The F.A. Premier League Stars

In The F.A. Premier League Stars, each option in the menu is represented by a star. When you get to a match and play football, it shows which player you are controlling with a star under their feet. Each goal is heralded with a burst of stars. At the end of each match, the currency you earn to spend on transfers or improvements is stars. As the back of the box emphasises, it has “all of the F.A. Premier League STARS”. My god, it’s full of stars.

The symbol that it puts me in mind of most, though, is not a star but a plus. Specifically, the plus logo of Plusnet, the internet service provider. The one with the adverts promising good honest Yorkshire broadband, in a Yorkshire accent, to serve as a nice alternative to the telecoms empire of the less homely vampire death squid that is BT. The catch that they don’t tell you, of course, is that Plusnet is owned by BT. There is a lesson there in how useful it is to have a subsidiary covering off the aesthetic territory not covered by your main product.

The F.A. Premier League Stars is essentially the Plusnet to FIFA’s BT in the world of football games. There’s no hiding that it’s also an EA Sports game, but it is not presented at any point as being FIFA 99.5, and indeed was developed by a separate team in the UK rather than Canada. Its concept of earning stars to spend on transfers and improvements was a step away from simulation. Its gameplay is a little freer and less precise, with new elements like power bars for shots, and defences that dramatically part ways to leave acres of space for any attacker who quickens their stride or plays a decent forward pass.

It also symbolises its different path by going much harder in its choice of dance music, with a remix of ATB’s recent UK #1 single “9PM (Till I Come)” taking lead spot, and iconic club Ministry of Sound getting their logo on the game. This is a game for Premier League fans who are also into clubbing and want something easygoing before they head out, perhaps. 

For all the superficial differences, though, there is visibly no way that EA UK weren’t given some FIFA access, and even the star shape is a callback to the original FIFA International Soccer. The gameplay isn’t all that different, with my FIFA familiarity mostly doing me pretty well. And the idea of a looser game stands at odds with the fact that it also emphasises some elements of realism even more than FIFA does.

Released to coincide with the start of the 99/00 Premier League season, it specifically wants to give you the authentic The F.A. Premier League™ experience. Or at least the authentic experience of watching The F.A. Premier League™ on television. The game features the voices of Sky Sports’ coverage of the Premier League: Martin Tyler, Richard Keys and Andy Gray (twelve years before the latter two lost their jobs after their massively sexist comments were caught on record). It recreates all the league’s stadiums. It features each Premier League club’s kit recreated in exacting detail, down to the sponsors. 

Well, some of the sponsors. Alcohol sponsors are out for the same reason the game is not The F.A. Carling Premiership Stars (age classification issues being a thing for games but not for Match of the Day I guess?) so Liverpool don’t have Carlsberg on their shirts, for instance. Arsenal also have a blank space on the front of theirs, at least on the PlayStation version, because what was there in reality was the name of Sega’s Dreamcast console. In the circumstances it’s hard not to notice the corporate concerns crowding in from all directions. The F.A. Premier League Stars was not the start of a successful series, and a lot of its features ended up rolled into FIFA, but it served its purpose. It isn’t a real alternative, just a useful way of blocking space one might otherwise occupy. For EA, even its limited success must have been a plus.

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Top of the charts for week ending 14 August 1999:

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Top of the charts for week ending 21 August 1999:

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