The highly anticipated addition to the football simulation series was originally set for a November 2024 release, but faced multiple delays pushing that date to March 2025.
In a shock move Sports Interactive then made the decision to cancel the development of the game in February 2025, shifting their focus onto the 2026 version of Football Manager.
Why Was Football Manager 2025 Cancelled?
The series dates back to 2004 in its current form, and all the way back to 1992 under its previous name Championship Manager. The highly anticipated sequel was touted as the biggest shakeup in the game’s stories history, bringing with it some huge changes like a new 3D match engine using the Unity engine, and the inclusion of women’s football.
The developers of the game told disappointed fans that: “Due to a variety of challenges that we’ve been open about to date, and many more unforeseen, we currently haven’t achieved what we set out to do in enough areas of the game, despite the phenomenal efforts of our team.
“Each decision to delay the release was made with the aim of getting the game closer to the desired level but, 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.”
They blamed “stakeholder compliance, including legal and financial regulations” for delaying the announcement of cancellation, apologising for the “time it has taken to communicate this decision”.
They go on to say that all efforts would be shifting to the 2026 edition of the game and that all players who pre-ordered FM25 will receive a refund.
What Will Happen to Football Manager 2024?
Many fans called on Sports Interactive to provide a free update to FM24 while the wait for the 2026 version continues. Generally Football Manager games receive two major updates, one upon release fixing bugs and updating playerbases based on the results of Beta testing and real-life transfers, and a winter update, bringing new young players into the database, updating the stats of existing players, and providing transfer updates after the January window.
Fans were hopeful that a third update would be provided to update the database in line with what would have come with FM25, making team-sheets, financials and player attributes more up-to-date.
The developers however announced in October when the game was originally delayed that there would not be another major update for FM24. They reiterated this in their cancellation announcement saying an update “would divert critical resources away from the development of the next release which requires our full focus.”