2026/27 League Updates - FM24 & FM26 - Official / Ongoing Status Thread

Appreciate and great work as always (FM24 fan and player here!) (P.S; although have FM26 in library!!)

I spent quite some days/nights/weeks updating/adjsuting FM26 database to FM24 database this year, I know it is very difficult.

Happy to offer my help especially for Turkish Leagues and FM24 related stuff..

Do you have the database file for FM26 that skips the African Nations Cup from the first year?

Really tahnkfull for the update files, however, it says man city plays Europa league? They play CL

Yep - it's known and we're aware there's ‘more work to do’ as far as continental qualification is concerned. You'll note the opening post has been updated to acknowledge this and I also commented a bit further up in the thread on this topic: https://sortitoutsi.net/comments/get/883665.

I'm reserving some of this weekend to delve into it deeper. Getting all of the first-season teams to be correct has historically been challenging, too, and I think it is because the dependency-chain (in the data) is quite deep.

In the data, you can directly specify - against the competition - which are the ‘Registered Teams’ for a given season. However, I don't think this necessarily takes precedence over other parts of the data - things such as the ‘last winners’ of competitions that qualify teams for those continential competitions. So whilst we've created a file that has all of the ‘Registered Teams’ for 2026/27, I think those entries are being overridden from other places. My instincts tell me that the pathway to get it all 100% correct is to first have all of the domestic data (i.e. the data for each individual nation) updated…which could also include updating Coefficient Rankings and so on.

If we use the Manchester City example, my speculative guess is that the game is recognising them as the holders of the FA Cup and, for reasons I can't immediately fathom, is qualifying them for the Europe League on that basis. It is the only logical explanation I can think of, because Manchester City were a UCL-registered team in the default FM26 database, they finished in a UCL-qualifying league position in the default FM26 database and both of those factors are also true in the FM26 updated files we've provided. Why that is taking place, I do not know - and clearly it is incorrect. But in terms of ‘routes in to the Europa League’, the only one that fits the bill for Manchester City is that one.

Unfortunately, no matter how I consider it - right now, all I can do is acknowledge, assure you (and everyone else) I'm aware and commit some more time to investigating. If it transpires we need to update all European nation data first and only thereafter will we be able to have totally accurate continental qualifications then, of course, that will introduce some lead-time to getting the continental qualifications ‘right’. Again, to reiterate, I think this same challenge was prevalent last year and I think it only got to a point of being ‘accurate’ once all of the major, individual leagues had updated data. That's not a definitive statement; I'm going on memory and my passing involvement at the time.

Hey guys thanks for all the work, trying to start a west ham save in the champ and it doesnt seem that the contracts file is updating the contracts? For example Soucek's contract is up at the end of next season but it seems to be unchanged with the contract file so it would be up in 2 years instead of the end of the first season? 

@mattycamp9872 - just so I am understanding this correctly. Tomas Soucek's contract, in real-life, expires in June 2027. In-game it is showing as June 2026, right? And just to confirm, you're playing FM26?

This will be because the contracts file hasn't been updated yet to +3.

Those are absolutely the lines I'm thinking along, though I just want to check what @mattycamp9872 is reporting before I provide a fuller reply.

In the case of FM26, however, it's the lack of a 1 Year file (at this time) rather than the 3 Year file that you cited (that's the FM24 length - but you're spot in terms of principle/concept).

In fact, I think - right now - we have a bit of a hybrid, because I think the automatic offset of a year is being applied for all records that have changes submitted as part of the Data Update; but those without changes submitted do not automatically have the offset applied. As an example, Tomas Soucek has no submitted changes and so no adjustment is made. However Jack Porter (first example I could find), who has an approved contractual submission, has that offset in the data: https://sortitoutsi.net/football-manager-data-update/person/2000407543.

Are there any plans to include the 26/27 season transfer budgets in a future update?

