The League System

A world in FM Worlds is a complete football pyramid with its own calendar. This guide explains how that calendar is built, how you go up and down it, and how the cups and continental competitions fit around the league.

Worlds and divisions

Each world is independent — its own clubs, market, fixtures and managers, sharing nothing with any other world. A world has one or more divisions arranged in tiers, tier one being the top.

Worlds are built from templates. Some are single divisions; others are full pyramids. The English templates use real division membership, synced from the actual league tables — a five-tier English world is 20, 24, 24, 24 and 24 clubs with their real division names, and clubs are placed in the division they genuinely play in rather than sorted by how strong their squad looks.

Anyone can build a world. A player-created world can run up to six divisions of up to 24 clubs, to a maximum of 120 clubs, and its creator sets the house rules — squad caps, wage caps, bench size, loan limits, whether transfer windows apply, even whether finishing bottom costs you your job. Worlds can be public, approval-only, or private behind a join code.

The world clock

Everything runs on real time. Fixtures have real kick-off times and are played when they come round, online or not.

• League matches: Tuesday and Friday at 20:00.
• Domestic cup: Sunday.
• Continental: Wednesday.

The slots are separated deliberately so no club is ever asked to play twice in a day — a club going well on three fronts plays Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

Bigger divisions play differently. A 24-club division is 46 rounds, and running that on two days a week would stretch the season by over a month. So divisions longer than 38 rounds switch to Tuesday and Saturday and add Thursday fixtures — as many as needed and no more — which keeps a 46-round season within about ten days of a 38-round one.

Every tenth week is an international break with no club fixtures at all, which is when national-team football is played.

World speed

A world runs at one of three speeds, fixed when it is created: normal (a season takes about five months), fast (about two and a half), or slow (about ten). Speed compresses the calendar, and it compresses rest and settling-in periods with it, so a fast world is not a permanently exhausted one.

The live window

A result is computed at kick-off, but revealed over the following fifteen real minutes. During that window the match is treated as in progress: events appear gradually, and the table, the schedule, the news feed and even link previews all refuse to show the score. Champions and cup winners are not announced until the window closes.

The league table

Three points for a win, one for a draw. Positions are decided by points, then goal difference, then goals scored, then club name.

There is deliberately no head-to-head tiebreaker in league or continental group tables. The one competition that does use it is the World Cup group stage.

Promotion and relegation

In a pyramid world, each division below the top promotes and each above the bottom relegates:

• The top two go up automatically.
• Third to sixth contest a play-off for one more place: third plays sixth, fourth plays fifth, and the winners meet in a final. The better side is favoured but it is a one-off tie, and upsets happen.
• The bottom three go down.

Promotion and relegation are applied only once every division in the world has finished its season, after which the whole pyramid is re-drawn together for the new membership.

The domestic cup

Every division has a cup contested by all of its clubs, run on the English model. If the field is not a power of two, a preliminary round trims it and the top seeds get byes. Seeding comes from last season's final table, so the champions are top seeds.

• Ties are played on Sundays, a week apart.
• Single leg. A draw goes straight to penalties — there is no extra time.
• Players are cup-tied. A player who has already appeared in this season's cup for another club cannot play in it again for you.
• The next round is drawn only once the current one is complete.

Continental football

A world with enough clubs runs two continental competitions: the World Champions Cup for the elite and the Continental Cup below it.

Qualification is not “top four”. Clubs across every division are ranked by finishing position first — all the champions, then all the runners-up, then all the third-placed clubs, and so on. The best 32 enter the Champions Cup and the next 32 the Continental Cup. In a multi-division world that means winning your division is worth far more than finishing fourth in the one above.

• Groups: eight groups of four, single round-robin, three Wednesday matchdays. Top two in each group go through.
• Knockout: sixteen clubs. The round of 16 is drawn so nobody meets a group opponent. Rounds through the semi-finals are two-legged; the final is a single match at a neutral venue.
• No away-goals rule. Level on aggregate goes to penalties.

Draws are events in their own right. The group draw is announced a few days ahead and can be replayed as an animation; the knockout draw is scheduled for 24 hours after the last group game and announced with a countdown.

National teams and the World Cup

Every world has national teams, run by the computer until a manager takes one. Managing a nation alongside your club is a Gold feature, and you can hold one nation per world.

National football uses the same systems as club football — the same tactics board, the same drag-and-drop squad selection, the same match engine — rather than a simplified version. Squads are 23 players, and a nation needs at least 15 eligible players in the world to exist at all.

The World Cup is a 32-nation tournament: eight groups of four, then a round of 16 through to a final, with a third-place play-off. Places are shared between confederations, qualified through group campaigns played on international break weeks. This is the one competition where the group tiebreaker is head-to-head.

Called-up players are unavailable to their clubs during break weeks and come back with reduced condition, which is worth planning around if you have internationals.

Friendlies

You can arrange friendlies against any club in your world — instantly against a computer-run club, or by invitation to another manager. You can have up to six booked at a time, no more than one a week, up to six weeks ahead, and never on a day you already have a competitive fixture.

Friendlies carry no injury risk and do not count towards form or development. They build morale and cost fitness. Between seasons, four pre-season friendlies are arranged automatically after a couple of days' rest.

The end of a season

When a division plays its last fixture, a great deal happens at once:

• The final table is frozen, and trophies are awarded to the champions and the runners-up.
• Prize money is paid to every club by finishing position.
• Contracts tick down a year, and anyone reaching the end of theirs leaves on a free.
• Season awards are recorded — player and team of the season, the golden boot — and every player's statistics are archived permanently.
• In career worlds, players develop or decline.
• The board delivers its verdict on your season.
• Pre-season friendlies are scheduled, then the new fixture list is drawn.

Player statistics and match history survive the rollover permanently, which is what club records, the Hall of Fame and manager career pages are built from.

Getting a job, and losing one

Empty clubs in a world can be claimed instantly. But when a manager leaves a club — resigned, sacked, went inactive or moved on — that club does not go back on the shelf. It opens a vacancy:

• Applications are open for 72 hours, then the board appoints.
• You are scored on fit (does your reputation match the size of the club), your recent record, and your written pitch. Being under-qualified hurts much more than being over-qualified.
• You can hold up to three applications at once, and applying is accepting — win it and you move immediately.
• If nobody applies, the vacancy expires and the club is first-come again.

Reputation is account-wide and follows you between worlds. It comes from league titles, cups and continental trophies, how long you have been playing, and achievements — and it is what decides which end of the job market comes calling.

On the way out: resigning is free the first time, with a seven-day cooldown before a second. Sacking comes from the board's warning ladder — three warnings and you are gone — or from a world rule that automatically dismisses whoever finishes in the bottom places. Going quiet for four weeks also gives up the job. Your career record survives all of it.

Next: what to do with the squad you inherit, in developing players.