Edwin Castro, better known as Castro_2021, is one of the FIFA community’s most popular content creators; with 3.3 million Twitch followers. He was streaming FIFA 22 live to thousands when an “Important Notice” screen popped up, informing him he had been permanently banned from the FUT transfer market for “FUT Coin distribution.” Castro was visibly and audibly as shocked, upset, and confused as his audience.
The aftermath included many players coming out about their own experiences, saying they too had been wrongfully banned for FUT Coin distribution. Castro’s theory is that him dropping a large amount of FIFA points on Black Friday, and purchasing FUT Red Player Picks cards possibly triggered an automated enforcement system. These kinds of card are earned through Weekend League matches, and players aren’t suppose to be able to trade them. However, there is no mechanism in place to keep them from being sold, nor did Castro abuse any meta-factors to do so. Castro’s FIFA play is broadcasted on a public platform, so any attempts to engage in FUT Coin distribution would be easily detected, and a manual review would have stopped this ban from ever happening.
This is clearly becoming a prevalent problem within the games community, with Castro’s high profile case drawing extra attention to it. One user on EA’s official answers forum, claimed to have a received a ban for FUT Coin distribution, despite never playing the FIFA Ultimate Team game mode. A community manager for EA responded, stating that the terms of service team had investigated the ban manually and upheld the decision. There’s still speculation that the initial ban system is automated, and cases of wrongful bans keep popping up everyday. Lucky for Castro, he’s a public figure and had his ban reviewed and overturned pretty swiftly; but the average FIFA player without that luxury is still waiting for a resolution to this problem.
