhanced study and understanding of their own cognitive performance.

Repeated brain measurements will allow staff to analyse how players respond to different playing scenarios – from the training pitch to matchday.

“We already measure the physical and tactical aspects of performance at a very high level,” explained Como 1907 CTO, Mo Dabbah, via Connectome’s official website.

“The real opportunity now is in better understanding cognitive load and decision-making over time.”

Furthermore, Dabbah continued to highlight that cognitive analysis is essential to achieving high levels of performance in sport.

“Brain health isn’t a ‘nice to have’, it’s fundamental to how players develop, adapt, and perform and it’s an area we’re excited to explore more deeply.”

 

Transferring data to development

Connectome’s work helps athletes and organisations competing at high levels of sport, ensuring recovery, duty of care and preparation are all at the forefront of operations.

Moreover, through a longitudinal approach to collecting data, Connectome strives to create unique, individual profiles for each athlete. Thus, changes or variations are judged against each individual’s baseline, not group averages or one-off tests.

But beyond the technological innovation, is the genuine intent and vision to maximise player performance at Como 1907.

Como 1907 is a club leading by example not just in Italy, but across Europe for unique business models, commercial growth and strategic partnerships. An alliance with Connectome is yet more proof that the club thinks not just about the 90 minutes on the pitch, but the hours spent on long-term player recovery and development.

Both parties align perfectly in values and vision. Player wellbeing, team growth, and technological advancement are the foundations of this partnership.

Como 1907 is a club pushing the future into today’s football landscape, making Connectome a natural partner to bring that vision to life.

Project ACL: The initiative leading the way on injury research

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Launched in 2024, the research project recently welcomed two US-based organisations: the National Women’s Soccer League Players Association (NWSLPA) and National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL).

 

About Project ACL

Led by FIFPRO, PFA England, Nike and Leeds Beckett University, Project ACL aims to research ACL injuries and understand more about multifactorial risk factors.

After piloting in England’s Women’s Super League (WSL), Project ACL will expand to the NWSL in the US, reflecting the global importance of the project’s research and outcome.

“We are incredibly excited to bring the NWSLPA and NWSL to Project ACL,” said Director of Women’s Football at FIFPRO, Dr. Alex Culvin, via official press release.

“Overall, we believe that player-centricity and collaboration with key stakeholders are central to establishing meaningful change in the soccer ecosystem and that players, competition organisers and stakeholdersaround the world will benefit from Project ACL’s outputs and outcomes.”

Interviews with over 30 players and team surveys across all 12 WSL clubs provided the project’s research team with valuable information about current prevention strategies and available resources.

Furthermore, the project tracks player workload and busy schedule periods during the season through the FIFPRO Player Workload Monitoring tool, therefore gaining insights into the link between scheduling and injury risks.

 

Looking to the data

Project ACL’s partnerships with the WSL – and now the NWSL – are immensely valuable for the future of player welfare in women’s football.

Although ACL injuries affect both male and female athletes, they are twice as likely to occur in women than men. However, according to the NWSL, as little as 8% of sports science research focuses on female athletes.

In Australia, several CommBank Matildas suffered ACL injuries in recent years: Sam Kerr was sidelined from January 2024 to September 2025, Ellie Carpenter for 8 months after suffering the injury while playing for Olympique Lyonnais, and Holly McNamara came back from three ACL’s aged 15, 18 and 20.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. The 2025/26 ALW season saw several ACL incidents, including four in just two weeks.

 

Research, prevent, protect

Injury prevention and research are vital to sport – whether professional or amateur.

But when the numbers are so shocking – and incidents are so common – governing bodies must remember that player welfare comes above all else. Research can inform prevention strategies. Prevention means players can enjoy the game they love.

The work of Project ACL, continuing until 2027, will hopefully protect countless players across women’s football from suffering long-term or recurring injuries.

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