FIFA Interactive World Cup

The FIFA Interactive World Cup (FIWC) is an annual video gaming competition officially organized by FIFA and its presenting partner EA Sports. The virtual football World Cup enables millions of football fans from around the world to fight for the title of being named the best FIFA player. The FIWC is recognized as the largest online gaming tournament by Guinness World Records.

Mohamad Al-Bacha from Denmark is the reigning champion after winning the FIWC 2016 Grand Final in New York City. He won $20,000 in prize money and a trip to the FIFA Ballon d'Or 2016.

History
The inaugaural FIWC took place in 2004 in Switzerland, over the years the tournament has grown significantly. In 2010, the FIWC first appeared in the Guinness World Records - but it was not until 2013 that the competition saw the current record of more than 2.5 million players signing up.

Past season
On October 1, 2015, the FIWC 16 kicked off, marking the 12th edition of the tournament. For the first time in the history of the competition Xbox One and PlayStation 4 players competed against each other. With the integration of the new consoles the number of participants increased significantly, compared to previous years when the FIWC was only available on PlayStation 3. 2.3 million players attempted to qualify for the Grand Final in New York City. On March 22, 2016, Mohamad Al-Bacha from Denmark won the FIWC title in the Apollo Theater, beating Sean Allen from England in the final match.

Online Qualification
The FIWC online qualification takes place on PlayStation and Xbox Networks, and can be accessed through the latest version of EA Sports FIFA on Xbox One and PS4. The qualification runs for several seasons, each lasting one month. Every season kicks off at 9:00am (GMT) on the first day of the month and ends at 8:59am (GMT) on the first day of the following month. Points are automatically reset before a new season starts. Since the FIWC 2015 players are only allowed to play a maximum of 90 games per season. The number of seasons changed over the past years, starting with six seasons and being reduced to three seasons in FIWC 16. In the past edition the qualification mode changed as well with the participants being divided into four groups based on their origin: 1) Europe 2) North America, Central America and the Caribbean 3) South America 4) Asia, Africa and Oceania

Five players on each console qualified for the Grand Final each season: the four winners of each region and the runner-up from Europe.

Live tournaments
In previous FIWC editions, players also had the chance to be rewarded with a ticket for the Grand Final by competing in live tournaments. Those were held in the host countries of the Grand Final as well as large cities throughout Europe.

Grand Final
32 players compete at the Grand Final of the FIWC. The reigning champion is seeded without taking part in the qualification. The participants are divided into eight groups with the top 16 players moving on to the knockout stage. While Group Stage, Round of 16, Quarter Finals and Semi Finals are played on one console (Xbox One or PS4), the Final is a two-leg match with one game on each console. The Grand Final is a multi-day event with draw and competition being broken up into three days. The winner is crowned in a live show with famous commentators and football stars.

World Ranking
In 2016, the FIFA Interactive World Cup World Ranking was introduced to help seed the players in the tournament according to their previous results. The ranking takes into account both the qualification phase for the current edition and previous FIWC Grand Finals. FIFA Interactive World Ranking explained

Virtual and real football
The FIWC is an official FIFA Tournament, closely linked to real football, with most participants being passionate about both the action on the virtual and real pitch. Many of them even play in football clubs such as FIWC 14 Champion August Rosenmeier from Denmark. The greats of world football have attended FIWC events regularly in the past, such as Ronaldo, Frank Lampard and David Villa to name a few. The winner of the FIWC gets the opportunity to mingle with the stars at the FIFA Ballon d'Or.

Furthermore, the locations of FIWC tournaments are often chosen in order to help build a link to real life football, with FIWC 14 being the best example. The 2014 Grand Final took place in Rio de Janeiro during the FIFA World Cup in Brazil. The FIWC players were given the chance to watch the Quarter Final Match between France and Germany live in the Stadium.

Winner
The FIWC champion receives $20,000 in prize money and a ticket to the FIFA Ballon d'Or in Zurich where he has the chance to meet the greatest of the real football world. FIWC 15 Champion Abdulaziz Alshehri from Saudi Arabia was able to meet Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi among many others.

Runner-up
The runner-up of the FIWC Grand Final receives $5,000 in prize money.

Broadcast
The FIWC Grand Final is streamed live on YouTube and Twitch. For the first time, the Final Showdown of the FIWC16 was also broadcast on TV. The broadcast was shown in more than 100 countries around the world. Fox Sports 1 showed the Final live in the United States. The show was moderated by host Kay Murray. Former US footballer Alexi Lalas and Spencer Carmichael-Brown (Spencer FC) analyzed the matches, Leigh Smith and John Strong commentated the games. The trophy was handed over by former Spanish International David Villa.