Tokyo Verdy, a member of the second tier Japanese football league (J2 League), signed its first FIFA player over the weekend in MikeYi Lukaku.
A 2015 finalist of the FIFA Interactive World Cup, Lukaku tweeted the news on Sunday.
ヘッダーをVerdy仕様に更新🤔#verdy pic.twitter.com/TcSgeRzcnB
— MikeYi ️ Lukaku (@mamama_mikey) January 22, 2017
With the player signing, Tokyo Verdy is the first Asian professional sports team to invest in FIFA, according to eSports writer Manny Anekal.
Little information is known about how Lukaku will fit into the overarching eSports strategy for Tokyo Verdy or what the relationship entails from a business sense. Given eSports traces much of its roots to Asia, it’s somewhat shocking that a professional sports team in Asia hasn’t invested around FIFA until now.