The VBL competitions will be an important part of the inaugural year of EA SPORTS FC™ Pro and will start the new 2023/24 season in November.
The Virtual Bundesliga kicks off the new 2023/24 season in November.
A total of 35 clubs will take part in the VBL Club Championship.
"We are looking forward to the largest field of participants since the VBL Club Championship was founded and welcome a total of eight additional teams to our eFootball competition," said Jörg Höflich, Head of Virtual Bundesliga at the DFL, looking forward to the new season.
Compared with last season, three new clubs from the Bundesliga have been added: Borussia Dortmund, Sport-Club Freiburg and FC Bayern Munich.
The new participants from the second Bundesliga are Fortuna Düsseldorf, SV Elversberg, 1. FC Magdeburg, VfL Osnabrück and SV Wehen Wiesbaden. The first matchdays will take place on 18 and 19 November, during the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 international break.
The field of clubs participating in the VBL Club Championship will again be divided into two divisions according to geographical parameters, North-West and South-East. The distribution of the clubs to the divisions, the dates of the individual match days and their fixtures will be published on virtual.bundesliga.com soon.
One change for the club competition compared with last year is the switch from "95 Mode" to "Ultimate Team™" mode. This decision was made by the clubs in the spirit of further development of the competition.
In doing so, they are taking into account the wishes of many players and fans. Accordingly, in future, participants in the VBL Club Championship will be able to put together their teams from players from all clubs in the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2.
This has already been possible in the VBL Open Playoffs and the VBL Grand Final.
On 23 and 24 March 2024, the final of the VBL Club Championship will take place. In addition to the championship trophy and the title of German Club Champion in eFootball, there will also be an even larger prize money pool of 87,500 euros.
The VBL Open will start on 1 November. This part of the competition is open to all interested players and enables qualification for the VBL Open Playoffs over a period of four months.
There, the VBL Open and the VBL Club Championship will be brought together – the best individual players of the VBL Open will meet the qualifiers of the VBL Club Championship.
Those who are successful in the VBL Open Playoffs will advance to the VBL Grand Final, in which the German champion in eFootball will be crowned among the individual players.
In addition, the VBL Grand Final will award it’s top two competing players with a crucial seat in the EA SPORTS FC Pro World Championships, where they will fight to become the first ever EA SPORTS FC Pro champion against some of the best players in the world.
Last year's title holder and thus reigning German champion is Antonio "Antonio Radelja" Radelja.
All matches of the Virtual Bundesliga will be played on EA SPORTS FC 24.
