Locked out of Ultimate Team

I preordered the MVP bundle on PlayStation 5 and have been playing Madden 27 in early access, and progressing through objectives etc levelling my team pass.

logged on onto the end of last week and was met with Error No team selected, I went to make my selection of team but was unable to select the free option. 
Have I been locked behind a paywall or something?

more information- I have followed all the advice from the EA support page, cleared cache, checked connections, even as far as uninstalling and reinstalling the game. Still being forced to pay for a team pass when I’ve already selected one