The excitement of snagging a premium player for your FUT Champs squad quickly turns to frustration when that same player has lost 20-30% of their value within days.
This scenario has become all too familiar for Ultimate Team grinders in EA Sports FC 26, and the community is reaching a breaking point.
The cycle of coin loss is a predictable and painful one. It typically unfolds like this:
As the anticipation for FUT Champions builds on Wednesday and Thursday, players rush to the transfer market. They secure the meta players the pacey wingers, the dominant defenders, and the clinical strikers believed to be essential for competitive success.
This surge in demand artificially inflates prices. The matches are played. Teams are tested. Coins are spent on consumables and minor squad adjustments.
As the final matches are completed and weekly rewards from Division Rivals and FUT Champions start to hit the market on Sunday/Monday/Thursday, the supply of players explodes.
Furthermore, players who panic bought their stars for the weekend quickly list them for sale, eager to liquidate their assets before the next promo or general price depreciation.
With high supply and dwindling midweek demand, the prices of nearly all tradeable players, especially the mid to high tier meta cards, take a sharp dive.
A player bought for 200,000 coins on Thursday to secure a Rank 5 finish might only be worth 150,000 by Monday evening, representing a 50,000 coin loss often more than the rewards for the very rank they achieved.
Let us take an example of Sophia Wilson, one of the best strikers in the game, her price was 315,000 around Thursday evening now on Monday after the matches are over, she costs 234,000 an 80,000 loss on just one player.
100% TRUE
— Wael (@narcoinsfc) October 12, 2025
You literally lose more coins on your team than you make playing Weekend League and its INSANE
Its not a good feeling to have no sense of progression when thats the whole point of FUT https://t.co/XxY8nqeOse
While market fluctuations are a perennial part of Ultimate Team, the coin bleed feels particularly severe in FC 26 for a few reasons:
- The Untradeable Reality: A growing portion of high value rewards from Rivals, Squad Battles, and even FUT Champions are untradeable. While this provides a strong core team, it reduces the coins available for market spending. For players who need to purchase their squad, the coin loss from a depreciating asset is all the more painful as it’s harder to recoup.
- A Pay to Compete Perception: For players who avoid spending real money, building a competitive team relies entirely on smart trading and solid reward returns. When a significant portion of their trading profit is instantly wiped out by post weekend depreciation, it reinforces the belief that only those who can afford to buy their way through the market can maintain a top tier squad.
FC 26’s coin depreciation problem represents a larger disconnect between what the game asks players to do and what actually makes financial sense within Ultimate Team’s ecosystem.
You’re told to grind coins and build a strong squad, but the market mechanics punish you for doing exactly that. Until EA tackles the core issues of oversupply and price swings, players will remain frustrated as their coin balances continuously shrink.
