When Rigid Support Policies Punish Loyal Players: a Single Misclick

Hi everyone, and hopefully, to the EA Community Managers reading this,

I am writing this out of sheer frustration and heartbreak, hoping someone from the Studio or Community team can step in where standard EA Help failed.

I have poured over 418 hours into EA SPORTS FC 26. I am a dedicated Ultimate Team player who grinds the menus, completes the objectives, and supports this franchise daily. Recently, I have been heavily grinding the "Journey of Nations Completionist" objective to unlock the 97-rated Maradona. I was on the absolute final stretch.

Then, the unthinkable happened. During a routine menu grind, due to a simple lapse in concentration and the games unforgiving UI, I accidentally submitted the exclusive "Journey of Nations" Jay-Jay Okocha objective item into an SBC before I could play his 1 required match.

In a fraction of a second, my entire progress for a 97-rated icon was permanently bricked.

I immediately contacted EA Live Support. I knew that the Companion App Quick Sell Recovery tool does not work for SBC submissions, so I begged for a one-time goodwill manual exception. I was not asking for my SBC fodder back; I just needed a 1-match loan of that specific Okocha or for the objective to be manually ticked.

The response I got was incredibly disheartening. The support agents were empathetic and explicitly admitted two things:

First, they verified my playtime and my exact situation.

Second, they admitted that while backend and Studio teams do have the tools to adjust accounts and fix broken objective chains, Live Support is strictly forbidden from escalating these cases to them.

For reference, my official Case ID is: 249722744

How can a multi-billion dollar live-service game have a support policy that completely abandons its most dedicated players over a single UI misclick? Why is there zero safety net for untradeable, unrecoverable objective items that are tied to massive milestones like a 97 Maradona?

I am posting this here because Live Support told me my only hope is that a Community Manager or someone from the Studio sees this and decides to intervene.

I am pleading with the CMs: Please, look at Case 249722744. Look at my 418 hours of playtime. Please do not let weeks of grinding end in such a punishing, anti-consumer way just because a support protocol refuses to route edge cases to the backend team.

Any help, upvotes, or visibility from the community would mean the world to me right now. Has anyone else had their progress completely soft-locked like this?

Thank you for reading.