Yes, 1 v 1 is hosted by a player, but when a 1 v 1 game lags it is not always the hosts fault. This is an important thing to note.
2 v 2, however, as we know is run on the EA servers. The only reason I can understand is that 2 v 2 uses the Online Team Play system which supports up to 20 players and I can definitely say that no-one would be able to host a game of FIFA for 20 players with minimal lag. We just don't have the infrastructure to do that at the moment. So in a way, EA are right to restrict Online Team Play to dedicated servers, however, they are harsh in essentially saying that countries outside the US do not deserve their own dedicated servers. FIFA obviously does not appear to EA as being big enough in Australia to give us local dedicated servers.
Posted on Friday, 15th January 2010