What do you do when you’ve completed the game? You make your own game!

I’m normally against editing the database, I like it to be as close to the default as possible. However, I’ve done that to death and this is an opportunity to try something very different

The Scenario

It’s the summer of 1997 and Premier League football is starting to take off around the world. A crafty American businessman sees an opportunity to cash in and grow the sport knowing fine well that someday, the TV deal will be worth billions of pounds. He thinks if we add in a bit of American showmanship, we’ll have the greatest sports empire in the world on our hands.

19 of the 20 Premier League clubs have been re-branded to be Americanised. Manchester United are already deemed a hit around the world and have various copyrights in place preventing a name change. In reality, I can’t change their name in the database without it causing utter mayhem and breaking the game on start up. Oh well.

All clubs are managerless, each franchise can appoint a manager of their choosing. Likewise, all teams have been given a £25m budget but have no players contracted to them at the outset. Clubs will have to bid for players to fill up their roster, but as this is a reset every single Premier League club has a reputation of 15, so it’s going to be a scrap for every player. Of course, clubs abroad are unaffected by this so whilst Barnsley could now be quite the pull, the Tykes would have to pay full price to prise a player over to the new league, which could dent their budget severely. It’s a real humdinger.

The players are not available for free, they are all at “minor team” meaning they can be acquired for an auction price. Quite how that price is figured out, I don’t know. Ryan Giggs comes in at £4m whereas you’d have to pay £14m for Alan Shearer.

I think, though I can’t back this up, that because reputations are all fairly high (it’s rated out of 20) it means any clubs who are struggling early doors will see their managers come under severe pressure. That should help.

What will I be doing? Well, I’d actually like to sit out of the way on this one and let the madness unfold. I might take a job in the second season or something, but I just want to see how the AI handle it all and try to fill up a squad. They’re going to need about 20-25 players to be competitive, which means £1m per player. That could be an issue. But it could also be hilarious.

I’ve simmed the game until the end of October. I was originally planning to start from the eve of the season but it turns out 3 weeks isn’t enough time to build a squad, who knew? Over the coming weeks, I’m going to bring you a preview, covering four teams at a time so you can see what they’ve been up to. Then we’ll be back to weekly updates every Sunday to see how it all unfolds. Let the games begin!

Here’s some preview images to get you in the mood…

One more image for you, I’ve contributed to the brand new FM Anthology ‘The Men Who Stare At Goals‘ alongside several (more talented) members of the FM Community. Make it your first purchase this January transfer window!