Mason Greenwood will be included in EA Sports FC 24 to reflect “the real world of football”, EA says

Marketing shot for EA Sports FC 24
(Image credit: EA)

It’s been confirmed that Mason Greenwood will be included in EA Sports FC 24, but won’t be present in Ultimate Team at launch due to him not being part of an active roster before the game’s cut-off date for player and team data. 

Greenwood, who currently plays for the Spanish club Getafe (on loan from Manchester United) was arrested in January 2022, and charged in October 2022 for attempted rape, controlling and coercing behavior, and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. The charges were then dropped in February 2023. However, after the initial arrest, the footballer was removed from FIFA 22 and subsequently didn’t appear in FIFA 23.

An EA Sports spokesperson has now confirmed to Mirror Gaming that Greenwood will appear in EA Sports FC 24 since he’s “now part of an active roster”. They said: “EA Sports FC 24 authentically reflects the active rosters of teams and clubs in the real world of football.

“As he is now part of an active roster with Getafe CF, Mason Greenwood will be included in FC 24. As Greenwood was not part of an active roster at the time of our cut-off date for final team and player data, he will not appear in Ultimate Team at launch.”

Up until yesterday (September 17), Greenwood hadn’t played in a professional football match since his arrest. As The Mirror reports, he appeared as a substitute for Getafe towards the end of Sunday’s match against Osasuna, coming on for Juanmi Latasa. 

Later this month, EA Sports FC 24 will launch on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch. While its full release is set for September 29, prospective players who pre-order the Ultimate Edition on anything but Switch will be able to start playing a week early, from September 22. 

Take a look at more games around the corner with our roundup of upcoming games. You can also find some new game recommendations on our list of the best PC games.

Catherine Lewis
News Writer, TechRadar Gaming

Catherine is a News Writer for TechRadar Gaming. Armed with a journalism degree from The University of Sheffield, she was sucked into the games media industry after spending far too much time on her university newspaper writing about Pokémon and cool indie games, and realising that was a very cool job, actually. She previously spent 19 months working at GAMINGbible as a full-time journalist. She loves all things Nintendo, and will never stop talking about Xenoblade Chronicles.