As COVID-19 continues to keep us home and canceling events, EA has decided to throw together a number of digital “Stay Home, Play Together” initiatives. The headline for the initiative is the EA Sports FIFA - 20 Stay and Play Cup. The cup will consist of a player from 20 of Europe’s football clubs. The players have yet to be revealed and will be announced over on the FIFA 20 Twitter.

The included clubs are as follows:

• England: Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur

• France: Olympique Lyonnais, Marseille, PSG

• Germany: Dortmund

• Spain: Real Madrid, Atlético de Madrid, Valencia

• Portugal: Porto

• Italy: AS Roma

• Netherlands: Ajax, PSV Eindhoven

• Sweden: AIK, Djurgården

• Finland: HJK Helsinki

• Denmark: FC Copenhagen, Brondby

The tournament will consist of 1v1 single-elimination matches that last 90 minutes. The tournament will begin on April 15th at 9am PT/5pm UK/6pm CEST and run for 5 days on the FIFA 20 Twitch page. By linking your Twitch account to your EA account you can earn FIFA Ultimate Team drops for watching. To top off the tournament, EA is going to be donating $1M to Global Giving’s Coronavirus Relief Fund. Viewers and fans will also be able to contribute during the event.

On top of the Stay and Play Cup, EA will be hosting a number of community events to help gamers connect and play with one another. You can keep up with all of the “Stay Home, Play Together” events check out the official site here.

Here is a quick breakdown of some of the planned events.

• March 26 | Apex CodeRed Tourney | Influencers/Pros played Apex for $50K and $250K was donated to the International Red Cross.

• April 1-2 | EA SPORTS Madden NFL 20 held a live tournament on Twitch (1M+ Unique Madden Live Stream Viewers in 2 days) where NFL fans watched their favourite athletes go head-to-head in the NFL Checkdown x Madden Tournament.  The final saw Derwin James, Free Safety for the Los Angeles Chargers, crowned the champion. 

•  April 6-17 | The Sims 4 launched a week-long program allowing players check in on their favourite Sims creators and connect through a series of livestreams hosted on The Sims Twitch channel

• April 18 & 20, May 2 & 4, May 30 & June 1 | Apex Legends | Global Series recently added three new Online Tournaments with a prize pool of $100K each to help keep the gaming community safe and connected.

It is great to see EA come out in such a strong showing of support for COVID-19 relief. These events also seem like a great way to connect many players around the world. What event are you looking forward to watching or participating in?