Fresh after a historic World Cup campaign, and not too long after EA announced this would be the first FIFA game to include women’s football, Steph Catley has been announced as our new local cover athlete. She’ll appear alongside Lionel Messi.
This year’s cover athlete was decided by popular vote, and the Matildas Left Back was chosen after a stellar defensive result against Brazil, which led an Australian team to the furthest point we’ve ever reached in World Cup football.
In a major addition to the amount of licensed teams, players will be able to play FIFA 16 as a slew of women’s squads on release, though women’s teams vs men’s teams won’t be allowed. The announcement comes at a time when women’s football is clearly growing, with spectator figures for the World Cup beating any other sporting event at the time.
To quote Variety on US ratings:
Nielsen estimates that Sunday’s game averaged a whopping 26.7 million viewers, with 25.4 million watching the English-language telecast on Fox and another 1.3 million checking out the Spanish-language airing on Telemundo. The total audience is larger than that for every NBA Finals basketball game since 2010 and every World Series baseball game since 2004.
There’s no rest for the wicked, though — after leading Melbourne Victory to a championship win and representing the Green & Gold in Canada, Catley is straight back into it and currently playing for the Portland Thorns.
Comments
8 responses to “Steph Catley Is Our New FIFA Cover Athlete”
I voted Kyah Simon multiple times. Wondering who the other player will be. I want to say the silhouette looks like Cahill, but maybe it’s just a placeholder. In all due respect to him and his current club in China, I think it’s time we looked towards future stars. Mat Ryan please!
My money would be on Cahill, but happy to have one of the younger stars too. I also would’ve bet on Simon, just because people have a fascination with the winning goal, but I think it was a pretty incredible defensive feat to keep out Brazil.
outline even looks like cahill
Yeah my vote(s) were for Kyah too, but congrats to Steph none the less!
My bet is definitely on Cahill, really would be nice for them to look to a rising star though.
I voted Simon too – she had a fantastic WC.
How PC of EA to do this. 100 social justice warrior points for you!
You could argue that the voting polls were rather sexist with only having female applicants.
What happened to gender equality?
Please go die in a hole. This is the first FIFA game to feature female players, and they wanted people to vote on which one they wanted on the cover. You will Notice there will be two males on the cover, Lionel Messi and one other.
So please, do the world a favour and trim that neckbeard
Thanks white knight, continue the fight against oppression of women!!!
It’s refreshing to see a woman on a games cover not being overly sexualised or photoshopped to hell.