You expect football games to continue well-known faces in there, it’s kind of what a lot of the advertising gets built on. The licenses to use footballers’ likenesses must be drawn up beforehand though and it seems that Konami might have missed a step somewhere because one footballer featured in Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 says he is going to sue them for using his likeness without getting his permissions first.

Diego Maradona is a retired professional by now, but is in PES2017 and apparently Maradona says that he was not asked permission to be added to Konami’s game. He is in as one of the ‘Legends’ in myClub mode alongside other retired players such as Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry, Ronaldo, and Gary Lineker. It seems that Maradona only became aware of his inclusion a few days ago and made a post on Facebook in which he said that his lawyer would “initiate appropriate legal action” against the game studio.

Konami however have said that they did get permission and released the following statement out to Kotaku:

“At this time, there have been news that in Winning Eleven 2017 (international title: PES 2017 Pro Evolution Soccer) there is one player that is being used without permission; however, our company is using [this character] appropriately, with the basis of the license within the contract.”

What contract they’re talking about is unknown, but it could be that they approached someone who represents Maradona as opposed to the player themselves and the player simply wasn’t aware of it. Who knows? Either way, this will probably be concluded quickly and quietly behind the scenes so unless it blows up, this probably means that at worst Maradona could not be in future PES games.