After receiving backlash from the FIFA 23 community, EA Sports has pushed back the end date of the N'Golo Kante End of an Era (EOAE) SBC by more than seven weeks.
With the 2022/23 domestic season coming to an end in most countries over the last few weeks, a host of club legends are moving on from their teams in the summer transfer window. The likes of Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba and Roberto Firmino have left their respective clubs after long periods, and EA has awarded them with special FIFA 23 EOAE player items.
EOAE cards are massively-boosted items that are awarded to players who are leaving their clubs, and the latest player to receive one is Kante. After seven years and over 260 games for Chelsea, the French midfielder has departed the club, joining the number of players making the move to Saudi Arabia.
Kante will be joining Real Madrid legend Karim Benzema at Al Ittihad, and to celebrate his time at Chelsea, EA has awarded the FUT fan-favourite with an incredible 96-rated EOAE item. With 98 defending, 91 passing and 90 dribbling, pace and physical, the midfielder will cost players around 1.5million FUT coins to complete, but after complaints about how long the SBC is available to complete, EA has responded.
The ultimate grind – seven more weeks of N'Golo Kante EOAE in FIFA 23
EA Sports released Kante's SBC on Tuesday, June 28, and fans were gobsmacked to see that the Frenchman would cost around 1.5million coins to complete from scratch. It was clear that it would probably take some time to complete the SBC, but EA made the SBC live for just 14 days, not really enough time to grind Kante's EOAE card from scratch.
To complete the Kante SBC, players were required to submit two 90+ rated squads, two 89+ rated squads, two 88+ rated squads, one 87-rated squad and one 86-rated squad. Following the backlash to the short window given to complete the SBC, EA announced via its @EAFIFADirect Twitter Account that the SBC has been extended.
EA was straight to the point in the statement, saying: "The End of An Era Kante SBC has been extended from July 11 to Aug 31". With the increase, FUT players now have 64 days to complete the SBC, which is just over seven weeks.
It's unclear whether EA made the change due to the backlash or if the original end date was a mistake, which based on recent weeks, wouldn't be a surprise. But, let's hope for the former because it would be great if EA was listening and acting on community response.
