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Sunderland AFC will be represented in this season's ePremier League by two players it did not have to find on its own. Team Liquid and the English football club announced a partnership on Friday, February 27, 2026, The Esports Advocate and Esports Insider reported the same day: Team Liquid's EA Sports FC players Paulo Neto and Young will play for both brands in the competition, wearing a special edition jersey that carries the names of the club and the esports organization side by side.
The ePremier League is the Premier League's own tournament in EA Sports FC, the football video game published by EA Sports, and each of the twenty clubs of the English top flight enters players under its colors. The new season starts today, and Sunderland's pair make their first appearance on its opening day. Neither side disclosed the financial terms of the agreement.
EA Sports season announcement and The Esports Advocate, February 27, 2026.
What the partnership covers
The deal, as both outlets describe it, rests on two players and a shirt. Paulo Neto and Young remain Team Liquid players, and for the length of the ePremier League they also represent Sunderland AFC. The visible part of the arrangement is the shirt: a co-branded Team Liquid x Sunderland AFC jersey, made for the event, which the two players will wear on the broadcast.
Nothing was said about money moving in either direction, about the length of the agreement beyond this season's competition, or about any other activation such as merchandise sales or content. Both reports describe the deal through the players and the jersey alone.
Related readBrazil's betting ban strips sponsors from its Counter-Strike teamsFor Sunderland, the announcement came, in Esports Insider's words, ahead of the club's ePremier League debut. David Bruce, the club's Chief Business Officer, presented the partnership as part of the club's commitment to innovation and global engagement, and as a way to represent the club in a rapidly growing competitive space and to reach a new generation of supporters, according to The Esports Advocate. He also described the two players as exceptional talents.
For Team Liquid, the move fits a program it has been building. Maarten Sonneveld, Senior Marketing Manager at Team Liquid, called the Sunderland deal the next natural step for the organization's EA FC program, Esports Insider reported, and said the organization had a deep respect for the club's history and its supporters.
Two players with international results
The two players arrive with records outside the English circuit. Young finished second at the 2024 Esports World Cup, the multi-game tournament, according to Esports Insider. Paulo Neto won the FIFAe Nations Cup in 2023, a competition between national teams, the same outlet noted.
Each club fields two players in the ePremier League: the 40 players of the group stage are the pairs of the twenty clubs. With the Team Liquid partnership, Sunderland's two places go to players who already hold results at international level.
The recent honors list shows how much one player can weigh. Manchester City won the last two seasons of the ePremier League, with Tekkz lifting the trophy both times, Esports Insider noted. Leeds United's guide to the 2026 competition, published on February 18, lists Tekkz and Bonanno as the Manchester City pair for both titles. Tekkz now represents Leeds United, alongside NiKSNEB, according to the same guide.
Related readBYD takes the LPL's car slot left empty by Mercedes-BenzHow a club's ePremier League pair is chosen
EA Sports set out the season's structure in its announcement for the 2025-26 edition, the competition's eighth. It is open to UK-based EA Sports FC 26 players aged 16 and over, each representing one of the twenty Premier League clubs. The route to the clubs' colors runs through five stages, and the clubs have a shortcut at their disposal.
- Open qualifiersThree online weekends, on November 26-27, December 3-4 and December 10-11, 2025. Results earn points on each club's leaderboard.
- Club playoffsThe top eight players of each club's leaderboard meet in a double elimination bracket, from January 14 to 22, 2026.
- Group stageFebruary 28 to March 1, 2026. Clubs are seeded by the FC Pro Global Rankings and play one-on-one matches in a team format.
- KnockoutsMarch 28, 2026, seeded by the group results. A defeat means elimination.
- FinalsMarch 29, 2026, in person on PlayStation, until one club remains.
A double elimination bracket, used in the club playoffs, lets a player lose once and stay in the competition through a lower bracket; a second defeat ends the run. The knockout weekend that closes the season works the other way: one defeat and the club is out.
