No EA Sports is not a dumb company if they feel that codemasters is becoming too much of a threat they wont bother trying to make their game better they will simply dig deeper into their wallets and buy exclusive rights to ICC,ACB etc,etc meaning if anyone else wants to make a game it will have to be with fake team names and player names etc thus eliminating the competition.
They have already done that with
Nascar
NFL
FIFA
and with NBA and NHL instead of buying exclusive rights they just paid there only competition to come join them.