Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Gareth Bale hit out at EA Sports over likenesses in 'FIFA 21'

Tottenham star Gareth Bale, who recently returned to the Lilywhites on a loan deal from Spanish giants Real Madrid, joined Ibrahimovic's public campaign.

EA responded to these tweets via a statement shared by Adriana Garcia of ESPN: 

"EA SPORTS FIFA is the world's leading football video game, and to create an authentic experience, year after year we work with numerous leagues, teams and individual talents to ensure the similarity rights of the players we include. One of these is a long-standing relationship with the global representative of professional footballers, FIFPro, who works with a number of licensees to negotiate deals for the benefit of players and their unions."

It appears players aren't thrilled with those agreements. The Athletic's Ali Humayun is reporting that "thousands of footballers" will, moving forward, object to their likenesses being used for the video game series. 

According to Humayun, FIFPro, the international players' union, has an agreement to sell name and likeness rights of footballers competing in member nations. Players not in FIFPro either control their rights or forfeit them to their clubs, the league their club plays in, or their national federations.

AC Milan currently have an exclusive deal with EA Sports that, per EA, allows it to use Ibrahimovic's likeness for the "FIFA" series. Bale, meanwhile, features for a Premier League side, and that competition sells video-game licensing rights as a whole. 

While neither Ibrahimovic nor Bale may have a case on their own as it pertains to "FIFA 21," their tweets suggest a legitimate legal battle over image and naming rights could be forthcoming.