The 2025 version of Football Manager has been cancelled by developers Sports Interactive.
After two delays and months of silence, Sports Interactive announced the decision to cancel FM25 in a 3am social media post on Friday.
The British developer held an “extensive internal discussion” and spoke with licensor and partner Sega before reaching this conclusion.
“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,” the Sports Interactive statement added.
“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.
“We know this will come as a huge disappointment, especially given that the release date has already moved twice, and you have been eagerly anticipating the first gameplay reveal. We can only apologise for the time it has taken to communicate this decision.
“Due to stakeholder compliance, including legal and financial regulations, today was the earliest date that we could issue this statement.”
Sports Interactive are now shifting their focus to the 2026 version of Football Manager.
More than seven million gamers bought and played Football Manager 2024, with Sports Interactive announcing that record last year after sales exceeded their previous best of 6.88 million players for Football Manager 2023.
Why has FM25 been cancelled? And what were the delays over?
The popular series, which has been released annually since 2005, sees gamers assume the role of a football manager – making transfers, tinkering with tactics and picking their starting line-up, all before largely watching on as matches unfold.
The 2025 version was set to undergo significant changes, moving to a new engine which Sports Interactive admitted last June would be a “huge undertaking” – making for “the biggest technical and visual advancement in the series for a generation”.
“It gives us incredible building blocks to create new foundations, unlock our potential, and power our future vision for Football Manager, with enhanced graphical fidelity and more efficient development processes,” Sports Interactive added.
“In the future and with more experience, it will lead to faster creation and implementation of game features and design-led tweaks.
“In essence, FM25 is the starting point for the studio’s next 20 years.”
In essence, also, this is what led to the delays and eventual cancellation.
In September, Sports Interactive announced FM25 had been pushed back to a November release date, but come October they said it wouldn’t come out until March.
More than three months of silence followed, without any updates, which was starting to speak volumes about the state of FM25 – many assuming a March release date was looking unlikely.
And when confirming the cancellation on 7 February, Sports Interactive confirmed what many fans feared, admitting FM25 was not going to live up to expectations.
“Whilst many areas of the game have hit our targets, the overarching player experience and interface is not where we need it to be,” they said.
“As extensive evaluation has demonstrated, including consumer playtesting, we have clear validation for the new direction of the game and are getting close – however, we’re too far away from the standards you deserve.”
FM25 fans: ‘An all-around disaster’
The i Paper had spoken to fans of Football Manager earlier in the week, with opinion varying from “devastated” to “apathetic” over the delays.
Following the cancellation, however, one fan of Reddit said: “Probably the right decision, surprised they didn’t make a re-skin version of 24 and put that out. Horribly handled by everyone involved really.”
Sports Interactive opted against making an FM24 update with 2024-25 data as “this is a substantial undertaking and would divert critical resources away from the development of the next release which requires our full focus,” they said.
One fan admitted it was “the smartest play”, while the timing of the announcement led another fan to say those in Europe were in for “a rude awakening”, adding: “This has been an all-around disaster.”
Will fans who bought FM25 get a refund?
Yes. The game had been available to pre-order, and Sports Interactive have confirmed gamers “will automatically be refunded in full if purchased through an official SEGA-approved retailer”, adding: “Retailers will process refunds in due course, for any enquiries please contact your point of purchase.”
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