Football Manager 25 is cancelled, but this does not spell the end for the series

Sega and Sports Interactive announced Football Manager 25’s cancellation on February 7. The game was originally due to launch in November last year, before being postponed to March 2025. Now it has been cancelled, with Sports Interactive shifting their attention towards making a brand-new game in the series. 

Starting out in 1992 with Championship Manager on the Atari ST and Amiga, Football Manager is a long-running series of simulation games. As the title suggests, the player takes on the role of a manager who must lead their soccer team to victory. The strategic game lets you oversee all aspects of your team including player transfers and training. The series has remained popular in part due to its realism, many real-life clubs and players have been included. 

Football Manager 25 was to be the first in the series to use Unity, in what was described as “FM’s biggest technical and visual advancement for a generation.” It would have boasted a slicker and smarter UI. New additions would have included Women’s soccer as well as up-to-date Premier League teams and enhanced player realism. 

However, to meet both developer aims and user expectations regarding quality, the game was delayed until March 2025. According to Sports Interactive’s statement on the game’s cancellation, a variety of challenges, some unforeseen, made it impossible for the dev team to achieve what they wanted within the timeframe, despite their best efforts. “As we approached critical milestones at the turn of the year, it became unmistakably clear that we would not achieve the standard required, even with the adjusted timeline.” 

After internal discussions with Sega, the decision was made to cancel the game, however, this was only made public today due to the need for stakeholder compliance. Preorders of the game will be refunded. 

Sports Interactive mention that although they managed to achieve many things with Football Manager 25, the overarching player experience and interface did not meet their expectations. Although they could have released the game anyway and patched it later, they decided against this.  

Delaying Football Manager 25 any further would have been too late in the soccer season, so instead, Sports Interactive has decided to take what they have learned and pour it into their next game. They won’t be updating Football Manager 24 with new content, but are in negotiations to extend licensing and platform agreements with the aim of making sure players can continue to enjoy the game.

Based on the original Japanese article by Hideaki Fujiwara (original article’s publication date: 2025-02-07 12:46 JST)