Last February, EA Sports President Peter Moore told Bloomberg.com that Madden would be "…on Facebook going forward." Because EA had acquired social-games developer Playfish in 2009, this news wasn't particularly surprising. What was surprising, however, was that the first EA Sports' franchise to get the free-to-play Facebook treatment wasn't the previously hinted-at Madden; it was FIFA, in the form of EA Sports FIFA Superstars.

So where's Madden for Facebook? Bitmob Community Manager Andrew Hiscock may have solved the mystery this morning when he tried to get his FIFA Superstars fix and found that the game would not load. This in and of itself wouldn't be newsworthy, but the error screen that popped-up and caught Andrew's eye is:

Oops! Did someone at EA update the football page with American Football by mistake? Regardless of how it happened, the cat is now out of the bag: EA Sports Madden NFL Superstars is real, and it's far enough along to be tested in some form (Alpha or Beta) on Facebook. It's reasonable to speculate that Madden NFL Superstars will focus on team building and social interaction like the similarly named FIFA Superstars, but the only concrete thing we know about the game at this point is that it exists. 

Update:
I emailed EA Sports Director of Public Relations Rob Semsey for a comment. He said "We’re always exploring new platforms to deliver accessible and innovative sports experiences, as FIFA Superstars and Tiger Woods PGA TOUR Online have demonstrated. You can expect us to continue this with our other franchises, but we have no announcements to make at this time regarding a Madden NFL game for Facebook."