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South America's main competition in EA Sports FC has a new shape for 2026, and a direct route to the FC Pro World Championship. CONMEBOL, the governing body of South American soccer, and EA Sports announced CONMEBOL eLibertadores 26 on the publisher's FC Pro news pages on Thursday, February 5: online qualifiers on February 21 and 22, Finals in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on May 2 and 3, a prize pool of over US$100,000 and two direct seats at the EA Sports FC Pro World Championship.
The announcement also opens a second door into the Finals. The champions of ePrimera and of the eLiga Profesional de Futbol, which EA names as the official FC Pro League Partners in South America, go straight to Sao Paulo without playing the qualifiers.
CONMEBOL and EA Sports, eLibertadores 26 announcement, February 5, 2026. The qualifier is also open to players signed to CONMEBOL-affiliated clubs.
What EA and CONMEBOL announced
EA Sports FC is the soccer video game that EA publishes every year, and FC Pro is the name it gives to its official competitive circuit, in which professionals play one against one. The eLibertadores borrows its name from the Copa Libertadores, the club competition of South American soccer, and the announcement presents it as the most important FC Pro competition on the continent and as the region's main route to the global stage.
The 2026 edition runs in two parts. The first is an online qualifier over the weekend of Saturday, February 21, and Sunday, February 22. The second is a live event, the Finals, on Saturday, May 2, and Sunday, May 3, in Sao Paulo.
The prize pool is given as over US$100,000 for the competition. The announcement does not break it down by placing, so what the champion, the runner-up or a player knocked out in the group stage will receive is not known. What it does fix is the sporting stake: two players leave the Finals with a direct seat at the FC Pro World Championship.
Related readHow EA's FC Pro partner competitions feed the World ChampionshipCONMEBOL brings ten national associations to the project: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. The confederation, founded in 1916, describes itself in the announcement as the oldest continental soccer confederation.
Who can enter the qualifier
Entry rests on two lists. The first is the FC Pro Open Ladder, the ranked online table that EA uses to sort players across its regions. The qualifier is open to the 256 best eligible players of two of those regions, LATAM South and LATAM North, on the October ladder rankings. The ranking that decides entry is therefore the one of October, months before the qualifier is played.
The second list is shorter and closer to real soccer. Players signed to a South American club affiliated with CONMEBOL may also enter the qualifier. The announcement does not say how many of them are expected, nor whether a signed player who is also in the ladder's top 256 counts once or twice.
The qualifier itself is played in two phases. It opens with a group stage in the Swiss system, a format in which players with the same record meet each other round after round, so that no one is eliminated after a single defeat. The best performers then move on to a knockout bracket in double elimination, where a player is out only after a second loss.
EA does not give the number of players who come out of the qualifier, nor the number of Swiss rounds. It does say that qualifiers from this phase join the champions of the League Partners in Sao Paulo.
Related readHow Mobile Legends esports is organized in five regions in 2026The Finals in Sao Paulo
The Finals bring together 16 players. They start with a group stage and end with a knockout stage, in which the players compete for the title and for the two World Championship spots. The announcement does not say whether the two seats go to the two finalists or are decided another way, how the 16 players are drawn into groups, or how many leave each group.
The field is built from two sources. Part of it comes through the online qualifier. The rest is made of League Partner champions: ePrimera and the eLiga Profesional de Futbol are named, and EA adds that other FC Pro League Partner champions of the region also qualify, without naming them.
- Ladder or club contractA top-256 place in LATAM South or North on the October FC Pro Open Ladder, or a contract with a CONMEBOL-affiliated club.
- Online qualifierA Swiss group stage and a double-elimination bracket on February 21 and 22. League Partner champions skip it.
- Finals in Sao PauloSixteen players, a group stage and a knockout stage on May 2 and 3, with two World Championship seats at stake.
The route through the League Partners is what sets this edition apart from the 2024 one. A champion of ePrimera or of the eLiga Profesional de Futbol does not play the February bracket: the title won in that league is the ticket to the Finals, where the continental title and the two World Championship seats are decided.
How the 2026 edition compares with 2024
Sao Paulo has hosted the Finals before. In a preview published on March 14, 2024, EA presented that year's live event, on March 16 and 17, as the first eLibertadores held in the city, with tickets for fans to watch it live at the UM Rooftop. The prize pool was then also over US$100,000.
That edition gathered 16 players who had come through two online qualifying rounds. They played four groups of four in double elimination on the first day, the top two of each group went through, and the second day was a straight knockout from the quarterfinals to the final. The stake, beyond the money, was a place in the first FC Pro World Championship, which EA said would be played in the coming months.
Related readHow PUBG's Global Partner Teams and the 2026 PGS circuit work| Point | 2024 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Live event | March 16 and 17, Sao Paulo | May 2 and 3, Sao Paulo |
| Prize pool | Over US$100,000 | Over US$100,000 |
| Players at the live event | 16 | 16 |
| Way in | Two online qualifying rounds | Online qualifier, or a League Partner title |
| World Championship | A place in the first edition | Two direct seats |
EA Sports, eLibertadores preview of March 14, 2024, and eLibertadores 26 announcement of February 5, 2026.
The money and the size of the live field are unchanged on paper. What moves is the calendar, from mid-March to early May, the way into the Finals, and the number of World Championship places, which the 2026 announcement sets at two.
The competition already has a roll of honor. The 2024 preview listed its earlier winners: Bonanno and Resende in 2021, PHzin in 2022 and Baxada in 2023. Resende, who played for AFC Ajax Esports, was in the 2024 field after scoring 22 goals in three qualifying matches, according to the same preview.
The 2024 field also showed how closely the event is tied to the rest of the circuit and to club esports. Among the players EA singled out were Young, a Brazilian playing for Tuzzy E-Sports who had lost 5-3 to Vejrgang in the FC Pro Open playoffs, and SebaLuoni, an Argentinian of the same team presented as a two-time national champion. The live matches of that edition started at 4 PM UTC on both days, and EA tied in-game rewards to watching the broadcast.
What it means for players and clubs
For a player in the two Latin American ladder regions, the new edition offers three ways to try for a World Championship seat in the same spring: through the ladder, through a club contract, or through a domestic league title that sends its winner straight to the Finals. Each one ends at the same 16-player event.
The club route concerns the region's soccer clubs that sign players to represent them in the game. Under the announcement, a player signed to a CONMEBOL-affiliated club may enter the qualifier even without a top-256 ladder place. The announcement does not set a limit on the number of signed players per club.
The two seats also set what a run in Sao Paulo is worth. In 2024, EA presented the live event as a South American title, a share of the prize money and a place in the first World Championship. In 2026, two players leave the knockout stage with a direct seat at the FC Pro World Championship.
Electronic Arts, which publishes the game, describes itself in the announcement as a company listed on the Nasdaq with net revenue of about US$7.5 billion under US accounting rules for its 2025 fiscal year, and headquartered in Redwood City, California.
What comes next
The first date is close. The online qualifier is played on Saturday, February 21, and Sunday, February 22, by players already placed through the October ladder rankings or signed to CONMEBOL-affiliated clubs.
The League Partners send their champions straight to Sao Paulo: ePrimera and the eLiga Profesional de Futbol by name, and, according to EA, the other FC Pro League Partner champions of the region as well.
The Finals follow on May 2 and 3. Several points remain to be published before then: the number of qualifiers, the split of the prize pool, the draw of the groups, the venue in Sao Paulo, the way the two World Championship seats are awarded, and the dates and city of the World Championship itself, which the announcement does not give.
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