FIFA 23 is gearing up for the biggest time of the year, Team of the Year. It will drop at 6pm tomorrow for UK players on January 20, but not all players are looking forward to the event given EA Sports’ latest actions.

Centurions Team two was recently released, with gamers excited to see a staple of any Ultimate Team game cycle, a Zlatan Ibrahimovic card that has boosted pace and dribbling, meaning players could roll back the years using the legendary forward.

However, things have turned sour after the company have altered key stats on the card, drastically impacting how he feels in game, effectively nerfing the card as he is lacking in the most META stats.

FIFA 23 Centurions stats change

Team one was announced with Trent Alexander-Arnold featuring. He enjoyed a great pace upgrade, but there were problems, something that translated to other cards too.

On release, the card said the defender had just 86 pace, but when looking at his stats he actually had 90 for sprint speed and acceleration so in theory, his pace should have been 90. They corrected the visual glitch, but it gets worse for fans.

Ibrahimovic’s META card came out, and quickly accumulated a market value of around 4 million coins, settling at 3.2 million or so earlier this week. However, he has drastically dropped to below the 3 million coin mark after altering of key stats.

EA Sports have lowered the Swede’s stamina from 85 to a simply unusable 61. In an even more tragic turn of events, his balance drops from a respectable (but far from incredible) 82, all the way to 58. Agility took a knock also from 85 to 76, three key stats on the card, especially the dribbling related ones, not only will he struggle to see out 10 minutes of action, you’ll be able to watch milk turn quicker.

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View: Tweets from big accounts with plenty of outrage in the replies

What have fans said about the ‘nerfing’ of Zlatan Ibrahimovic?

Fans already believe a myth that SBC cards are nerfed after they expire, to entice you to do them, spend coins and ‘fodder’ on something with no virtual monetary value. If that card then feels worse, the theory is you’re more likely to spend real money on new promos to open packs etc. Gamers are convinced this happened with Angel Di Maria’s recent SBC, although it is unproven.

However, they may believe the conspiracy even more after EA Sports have nerfed a card visibly and not hidden it, one gamer claimed: “That’s just a scam, people bought him for his old stats and now they get this, stats back or money back.”

Someone else added: “That’s gotta be illegal.”

Another gamer backed that up, commenting: “This gotta be illegal. People were buying FIFA points to buy backs to get him.”

Whilst another questioned: “How is this allowed?”

Elsewhere, another question posed was: “How is that even legal.”

With someone else writing: “Wait what, I thought you were joking?! Surely this can’t be legal.”

The fact fans are questioning the legality of EA Sports’ actions tells you all you need to know about how damaging they are as well as the impact it has had on their community.

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