All players get the kit and crest of Chapecoense

EA Sports has given all FIFA 17 Ultimate Team players the kit and badge of Chapecoense, the Brazilian soccer club that lost 19 members in an airplane crash en route to the biggest match in club history.

FIFA 17 is encouraging all players to wear the Chapecoense kit and crest in-game as a show of sympathy and support. Seventy-one died in the crash, as Chapecoense was flying to Medellin, Colombia for the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana Finals, a club championship of South American football.

Three players survived. One, goalkeeper Jakson Follmann, had a leg amputated.

Chapecoense (formally called Associação Chapecoense de Futebol) was a small club that had returned to Brazil’s top flight of soccer in 2014, for the first time since 1979. Their rise from the nation’s third division to the finals of a continental championship was widely celebrated by Brazilians as a classic underdog’s triumph. The nation has declared three days of mourning.

Chapecoense’s opponents, Atlético Nacional of Colombia, offered to concede a draw to allow Chapecoense to be awarded the Copa Sudamericana championship. Brazil’s Serie A clubs have offered to loan players for free to Chapecoense, and have asked Brazil’s Football Association to exempt Chapecoense from relegation for the next three years.

FIFA 17‘s message is as follows:

In support of Chapecoense

Wear this kit and crest in support of the friends, family and fans of Chapecoense.

Força Chape.

Source: Polygon – Full