EA has announced that it has managed to secure the FIFA licence until the year 2022, meaning there is no end in sight for their annual FIFA Football series. The deal is great news for football fans across the globe as it means they will continue to get a fully licenced football games every year. It is not such great news for Konami, the creators of rival football series Pro Evolution Soccer.

The new deal gives EA the licences to all FIFA events like the World Cup and the FIFA Interactive Cup. So we can expect games or at least DLC packs for all of the big footballing events of the next 9 years to come to the EA catalogue.

The partnership between EA and FIFA began 20 years ago and has seen many games released. In more recent years FIFA has become the dominant football game and rivals Call of Duty for the biggest game series in the world.

It appears EA isn’t the only one happy with the new licence deal. “Our relationship with EA Sports is of high importance to FIFA,” said Jérôme Valcke, Secretary General of FIFA. “The FIFA video games are a key experiential component in our work to communicate the FIFA brand and its values all over the world. This is highlighted by the 2.5 million football fans that have competed in this year’s FIFA Interactive World Cup”

EA announced FIFA 14 last month but has been relatively quite about the franchise since. Although we do know that FIFA 14 will launch on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 this autumn. No announcement has been made regarding other platforms but one assumes FIFA 14 will also make an appearance on next-gen platforms.