G’day, mate! Fancy a crack at managing the Central Coast Mariners, the pride of Gosford and home to some of the best beaches—and banter—in Australia?

In the real world, the Mariners stormed the A-League, finishing top with 55 points and pulling off a spectacular double by winning the AFC Cup. But in our FM universe, they’ve hit a snag, sitting third from bottom after 10 games. With 16 games to go, all hope’s not lost. The catch? You can only afford to drop 3 points if you want to match their real-life points tally. And as for that AFC Cup? Sure, you’ll see "AFC Cup Semi-Final" pop up on the fixture list, but don’t go dusting off the trophy cabinet just yet, you’re alot more than 2 games away from silverware. This is only the ASEAN Zone Semi-Final—then there’s the Interzone Playoff Semi-Final and Final, followed by the actual AFC Cup Final. Confusing? Mate, tell me about it, welcome to the wild and wonderful world of Asian football. Don’t stress, just down another schooner and push on!

The challenge kicks off on January 10th, the start of the mid-season transfer window. So, grab the chance to sign some reinforcements, or maybe even convince a few locals to swap their thongs (flip-flops, to you poms!) for footy boots and give it a crack on the pitch.

Here’s how to get on the medal table this time around:

Points Scoring

Bronze 🥉 - 2 points - Win the A League

Silver🥈 - 3 points - Win both the A League and AFC Cup

Gold 🥇 - 5 points - Win the A League and AFC Cup whilst at least equaling the Mariners real life points total of 55

Rules

• You must use the manager already in the save file. You cannot create a new manager. This so that all managers have the same attributes and experience.
• You cannot create any new managers.
• You cannot save before a match and then reload.
• You must have at most one weekly auto save. More saves than this will be deemed suspicious.
• You cannot use the in game editor or any other editor.

How it works

Every week we will release a new FM24 Challenge.

Each challenge is designed to be quick to play. Usually half a season or less.

Complete the challenge to score points and be in with a chance to win prizes.

You do not have to complete the challenge that week. Each challenge will remain open until FM25 BETA is released.

All you have to do is play FM for a few hours and then submit a few screenshots of how you got on. Easy right?

Point Scoring

The scoring system works the same as the Olympics. You have the chance to win Gold, Silver or Bronze. Fail to make it to Europe? You won't get a medal and will score 0 points.

Gold 🥇 - 5 points

Silver🥈 - 3 points

Bronze 🥉 - 2 points

These points will take you on to the Overall Leaderboard. Each week we will release a new FM24 Challenge giving you more chances to win Gold, Silver and Bronze and total up your overall points.

Each Challenge has its own leaderboard. Since lots of people will inevitably win gold there are a series of tie breakers to decide your position.

Tie Breakers

• Ronaldo goals
• Total Points won (3 for win, 1 draw, 0 for loss)
• Total Games Won
• Total Goal Difference
• Total Goals Scored
• Total Chances Created
• Total Average Possession

God help me if we actually get to Total Average Possession as a tie breaker, i'll make something else up at the time.

Prizes

Overall Winner = A copy of Football Manager 2025

Weekly Challenge Winner = Premium Membership

The winner will be chosen before the FM25 BETA is released so the winner can play FM25 straight away. We do not know the date for this yet. If the date is given as something vague like “Roughly 2 weeks before full release date” we will conservatively announce the winner the Saturday before 2 weeks. I know this is vague but we will get given an official announcement by SI soon and this text will be updated and made clearer.

How to install

The download is a .fm file which is an FM Save Game.

Option 1) When you open FM and click “Load Game” and click “browse” in the top right hand corner. Then find where you saved the file, probably your downloads folder.

Option 2) Move the file to your default saved game folder, it should then appear when clicking “Load Game”. The location is:

Windows: Documents/Sports Interactive/Football Manager 2022/editor data

Mac: /Users/<yourname>/Library/Application Support/Sports Interactive/Football Manager 2024/games

On mac you may find it easier to Open Finder > Click Go in the toolbar > Go to folder > Paste this “~/Library/Application Support/Sports Interactive/Football Manager 2024/games”

Youtube / Twitch Creators

If you run a YouTube or a Twitch feel free to drop a comment letting us know what time you're streaming or linking to your video. We'll give a shout out on Twitter as well. Also feel free to send me a PM on here or DM on here with any other queries.

Changing Your Manager Name

The manager is called “Sort It Out SI Challenge”. You cannot retire and create a new manager.

However if you find being called “Mr Challenge” annoying then you can set a nickname to give yourself a new name.

• Click “Club Info” in the sidebar
• Right click on “Sort It Out SI Challenge”
• Navigate to Misc > Set Nickname

How to submit results

You must submit the following information. Where screenshots are required you must upload an image.

Do not take a photo on your phone. You can take screenshots in FM by clicking FM > Print Screen or by following instructions for Windows or Mac.