The announcement of Brentford striker Ivan Toney's suspension from football has sent shockwaves through the FIFA community as well as the world of football.
The initial question on everybody's lips is - will Toney feature in FIFA 24?
Well, first of all, it's important to note that the FIFA era as we know it has come to an end, which means FIFA 24 will not be coming out this year, or at least in its usual form.
Instead, EA Sports have split away and announced the arrival of EA Sports FC, with hype, leaks and rumours already beginning to circulate regarding the new game.
So, amid plenty of speculation, we'll be assessing whether Ivan Toney will feature in EA Sports FC 24 rather than FIFA 24.
Toney Suspended
Bees forward Ivan Toney has been suspended from all football and football-related activity with immediate effect for eight months, after admitting 232 breaches of the Football Association's betting rules.
The Englishman has also been fined £50,000 and warned as to his future conduct for breaches of the FA’s betting rules.
An independent regulatory commission imposed Toney's sanctions and he will not be allowed to train with his Brentford team-mates until 17 September 2023.
The striker will not play a competitive match for the side until 16 January 2024.
The 27-year-old was charged with 262 breaches of FA rule E8 between February 25, 2017, and January 23, 2021. The FA subsequently withdrew 30 of these breaches and he admitted to the remaining 232.
Will Ivan Toney be in FIFA 24?
The truth is, we aren't quite sure whether Ivan Toney will feature in EA Sports FC 24 right now.
Given the English centre-forward will not be eligible for registration for any domestic competition with Brentford at the start of the 2023/24 season, we expect Toney to be omitted from EA Sports FC 24 at release.
However, should EA temporarily remove Toney from their database, the organisation could choose to add the Brentford forward back into the game during FC 24's game cycle.
Whether the goal scorer features in EA's next title or not, this will most certainly not be the last we see of Ivan Toney in an EA Sports football sim.
FIFA 24
With the FIFA 23 game cycle in a bit of a lull right now, fans are beginning to wonder when the next title in the series will be released.
Well, it's important to understand that FIFA as we know it will not be named 'FIFA 24'. Instead, it will now be named 'EA Sports FC', following the well-documented split between FIFA and EA Sports after ongoing licensee fee issues
So, we're not looking forward to a FIFA 24 release date but now an 'EA Sports FC' release date - the title of EA's new footballing sim, set to arrive in 2023.
We expect to see an EA Sports FC release date of around Friday, 29 September 2023, in keeping with the FIFA titles that have gone before.