The intersections of race and gendered stereotypes within the constructions of digital women footballers in video games

This article employs Bogost’s (2007) ‘procedural rhetoric’ frame to explore the ways in which the numerical values which constitute FIFA 22’s ‘Top 100’ Black and White digital women footballers reflect or challenge the exclusionary discourses that have, thus far, shaped the experiences of White and Black female sporting athletes in the social world. In doing so, this research is the first to empirically demonstrate considerable differences between the construction, sporting competencies and artificial emotional and sporting intelligence assigned to Black and White digital players within football video games. Findings also demonstrate the ways in which the numerical foundations of racialised digital women footballers are informed by, and reflect, processes of both sporting misogynoir and Whiteness, which intersect and underpin the markedly anti-Black and anti-feminine framings and sporting competencies of digital Black female footballers within this digital sports world.