The first version of the game 1.0 hasen't that protection.
Than there hase ben reales several of patches from EA games. Also it hase been reales several of patches to fix LAN games.
1.31 is very new. I have'nt see any LAN fixes. And I think EA games has done a tighter protection about that. So maybe that's why U can't play online with the game.
Read my above post U can se how to make the game works
If U have the original and U don't have to put in you CD or put a no-cd crack