Right then. FIFA Interactive World Cup. Yep, you guessed it, this blog (and subsequent ones) is going to act as the information point for the FIWC activities in the UK. As a quick recap for those that have been living under a rock, FIWC10 is the world’s largest FIFA gaming tournament and is operated by FIFA in partnership with us here at EA SPORTS and the nice guys over at PlayStation. This does means that it is exclusive to the PS3 so I know some readers may well stop here (if you only own an Xbox 360 for example).

To give you a quick rundown before wading headlong into the details of activities in UK, here are the major points for the tournament as a whole:

- First prize of $20,000

- Grand Final in Barcelona, Spain, May 2010

- 32 Players for the Grand Final

- 10 players found via global live qualifying events in the following countries: UK, Russia, France, Italy, Denmark, Poland, Japan, Australia, South Africa and Brazil.

- 21 players found via the online mode and leaderboard inside FIFA 10 on the PS3 more info can be found here.

So moving swiftly on to the UK activities that will lead to the UK live event in March 2010 and all the information you need. An announcement has just gone out and you may well have read it but I wanted to take the time to go into a little more detail here and clarify some points.

Firstly, all these activities are “pre-qualifiers”; they only qualify you for the UK live event and not directly to Barcelona. Also, these are the EASPORTS pre-qualifiers as I am still waiting for the details of what the team over at PlayStation are planning but will update everyone with those when I have them.

In total 28 players will qualify from the EASPORTS and PlayStation pre-qualifiers for the UK live event as 1 player will be joining them from a “feeder country”, likely to be Belgium.

The UK pre-qualifiers have been split into live and online activities with two football-stadium events, six retail locations and five online tournaments.

The Football-Stadium Events

- 28 Nov @ Loftus Road (QPR)
Before the QPR vs. Coventry game. Tournament is likely to start about 1pm on a first-come-first-served basis. One player from this event will qualify for the UK final.

- 29 Nov @ Emirates (Arsenal)
Before the Arsenal vs. Chelsea game. Tournament is likely to start about 2pm on a first-come-first-served basis. One player from this event will qualify for the UK final.

The Retail Tour

The retail tour will be starting soon at six shopping centres across the country and will be operating practice tournaments on the weekends leading up to the qualifying tournaments on 19 December. Each shopping centre will be hosting one qualifying tournament and finding one player for the UK final.

19th December - 10am - 7pm
Meadowhall (Sheffield), Arndale (Manchester), Whitgift (Croydon), Westfield (Derby), Bullring (Birmingham) and Bridges Shopping Centre (Sunderland).

- Each weekend before the 19th December will have practice competitions running for you to prepare at each of the shopping centres.

- One player from each shopping centre will qualify for the UK final (six total)

Online Pre-Qualifiers

Things are a little different for the online side of the pre-qualifiers. We will be using a new platform that is currently in BETA testing and is called MATES Leagues. The basic principle of this web-based platform is to enable all of you to create your own leagues and cups for your mates, uni or college buddies, work colleagues or anyone you choose. We will be creating dedicated FIWC events on here to act as the online pre-qualifiers so look out for the FIWC branding.

The current dates for all these online pre-qualifiers are below and two players from each pre-qualifier will book themselves a spot at the UK final. Please note this is not connected to the global online qualification seasons.

- 1 Dec - 14 Dec: FIWC Online Pre-qualifier 1

- 21 Dec - 4 Jan 2010: FIWC Online Pre-qualifier 2

- 11 Jan - 25 Jan 2010: FIWC Online Pre-qualifier 3

- 8 Feb - 22 Feb 2010: FIWC Online Pre-qualifier 4

- 1 Mar - 15 Mar 2010: FIWC Online Pre-qualifier 5

- 8 Mar - 15 Mar 2010: FIWC Online Pre-qualifier 6

*Please note the dates for the online pre-qualifiers are subject to change

Full rules for the online stuff will be available on the MATES Leagues platform, along with registration closer to the time and I will aim to release full details soon about how all this will work.

I will be in attendance at the Emirates event on 29 November and I believe some of the Football World guys will also be there. Chances are I will also be at the Meadowhall retail event in Sheffield on 19 December as well, so feel free to come and say hi.

For now, though, I think this is enough to get you started and I will work to keep you all updated as other bits and pieces happen or are confirmed, such as the PlayStation activities that will themselves find eight players for the UK live event.

Good luck to everyone that takes part and perhaps see some of you at the Emirates!