After delaying Football Manager 2025, the developer confirms bad news about FM24

New Football Manager games will be released in the autumn. It’s been that way for twenty years, but now, with FM25, one of the greatest traditions in the history of management and strategy games comes to an end. Football manager 2025 is postponed until March, and now unfortunately there is even more bad news. FM fans were eager to get started with the new season and suggested to Sports Interactive that – while everyone waits for FM25 – the developer should port the latest stats, data and player updates to Football Manager 2024. It sounds like a sensible interim solution, but after some research and experimentation confirms to the developer that this is simply not possible.

We have the full set of system requirements for Football Manager 2025 and we’re definitely looking forward to the next edition of the sports strategy game, even if it’s been delayed by four months. But the world of football moves quickly and the rankings of players and teams are constantly changing. The basic stats in FM24 don’t always reflect the current game – PSG’s Mbappe may be worth less or more than Real Madrid’s Mbappe. Sports Interactive says it has considered updating FM24 with all the data for Football Manager 2025, but that is not a viable solution.

“Following the announcement of the delay for FM25, many of you have been calling for an official FM24 update with season 2024/25 data,” the developer explains. “This is something we have been exploring since the first internal conversation about delaying the game’s release.

“Now that we have identified the work that would be required, and despite a good initial response from many of our licensors, we can no longer make the assets we use in FM25 work in FM24 without completely recreating them. The same goes for the many competition rules, translations and database changes that cannot be reversed. The updated assets and data would both be required to obtain licensor approval – they cannot be separated.”

Sports Interactive explains that updating FM24 with new seasonal data would be a “substantial undertaking” and would take up the resources and time required to deliver Football Manager 2025 at the “highest possible quality”. The developer says anyone wanting a refund for their FM25 pre-order should contact their retailer.

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