The shortcut is the fast track. Under EA Sports' rules for the season, a club may sign one or both of its players directly into the group stage, bypassing the qualifiers and the playoffs. EA Sports' announcement does not say which clubs used it this season. The Esports Advocate puts the group stage at 40 players from 20 teams in round-robin matches, a format in which every side meets each of the others in its group, played to qualify for the knockout bracket.
EA Sports said the 40 players would compete in person on PlayStation over two weekends of live action, streamed on the Premier League's digital channels and by its broadcast partners. Leeds United's guide names Sky Sports, the Premier League's YouTube channel and the EA Sports FC Twitch channel.
Three ways into the competition
Sunderland and Team Liquid were not alone in announcing such an arrangement on February 27. Wolves Esports, the esports arm of Wolverhampton Wanderers, said the same Friday that it had partnered with Luna Esports for the ePremier League, The Esports Advocate reported. As with Sunderland, the financial terms were not disclosed.
Related readESL FACEIT Group shuts skin and case-opening sponsors out of CS2 eventsOther clubs took the road of the qualifiers. Crystal Palace announced on January 22, 2026 that its two places had gone to Ethan "EthxnH" Higgins and Ben "BrigArmy17" Brigadle, who earned them with a top-two finish in the club's play-off tournament. The club's announcement describes Ethan as a former England international who is representing Palace for the fourth time and twice reached the semi-finals, and Ben as a player who had twice qualified for West Ham United before.
| Club | Route | Players | Announced |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunderland AFC | Partnership with Team Liquid, co-branded jersey | Paulo Neto, Young | February 27 |
| Wolverhampton Wanderers | Partnership with Luna Esports | Diogo, RastaArtur | February 27 |
| Crystal Palace | Top two of the club play-off tournament | EthxnH, BrigArmy17 | January 22 |
The Esports Advocate, February 27, 2026, and Crystal Palace, January 22, 2026; terms of the two partnerships not disclosed.
The two partnerships differ in one respect. Wolves already runs its own esports division, which The Esports Advocate describes as having deep roots in China and competing in titles such as Call of Duty Mobile, Valorant, Honor of Kings and Naraka: Bladepoint. Its partnership brings in Diogo and RastaArtur, both members of Luna Esports, a Portuguese organization founded in 2020 and renamed Luna Esports in 2023, which competes in EA Sports FC, Dota 2, Rocket League and PUBG. Sunderland enters through the Team Liquid partnership and with a co-branded shirt, a detail The Esports Advocate does not report for Wolves.
Crystal Palace's announcement also shows how demanding the group stage can be. Last season, the club said, its pair won five of their eight group matches and still went out in the round of 16, beaten by Tottenham for the second season in a row.
Team Liquid's football program
Team Liquid's EA Sports FC roster took its current shape in May 2025, when the organization acquired Team Gullit and inherited its academy-developed roster, Esports Insider recalled. An academy, in esports as in football, is a structure that trains young players before they reach the first team.
Esports Insider describes Team Liquid as having expanded its EA Sports FC presence over the past two years. The Sunderland agreement adds a club badge to that roster: the organization's players now appear in a competition that the Premier League runs and streams on its own channels.
What is at stake from February 28
Sunderland's pair start their campaign on the opening day of the group stage, which runs over the weekend of February 28 and March 1. The group results then set the seeding for the knockouts on March 28, and the season ends with the finals on March 29. Crystal Palace describes a brand-new format this season, with an updated bracket on the final weekend in which clubs face elimination rounds until one champion remains.
The prize money for the season totals £100,000, according to EA Sports, which did not give a split between the finishing places. The Esports Advocate puts that sum at roughly US$135,000. How it is shared between a club and its players is not set out in the announcements of the Sunderland or Wolves partnerships. The competition also counts toward the wider calendar of EA Sports FC Pro, the game's international circuit: EA Sports said the season offers guaranteed places at the 2026 FC Pro World Championship, the circuit's season-ending event, without giving their number. The Esports Advocate and Esports Insider both describe the ePremier League as a route toward the eChampions League as well as the World Championship.
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