EA has defended the time and financial commitment required to play Ultimate Team in FIFA 21, after a viral post challenging the company's claims calculated the 'true cost'.

The saga began after Twitter user and FIFA 21 Twitch streamer ScudzTV responded to EA's comments that users can "acquire all items in the game without ever spending money".

These comments were made by the company in the fallout of EAGate, which involved claims that an employee was selling Ultimate Team cards for up to thousands of pounds. 

In ScudzTV's post, below, they were able to work out that building their own 'Ultimate Team' without ever spending any money would require an excessive amount of commitment from the player.

One example showed that the player would have to log 916 days of continuous, 24/7 play to acquire the in-game coins required, and another showed that trading using the in-game market would require 10,000 trades with a profit of 10,000 coins. 

As it did previously, though, EA has defended the balance of the Ultimate Team game mode.

In a statement to The Mirror, a spokesperson for the company said: "We’re aware there has been recent speculation on what it takes to have a great FIFA Ultimate Team in EA SPORTS FIFA. While we respect the effort and creativity to map out possible paths to greatness, we challenge the premise of these theories.

"There are a lot of assumptions being made in the calculations. For example, you can’t accurately calculate how many coins you would earn from trading as that would depend on your skill as a trader.

"There are also other aspects of the game that contribute to building your club such as SBCs, Objectives and Draft, which have to be accounted for as well. As importantly, FIFA is a game of skill. The skill of the player is the greatest factor in the outcome of matches or challenges in FIFA -- a strong player can be successful whether their team is bronze, silver, gold or a mixture of all three.

"Investment is a choice players can make, just like in the real world. If the premise here is that players want the best players in the world on their team so they can improve, compete online and play against the best, they can do that in FIFA for no additional investment."

Naturally, these latest comments haven't gone down well with the FIFA community, with plenty of streamers and YouTubers reacting.