More clubs than ever compete in VBL Club Championship

RB Leipzig, here with Umut “RBLZ_Umut” Gültekin and Anders “RBLZ_Vejrgang” Vejrgang, is the reigning German Club Champion.
Photo: ESL/Simon Howar

30. August 2023 – The VBL competitions will kick off the new 2023/24 season in the inaugural year of EA SPORTS FC™ Pro from November. Now in its sixth season, a total of 35 clubs will take part in the VBL Club Championship. Compared with last season, there are three new clubs from the Bundesliga: Borussia Dortmund, Sport-Club Freiburg and FC Bayern München. 1. FC Union Berlin has said that it will not take part in the competition. The new competitors from Bundesliga 2 are Fortuna Düsseldorf and 1. FC Magdeburg, as well as the three newly promoted clubs SV Elversberg, VfL Osnabrück and SV Wehen Wiesbaden.

“We are delighted with the largest field of participants in the VBL Club Championship’s history and welcome a total of eight new teams to our competition,” says Jörg Höflich, Head of Virtual Bundesliga at the DFL.

The clubs taking part in the VBL Club Championship will again be split into two divisions along geographical lines: North-West and South-East. The allocation of the clubs to the divisions, the dates of the individual matchdays and their fixtures will be announced on virtual.bundesliga.com in the next few weeks. The first matchdays will take place on 18-19 November 2023.

Switch from “95 mode” to “Ultimate Team”

One change for the club competition is the switch from “95 mode” to “Ultimate Team” mode. The clubs made this decision ahead of the season in the spirit of further development of the competition. In doing so, they are taking into account the wishes of many players and fans. From now on, therefore, participants in the VBL Club Championship will be able to build their teams with players from all clubs of the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2. This was already the case for the VBL Open Playoffs and the VBL Grand Final.

The final of the VBL Club Championship is scheduled for 23 and 24 March 2024. In addition to the trophy and the title of eFootball German Club Champion, the prize money pool has increased again to €87,500. RB Leipzig lifted the trophy for the second time in a row in May 2023, retaining its German Club Champion crown.

In addition, the VBL Open start on 1 November 2023. This part of the competition is open to all interested players and acts as a four-month qualification stage for the VBL Open Playoffs, which brings the VBL Open and the VBL Club Championship together: the best individual players from the VBL Open compete against the qualifiers from the VBL Club Championship. The winners of the VBL Open Playoffs are rewarded with a place in the VBL Grand Final, in which one of the individual players will be crowned German Champion in eFootball. Last year’s title winner and thus reigning German Champion is Antonio “AntonioRadelja” Radelja.

All matches of the Virtual Bundesliga will be played on the football simulation game from EA SPORTS, in the 2023-24 season this is EA SPORTS FC 24.