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EA Sports' competitive circuit on phones is about to leave the internet for a stage. In a post on its FC Pro news pages on Tuesday, July 28, the publisher set the FC Pro Mobile Mid-Season Playoffs for August 6 to 9 at the Kantana Post Production Studio in Bangkok, Thailand, with 24 players and a prize pool of US$100,000.
The eight best players in Bangkok go through to the first FC Pro Mobile World Championship, which EA places in Seoul, South Korea, from October 21 to 25. It brings together 32 players for US$250,000 and the title EA calls the first-ever FC Pro Mobile World Champion. "The Mid-Season Playoffs is the first in-person live event of the FC Pro Mobile 2026 season," the publisher wrote.
EA Sports, FC Pro Mobile Mid-Season Playoffs announcement, July 28, 2026: US$100,000 in Bangkok plus US$250,000 in Seoul.
A first circuit for the mobile game
EA Sports FC Mobile is the phone version of EA's soccer video game, available on Apple's App Store and on Google Play. FC Pro Mobile is the name EA gives to its official global competitive ecosystem for that game in 2026, and the publisher's own pages present it as the first time FC Mobile players can compete inside an official esports structure.
It sits beside FC Pro, the circuit EA runs on the console and PC game, but it is a separate path with its own qualifiers, its own events and its own champion. EA calls 2026 Year 1 of the mobile circuit, and the season holds two live events: the Mid-Season Playoffs in Bangkok, which the July 28 post describes as a checkpoint, and the World Championship in Seoul, the finale.
Related readHow PUBG's Global Partner Teams and the 2026 PGS circuit workPlayers reach those two events through four kinds of route that EA lists on its FC Pro Mobile pages: global online qualifiers open to eligible players worldwide, regional competitions, leagues run by the companies that publish the game in some markets, and partner leagues.
Three of those publishing companies are named. Tencent publishes FC Mobile in China and runs the China route, Nexon Korea does the same in Korea, and Garena does it in Vietnam. Each runs its own league, and each sends players to both live events.
How the 24 places in Bangkok are filled
More than half of the Bangkok field came through one event. Global Qualifier 1 was played online in two phases: a ladder phase from June 11 to 14, in best-of-one matches, and a playoff phase on June 20 and 21, with a Swiss day, in which players with the same record meet round after round, followed by a day in double elimination, where a player is out after a second defeat. Entry required a place in the FC Champion division of the game's Head-to-Head mode at least, according to EA's pages. The qualifier sent 13 players to Bangkok, shared between four regions.
| Route | Region or market | Places |
|---|---|---|
| Global Qualifier 1 | Americas | 5 |
| Global Qualifier 1 | APAC South | 4 |
| Global Qualifier 1 | Europe | 3 |
| Global Qualifier 1 | APAC North and Oceania | 1 |
| MEA Qualifier | Middle East and Africa | 2 |
| SEA League Qualifier | Southeast Asia | 2 |
| FC Mobile Chinese League Spring 2026 | China | 2 |
| KEL FC Mobile 2026 | Korea | 2 |
| FVSL Spring 2026 | Vietnam | 2 |
| eSuper Lig free agent place | Turkiye | 1 |
EA Sports, July 28, 2026. The ten lines add up to 24 places, 13 of them from Global Qualifier 1.
The other eleven places go through regional and partner routes. Nine of them were filled when EA published the post; the two places of the MEA Qualifier were still to be confirmed. That qualifier covers 17 countries, which EA lists as Bahrain, Georgia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa. The SEA League covers Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.
Related readHow Rainbow Six Siege esports is organized in the 2026/27 seasonThree markets send players through their publishers' leagues: the FC Mobile Chinese League Spring 2026 for China, the Korean Esports League FC Mobile 2026 for Korea and the FC Mobile Vietnam Super League Spring 2026, which EA lists as a publisher league, for Vietnam. Each has two places. The last one is a free agent place through Turkiye's eSuper Lig, the only partner league route on the list.
The format in Bangkok
The four days in Bangkok are built on a group stage and a short knockout bracket.
