There have been many goalkeepers, and truly good ones, but I think few have managed to carve out a legend as enduring as Oliver Kahn. The German Bayern Munich keeper not only kept spectacular goals from going in, he also commanded respect with a mix of ferocity, authority, and intensity that is hard to see on today’s pitches, where he did not back down from anyone. Not from opponents, nor from coaches, nor from major names in the video game industry like EA Sports, which he did not hesitate to take to court in the early 2000s… and he won.
This is a topic that’s particularly worth recalling in these FIFA World Cup days. Indeed, it was precisely a licensed video game tied to the sport’s premier intercontinental tournament that sparked the anger — and the subsequent lawsuit — of the goalkeeper. Dissatisfied with the use of his image without authorization in the 2002 FIFA World Cup, Kahn decided to take the matter to his country’s courts. EA Sports defended itself by claiming it held a global license and legitimate signed rights with FIFPro (the international players’ union), which, in theory, guaranteed the marketing rights of all players in the tournament. The problem? The fact that being a member of the union or not did not automatically mean he had ceded his image rights for commercial purposes. The direct consent of the player was mandatory.
No license for a goalkeeper to score an own goal
The developers’ lawyers also argued that a figure of Kahn’s stature was a public figure and that, since the title was recreating the World Cup, his appearance was justified by the context. It wasn’t a bad line of thinking, but the judge rejected it by applying an exception provided by the law: even public figures can oppose the dissemination of their image when there is a legitimate interest in doing so, and here that interest was clear. Kahn did not have to tolerate his image being used for commercial purposes without his consent, and even less so that the game would turn him into a powerless instrument in the hands of the player, capable of making him perform shameful acts, such as scoring own goals repeatedly. Yes, this is mentioned in the ruling.
All told, German justice ruled twice in favor of the Karlsruhe-born goalkeeper and forbade EA Sports from continuing to distribute 2002 FIFA World Cup with his name and image. A measure that hardly impacted the company, since its successor had been on the market for months, but one that did influence the industry, which from then on would view such agreements with greater skepticism (although years later we had controversy between Konami and Diego Armando Maradona), or would resort to generic names, because, as the judge in this matter aptly explains, a football simulator can work very well without having to use real characters.
And Football Manager gave us Jens Mustermann
Sports Interactive, the developer of Football Manager, took that logic to its most ironic extreme: unable to use Kahn’s name in the management series, they replaced him with the fictional character “Jens Mustermann” — the German equivalent of John Doe. However, the rumor mill says that the chosen first name was in reference to his great rival in Germany’s goal, Jens Lehmann.
In 2026, although EA no longer holds the official FIFA license — now in Netflix’s hands with a rather discreet simulator, to be fair — and Oliver Kahn has been retired for over 15 years, we can say that any litigation between the goalkeeper and the company has faded into memory. So much so that, a few months ago, we even saw the legendary German shot-stopper debut as an ICON in EA Sports FC 26.
Via | Gamepro
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