Popular video game Football Manager is delayed until next year

The popular video game Football Manager has been delayed again – this time it has been delayed until March next year.

The franchise is one of the most popular sports games on the market, but its output this year seems to be laden with problems.

FM25, this year’s game, has been heralded by developer Sports Interactive (SI) as a “new era”, with the long-awaited introduction of the women’s game as well as a new engine.

SI admitted that it had been a “difficult development cycle” and in an update published in September, acknowledged that it had encountered unexpected problems as it announced that a number of features would be removed from the latest release.

Last month, SI said that features such as international management would not be available in FM25 and that the release date had been pushed back from early to late November.

Then, on Thursday, SI said the game was delayed until March 2025.

Some fans were left dismayed by the decision that they would only have two months of the active season to play the game before the summer.

“After careful consideration, Sports Interactive has made the difficult decision to further delay the release of Football Manager 25,” the company said in a statement.

The extra time since the delay announced in September is said to be “not enough” to ensure the developer can produce a game to the standard it wants.

The shocking announcement came just seven weeks after the game was due to be released and after some fans had already pre-ordered this year’s version.

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In its announcement, SI continued: “Timelines were already tight and, as many of your recent comments rightly pointed out, we were simply in too much of a hurry and were in danger of compromising our usual standards.

“This has put enormous pressure on everyone working at the studio, who are all passionately committed to delivering the best possible game.”

SI added: “We are acutely aware that this will be hugely disappointing for you.

“We share this disappointment and are very sorry.

A number of fans and popular Football Manager streamers and sites took to social media to express their disappointment at the decision.

SI also added that anyone wishing to request a refund for their pre-order will be able to do so.