FIFA 23 has now been released in the UK and Diego Maradona is missing from the 100 icons included in the game.
The Argentine legend, who featured as an icon in FIFA since its introduction in 2018, has now been removed.
EA Sports has confirmed that Maradona will be removed from the game earlier this year due to a “legal dispute with a third party”.
The statement read: “Due to a legal dispute with a third party, we have to suspend Diego Maradona from appearing in the FIFA Ultimate Team, Ultimate Draft and Soccer Aid World XI squad packs.
“As such, Diego Maradona Icon items will no longer be available in packs, SBCs, and FUT Draft, and their price range has been fixed until further notice.”
The dispute started over an image rights issue after EA signed a deal with former Maradona manager Stefano Ceci.
However, following Maradona’s death in 2020, his lawyer, Matias Morla, said the former Napoli icon granted him the image rights.
This led to a court ruling that Ceci was unable to handle image rights and these legal issues forced EA to remove Maradona from the game.
He’s not the only icon missing from FIFA 23 as seven others are missing.
Japanese legend Hidetoshi Nakata, former Bolton and PSG trickster Jay-Jay Okocha and now Man City manager Pep Guardiola have all been dropped from the game.
Filippo Inzaghi, Deco, Ryan Giggs and Marc Overmars have also been removed.
Despite his absence in the latest version of the game, EA Sports hasn’t ruled out Maradona’s return to the game.
They said they “hope to bring one of football’s greatest icons back into the game at some point in the future”.