FIFA Interactive World Cup
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| Sport | FIFA (video game) eSports |
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| Sponsor(s) | FIFA |
The FIFA Interactive World Cup (FIWC) is an annual video gaming competition officially organized by FIFA and its presenting partner EA Sports. The virtual football World Cup enables millions of football fans from around the world to fight for the title of being named the best FIFA player. The FIWC is recognized as the largest online gaming tournament by Guinness World Records.
Mohamad Al-Bacha from Denmark is the reigning champion after winning the FIWC 2016 Grand Final in New York City. He won $20,000 in prize money and a trip to the FIFA Ballon d'Or 2016.
The inaugaural 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 October 1, 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 March 22, 2016, Mohamad Al-Bacha from Denmark won the FIWC title in the Apollo Theater, beating Sean Allen from England in the final match.
The FIWC online qualification takes place on PlayStation and Xbox Networks, and can be accessed through the latest version of EA Sports FIFA on Xbox One and PS4. The qualification runs for several seasons, each lasting one month. Every season kicks off at 9:00am (UTC) on the first day of the month and ends at 8:59am (UTC) on the first day of the following month. Points are automatically reset before a new season starts. Since the FIWC 2015 players are only allowed to play a maximum of 90 games per season. The number of seasons changed over the past years, starting with six seasons and being reduced to three seasons in FIWC 16. In the past edition the qualification mode changed as well with the participants being divided into four groups based on their origin: 1) Europe 2) North America, Central America and the Caribbean 3) South America 4) Asia, Africa and Oceania
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