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Jão Andrade
Only the Data Update in Football Manager 26 is having problems.
The problem lies in the contracts; they're reducing the duration of all contracts by one year, including loans and transfers.
This applies to both the beginning and end of the contract, across all types of contracts.
Example:
Everything looks fine on the website, but in the game, it's a year behind.
ah!lan
@Footygamer Any idea why this happens? I'm having the same problem. Or is it intentional?
M.C
I'm pretty sure this is deliberate/by-design and was implemented from 1st June 2026 onwards, as - from a data point of view - we start to consider that the start of the ‘next season’. This happens every year, for context.
In FM26, we've reached the point where there needs to be a one-year offset; whilst in FM24 we're now at a three-year offset.
Right now, I'm confident that any submission that is approved will automatically have the contract dates offset by one year (in FM26 Data Update) so that things align against the in-game start date, in anticipation of the ‘first season’ being 2026/27 in Europe. I do appreciate Brazil (and other nations) are on a different cycle, in terms of when their league starts/ends. What we do not have yet is a corresponding file that does the same offset for players without submissions, but that will be added very soon to level everything out.
Jão Andrade
This doesn't even make sense, because even starting in 2025 everything goes wrong and the players' contracts end prematurely. In my case, I play a lot in Brazil and here there are several short contracts of 3 to 6 months, and none of these contracts even come into effect because of this configuration.
It's very bad, I don't see it making sense in any context.
Who in their right mind wants to go back in time to play FM? And if you do want to go back, it's better to have an extra year of contract than to play on the correct date and have one less year of contract, completely ruining the immersion of the save.
Jão Facemaker
So a practical solution is to release No Date Changes for FM 26 as well.
ah!lan
Do you know if we'll get the “No Date” version for FM26 without affecting the loan deals?
It would be to always start in 2025 while pretending it's 2026 with a World Cup constantly just around the corner.
For FM24 I could understand the “+1” or “+2 years contracts” offsets since the game was already 2 years behind real life.
For FM26 it doesn't seem to make much sense considering it's relatively straightforward to build a proper 2026/27 Database to any League.
ah!lan
just tagged the wrong user sorry. @M.C
M.C
In general, we’re working towards making the ‘No Date’ concept the standard. But to do this properly also requires real-life start dates for all divisions. It will take some time. You can see the plan outlined here: https://sortitoutsi.net/content/76916/202627-league-updates-fm24-fm26. In my opinion, the ‘longer-term’ plan (which I describe in that thread) is the overall, perfect solution for this general scenario.
@ah!lan - I’m not sure what you mean when you say it is ‘relatively straightforward to build a proper 2026/27 database to any league’. If you’re referring to rolling the start date forward, then whilst ‘straightforward’ on the surface of it, it is still a lot of work which is why it’ll take a bit of time.
In general terms, I understand all of your perspectives. I know it causes issues especially in those nations that have seasons run across a single year (e.g. Brazil) and it is an imperfect solution overall. However doing this offset makes a lot of sense in the context of most of the footballing world - and it’s the exact same principle as was applied to FM24 - whilst we are constrained by an in-game start date (in FM26) that is now a year ago. If we didn't do this offset, the reverse complaint would exist which is that even though it's now the start of the 2026/27 season, contract lengths in-game don't reflect that.
All the same, tagging @Footygamer just so he is aware of the discussion and can review the feedback.