The 24 players are drawn into four groups of six. Each group plays a single round-robin, in which every player meets each of the other five once. A match is made of two games, and points are counted game by game: three for a win, one for a draw, none for a defeat. A player can therefore earn up to six points from one meeting, and a split of one win and one defeat gives each player three.
- Group stageFour groups of six, single round-robin, two games per match. The top two of each group advance.
- Quarterfinals and semifinalsAn eight-player single-elimination bracket, every match a best-of-five.
- Grand finalA best-of-seven between the last two players.
The top two of each group, eight players in all, go on to the playoffs, a single-elimination bracket in which one defeat ends the event. Quarterfinals and semifinals are played as best-of-five, the first player to win three games going through. The grand final is a best-of-seven, won at four.
That bracket is also the line that matters most for the rest of the season. Every player who reaches the quarterfinals in Bangkok is already qualified for Seoul, whatever happens next. A player who wins the event and one who loses in the first knockout round leave with the same World Championship seat; the difference between them is the title and the prize money. EA's post does not publish how the US$100,000 is split by placing.
Related readHow Riot licenses Europe's regional LoL leagues to outside operatorsSeoul and the 32-player World Championship
The World Championship closes the season from Wednesday, October 21, to Sunday, October 25, in Seoul. EA gives it 32 players and US$250,000, two and a half times the pool of the Bangkok event.
Eight of the 32 come from the Mid-Season Playoffs. The others will come through a second round of the same routes, which EA's FC Pro Mobile pages list as Global Qualifier 2, a second SEA League phase, a second MEA Qualifier, a second round of the publisher leagues and the league and partner routes. Global Qualifier 2 is scheduled for late August, with its details still to be revealed, and EA describes it as a direct path to the World Championship. The number of places for each route in Seoul has not been published.
The July 28 post does not give the venue in Seoul, the format of the World Championship or the split of its prize pool. EA says more details will be shared later.
Both host cities sit inside the circuit's own routes. Thailand, where the Mid-Season Playoffs are played, is one of the four countries of the SEA League, which sent two players to Bangkok. South Korea, host of the finale, is one of the three markets where the game's local publisher runs its own qualification route: the Korean Esports League FC Mobile 2026, the route Nexon Korea runs, filled two places in Bangkok and is listed again among the routes to Seoul.
Global Qualifier 1 was run on Battlefy, a tournament platform, with entry tied to the player's in-game rank. For updates on the event, the post points fans to EA's accounts on X, Facebook and Instagram.
Related readHow the Apex Legends Global Series works in Year 6Beside the console World Championship
The Bangkok announcement came a day before EA's review of the console circuit's biggest event. On July 29, EA published its review of the FC Pro World Championship 26, played over five days in Paris as part of the Esports World Cup. It gathered 36 players for a prize pool exceeding US$1 million, according to EA, and RvPLegend10 won it, beating levyfinn 6-5 in the final.
The two World Championships have different shapes. The console event opened with a league phase in which each of the 36 players faced six opponents, sending the top eight straight to the Round of 16 and eliminating the bottom 12. The mobile event in Seoul is set for 32 players, and its format has not yet been described.
Seen side by side, the figures give the scale of each. The US$350,000 of the two mobile events together is well under the console World Championship's pool alone, which exceeded US$1 million. The mobile circuit, in its first year, starts with two live stages of its own and a qualification system that reaches the Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese markets through the companies that publish the game there.
What comes next
The first date is close. The Mid-Season Playoffs open on Thursday, August 6, and end on Sunday, August 9, in Bangkok, where eight players secure their seats for Seoul.
Global Qualifier 2 follows in late August, with its dates and format still to be revealed. EA has also said that details of the MEA Qualifier will be released later.
The World Championship then follows from October 21 to 25 in Seoul, with 32 players, US$250,000 and the first FC Pro Mobile world title. The venue, the format and the qualification places of each route are the points EA still has to publish before then.
The name this event could hold, on the bracket and everywhere else.
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