FM 2016 Competitions Preview: England, Part I

Hi guys, today we are going to start a new series where we show you a preview of league competitions in Football Manager 2016. Our first episode will be divided in two parts, since we’re going to take a quick view at England’s competitional system which includes no less than 6 tiers, starting with the Premier League and ending up with the two series from the bottom, Vanarama South and North respectively.

That being said, we’re going to see some short presentation of each tier and what is probably most needed, a table with all the teams in the league, showing up each club’s financial status, transfer budget, minimum expectations and even more, by clicking on a team you can see what players they have, with customized columns such as age, nationality, salary and value, or contract expiration dates.

I hope you will find our series helpful in deciding what club you should manage in Football Manager 2016. The plan is to write these episodes on a weekly basis and if all goes well then we should be able to cover all playable nations before the next year’s game edition. And now let’s move on to our first episode, England…

Top League & Continental Winners

Premier League: Manchester United (20), Liverpool (18), Arsenal (13), Everton (9), Aston Villa (7), Sunderland (6), Chelsea (5), Manchester City, Newcastle and Sheffield Wednesday (4), Leeds United, Wolverhampton, Huddersfield, Blackburn Rovers (3), Tottenham, Preston NE, Derby Country, Burnley and Portsmouth (2), West Brom, Ipswich Town, Nottingham Forest, Sheffield United (1).

UEFA Champions League: Liverpool (1977, 1978, 1981, 1984, 2005), Manchester United (1968, 1999, 2008), Nottingham Forest (1979, 1980), Aston Villa (1982) and Chelsea (2012). UEFA Europa League: Liverpool (1973, 1976, 2001), Ipswich Town (1981), Tottenham (1972, 1984) and Chelsea (2013).

Tier I: Premier League

• 38 games (teams play each other twice)
• Squad Registration: Maximum team size of 25 players
• Match Rules: Players signed on free transfer can be registered at any time
• Continental Qualification: 4 places for CL, 3 places for EL
• Relegation: Bottom 3 teams are relegated

Today the UK’s top domestic league, the Premier League (English Premier Division) is one of the most popular and richest sports leagues in the world. Since its inception in 1992 only a small group of teams such as Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and lately Manchester City dominated the competition so most of the other winners have quite a long period since their last title. Let’s take Liverpool for example, despite their 18 titles they have failed to win a single one since 1990. Arsenal won their last title in 2004, Aston Villa in 1981, Everton in 1987 while teams such as Newcastle and Sunderland had their success way back in the 30s. As for West Brom, their only title comes from the year of 1920.

Premier League Clubs (Ordered by Media Prediction)

[table “17” not found /]

Tier II: Sky Bet Championship

• 46 games (teams play each other twice)
• Squad Registration: Emergency goalkeepers can be signed at any time during the season
• Match Rules: The match squad must have no more than 5 loan players
• Promotion: 2 teams promoted, 4 qualify for playoffs
• Relegation: Bottom 3 teams are relegated

The Championship is the wealthiest non-top flight football division in the world and the seventh richest division in Europe. With an average match attendance for the 2014–15 season of 17,857, the Championship ranked slightly ahead of the German 2. Bundesliga as the most-watched secondary league in the world. In the 2014–15 season, A.F.C. Bournemouth were the division champions, Watford were the runners up, and Norwich City were the promotion play-off winners.

Championship Clubs (Ordered by Media Prediction)

[table “19” not found /]

Tier III: Sky Bet League 1

• 46 games (teams play each other twice)
• Squad Registration: Emergency goalkeepers can be signed at any time during the season
• Match Rules: The match squad must have no more than 5 loan players
• Promotion: 2 teams promoted, 4 qualify for playoffs
• Relegation: Bottom 4 teams are relegated

League One (sometimes referred to as Sky Bet League 1 for sponsorship reasons) is the second-highest division of The Football League and the third tier in the English football league system. At the end of each season the top two clubs, together with the winner of the play-offs between the clubs which finished in 3rd–6th position, are promoted to Football League Championship.

League 1 Clubs (Ordered by Media Prediction)

[table “20” not found /]

Tier IV: Sky Bet League 2

• 46 games (teams play each other twice)
• Squad Registration: Emergency goalkeepers can be signed at any time during the season
• Match Rules: The match squad must have no more than 5 loan players
• Promotion: 3 teams promoted, 4 qualify for playoffs
• Relegation: Bottom 2 teams are relegated

League Two (often referred to as Sky Bet League 2 for sponsorship reasons) is the third-highest division of The Football League and fourth-highest division overall in the English football league system. At the end of each season the top three teams, together with the winner of the play-offs between the teams which finished in 4th–7th position, are promoted to Football League One and are replaced by the four teams that finished bottom of that division.

League 2 Clubs (Ordered by Media Prediction)

[table “21” not found /]

Next time we’ll take a quick look at the remaining leagues from England’s competitional system, then move on to other playable nations in the game. Below are some of the conventions I took in order to show more information in a compact view in the tables (I guess some of you figured most of them out, already). Thanks for reading and please feel free to leave any comments or feedback. Happy managing!

Table Conventions

• Under INT — CL, EL = Europe during first season / (p) = promoted club / (r) = relegated club
• Under Finance — asterisk sign (*) = club is under transfer embargo due to breach of financial regulations
• Under Estimated Value — loan debt is shown in parenthesis ().