The final Festival of Football promo is about to launch in EA FC 26. Here is the exact Summer Stars release date, start time, and the massive leaked players set to dominate Ultimate Team12:16, 16 Jul 2026The 2026 World Cup final is now just days away, and the two teams battling it out for glory are confirmed. While England won’t be there after a gut-wrenching late defeat to Argentina in the semi-finals, there’s still plenty to celebrate in EA Sports FC 26’s Festival of Football event.‌The final promo of the Festival, Summer Stars, is set to arrive imminently, lauding the players who have proven their quality consistently throughout this summer’s World Cup. According to EA Sports, the Festival of Football finale “culminates in a celebration of the biggest moments and greatest performers” over the five weeks in North America.‌The promo will essentially work as a Team of the Tournament event, and will likely feature fewer than 20 new player cards to truly honour the best performances. Summer Stars is also set to be shorter than most of the other Festival of Football promos.‌There’s not long for Ultimate Team players to wait to get their hands on these special player items that will surely boost any gamer’s current XI. Here’s everything you need to know about the Summer Stars promo.EA FC 26 Summer Stars release date and timeAs previously announced by EA Sports, Summer Stars will begin on Friday (July 17). It’ll run for one week in EA FC 26, finishing on Friday, July 24.The Summer Stars player items will be released at the usual promo switchover time of 6pm BST - or 10am PT and 1pm ET for our friends in North America, where the World Cup is coming to a conclusion.‌At that 6pm deadline, the current FUT Phenoms will no longer be available in packs and will be replaced by the Summer Stars items.EA FC 26 Summer Stars leaks and predictionsFour huge names have already been confirmed by EA, having been teased on the FUT menu screen. Unsurprisingly, they are all attacking players who have been firing their nations deep into the knockout rounds of the World Cup.Those four players confirmed to get Summer Stars player items tomorrow are:‌Jude Bellingham (England)Erling Haaland (Norway)Kylian Mbappe (France)Lionel Messi (Argentina)As well as these, prominent leakers claim to have revealed a number of other big-name players. Unsurprisingly, the World Cup semi-finalists feature prominently in this one-week promo but are also joined by other standout performers.‌Insiders like Fut Sheriff and ASYFutTrader have had their say on X, formerly Twitter, and have leaked that the following players are set to join the above four stars. Overall ratings are just a prediction at this point, but here they are:CB: Aymeric Laporte (Spain) - 97 OVR ratedCB: Pau Cubarsi (Spain) - 97 OVR ratedRW: Ousmane Dembele (France) - 98 OVR ratedLW: Vinicius Junior (Brazil) - 98 OVR ratedST: Harry Kane (England) - 98 OVR ratedST: Mo Salah (Egypt) - 98 OVR ratedWe can expect more themed Squad Building Challenges and Objectives to complete, but whether these will offer more Summer Stars player items or not remains to be seen. The next leg of the Future World Tour objectives will also unlock at the same time Summer Stars releases.Article continues belowThat means players can get their hands on the 96-rated National Pride Estevao, as well as more Futties Tokens for spending on packs, players and evolutions in the Token Store. More Live Events are highly likely, and players should expect a Showdown SBC to drop before the World Cup Final between Spain and Argentina.Trying to predict who might get the nod from EA Sports from each nation isn’t easy. But if we assume that it’ll be players not yet featured in the Festival of Football campaign during the tournament, it doesn’t leave many options.Our money is on Lautaro Martinez, following his winning goal to break English hearts in the semi-final, and Pedri, who’ll seek to help Spain control what could be a volatile final. FUT players should also expect more tournaments and another themed Squad Battles objective.