EA apologises for giving Muslim UFC fighter a Christian victory celebration

UFC fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov has lambasted EA for giving his avatar a religiously inappropriate celebration in UFC 2.

Eurogamer reports that in the game Nurmagomedov, who is a practising Muslim, can at times after a victory make the sign of the cross over his chest. The animation can be triggered for any character, but it seems this has not been filtered out for either fighters of another faith or those with no faith at all.

Upon discovering this, the fighter took to Twitter to demand that the publisher respect both his faith and his fans.

I'm a MUSLIM and not Baptized. Please @EASPORTSUFC edit my after fight celebration. I have a lot of Muslim fans and you have to respect it.

— khabib nurmagomedov (@TeamKhabib) March 19, 2016

EA went on to apologise for the mistake and has said that the developers will patch out the chance of the cross celebration triggering for his character in a future update.

To be fair to EA few publishers can boast as good a track record when it comes to tolerance and equality, so it’s unlikely this slip will be repeated in the future.