We do plan to adjust financial information for clubs, in due course - yes. I can't really be more specific, at this time, about when in the sequence that will be, nor to what depth those updates will go.

Just a quick update as of today, 06/06/2026 (all reflected in the opening post, too): updates to reflect 2026/27 for both France and Germany in FM24 are now complete and uploaded to the FM24 Data Update.

From my side, I will be continuing with Belgium & Netherlands, next. I anticipate getting them done this weekend.

FM26 instances for the nations done for FM24 will follow in the near future; likely completed by other staff members (but still updated in this thread's opening post).

Do we have a date when we will move to +3? Happy to support if its easy enough although assume it is slightly beyond my abilities and something that is outside the editor.

It's been prepared - it is just being tested and will be made live any-day-now. Probably even today, assuming all is in order.

I do believe - though I need to check to be sure - that for any Person record where a change is applied through the main file, the offset has been increased to 3 years (for FM24) and 1 year (for FM26) systematically as of 1st June. So the additional files are just to cover all of the Person records that have no submissions/haven't moved club. Obviously for FM24 the ‘original data’ delta is smaller than for FM26.

Just a quick update: Netherlands is now also updated for FM24, as well as the additional year offset being implemented for FM24 (3 year offset to ages and contracts) and FM26 (1 year offset).

Separately, I am very confident that to get an accurate first-season continental qualifications picture (for each of FM24 and FM26), it will be necessary to do a certain level of update to each playable nation file. There’s no escaping this and whilst we are working to get all of the nations done, the sequence required means there will need to be some patience before continental cups are correct across the board.

Any news when the Europe comps  will be done  for FM24 please 

The second part of the post you quoted is a position that is relevant to both FM24 and FM26. Sorry that I didn’t make that clear. The data, pretty much, works in the same way and therefore the same dependencies exist.

For FM24, there is a marginal bit of extra work to remove the ‘old’ Champions League format. But that is not a big deal.

The fundamental position is that European continental qualifiers will only be ‘correct’ after we update the playable nations for 2026/27 across the board. I’m going to make the equivalent Europe file for FM24, as I have for FM26, later today but this alone will not make everything work.

However, then, for both games as we make more progress on the individual nation files, those continental qualifications will become more and more accurate.

It‘s impossible for me to give an ETA as a date at this stage. But we are working through 2026/27 nation files as quick as our time allows…so all I can ask for is patience at this stage.

Noted the contracts/ages have been updated in the latest download (fm24) however, I'm noticing that the History file isn't updated and it's causing some issues wrt signing players where they often say “not interested/only just joined x club” when they've been there over a year (maybe its not linked to the actual history file but something else).

The Player Histories file is in the process of being updated. I am not sure how long this will take - it’s a big data crunch and not handled by myself…but I do know it will arrive in the near future and hopefully it’ll tackle the situation.

That being said, I am also not sure if the in-game behaviour is influenced by the Player Histories, or whether it’s solely down to contractual dates (or even something else). If just the contractual dates, in theory the years offset should handle that. My instincts tell me the history entries do have an influence, though, as I seem to recall that they are used to calculate the length of time a player has been at the club for things like naturalisation/homegrown status…so it would stand to reason that those entries enable the game to ‘recognise’ where that player has been.

I also don’t know enough about the game’s player AI algorithms to know what scenarios that in-game response is reserved for. It could be that players on a multiple year contract feel as though they’ve ’just joined’ even if they’re a year into their time with a club? I’m not saying that is the case, just that it’s feasible.

If the Player History file isn’t a factor, then there should be no difference to the in-game experience between last season and this season. The data structure is equivalent, with the same ‘years offset’ concept. In general terms, the community will have to tolerate a certain level of transition period as we keep working through the various files throughout the off-season period.

Finally, I do tend to think (well, hope!) that once we pivot to a real-life start date, all of these various offsets stop being necessary and, as a result, the overall experience should be smoother…or, rather, more natural when it comes to anything related to dates.