M.C - Comments

Sorry for the delay in responding.

To confirm: we do not, as far as I know, maintain any ‘previous versions’ of the No Date Changes update. Generally, this has been offered ‘as is’ for a small percentage of the community that, for whichever reasons, like to use it - whether that's to use it alongside ‘custom’ start date files, or just because for whatever reason they don't want the various date-based offsets that the main Data Update includes.

As such, there is nothing that exists to simulate a 2025/26 start date to support the particular scenario you're seeking to achieve. In general, we are very much focused now on getting everything updated to reflect the start of 2026/27 - so the files we're producing for the main Data Update will reflect the upcoming season and, when we achieve it, the in-game start date will also reflect the start of 2026/27 (but that is phase two of our overall plan and we're not there yet).

I can advise with some certainty that if they materialise today, it’ll be pretty late (from the perspective of the UK timezone). I’ll be doing these in the evening when my kids are in bed - after a day of work in the office, which is where I currently am.

If you intend to start a long-term save and can hold off until tomorrow, then you’ll have more leagues updated than starting today.

That being said, there are more - still - to come so that position of ‘iterating’ the content will continue through the next few weeks and beyond. The overall target is to update every playable nation, across FM24 and FM26. So we have a way to go yet.

In general, we have a function that allows anyone to submit missing players. The best jump-off point for doing that is from here: https://sortitoutsi.net/football-manager-data-update/attributes

However, I think the player you're mentioning does exist, under a slightly different name: https://sortitoutsi.net/football-manager-data-update/person/2000252837. Looking at the database data, he is in both FM24 and FM26.

Just on this note, specifically, I have disabled the change you submitted for Lucas Bergvall. The value you changed doesn't always represent a ‘join date’ - for example, in his case, he signed a more recent contract since joining Tottenham. You'll note the field is called ‘Club Contract Signed’. I left Archie Gray as there is no evidence of him signing a new contract, so that is likely a data error on SI's part.

By the by, this doesn't necessarily have a bearing on when the game believes they first joined a team. I think that is indicated by ‘Date Joined’ which could be different from ‘Date Last Contract Signed’.

Then there is another field - which is called ‘Date When Moved To Based Nation’. I am not sure how this field is used by the Data Update - if at all - so that is an angle I'll explore. However, I expect that is the field that is used for nationality/citizenship eligibility calculations, alongside ‘trained in nation’ criteria.

I'll need to test all the different scenarios to know exactly what is factored in and what isn't. I think it'll either ‘work as expected’ with playing histories present, it may need more accurate use of the ‘Date When Moved To Based Nation’ field or it won't work at all without the specific, tabular ‘Days At Club/In Nation’ section being used. If the latter, it would be involved for sure. I don't see any method to make it work without an involved  writing in data to the table illustrated below every time a player transfers and many of the values are age-context-specific and depend on which point in time they make a move. The data you'd be cross-referencing will include the player's DOB, the date of the move, a fixed-point-in-time previous date for the count of Days, the nation the club is based in, amongst other things…and then writing scenario-based rules that tick certain boxes if certain criteria are met.

In any case, I'll explore all of the variables at play, here. As a minimum, it's complex enough that we need to consider national moves and international moves separately and understand exactly which data-points are used for which eligibility/trained-by-club scenarios. I'll need a point-in-time when I can focus on it to properly test and write my findings out as I go, otherwise I'll get muddled no doubt.

OK - that's good to know; thanks.

I will need to do some testing to understand what parameters in the data are factored in for the in-game calculation.

I know that in the overall database there is data that can be populated that relates to the Days At Club/In Nation. However, this has never been in-scope for the Data Update and would be very difficult/impossible to bolt into it on a global scale for all players.

I am hopeful that the game also uses a player's history to factor into the calculation - my instincts here are that it does because I think this came up at some point before and the additional ‘playing history’ data we added into the Data Update helped tackle this. So it could be that the current calculation is ‘off’ by only one year because we haven't yet added the 2025/26 playing history data (i.e. last season).

I can't make any promises - it is definitely something I need to test to build an understanding of end-to-end. If it is controlled by ‘playing history’ then it's viable to get it corrected on a global scale; as we already have a method for applying this extra data once-per-year. If it needs to be specifically done through that dedicated Days At Club/In Nation section, it feels a bit of a non-starter unless there is some clever way to use existing data to populate that globally.

In real-life, when did they hit the threshold for earning this status? Is it ‘as of now’ - that is, going into the 2026/27 season?

I’m going to direct you to an answer in another post, to save me re-typing it all if that’s OK.

https://sortitoutsi.net/comments/get/886057

Unfortunately, alterations to player nationalities are not in-scope for the Data Update. It is one of the things that is on the ‘to-do’ list, but I don't want to set a false expectation that this will be introduced any time soon/nearly immediately.

These sort of changes require either (a) a lot of manual effort on the part of the staff team and maintaining those kind of changes accurately, on a global level, manually are nearly impossible or (b) integration into the site-driven submission system, which would be a more robust way to implement this, but that requires development work on the website (I don't know how much - that is not part of my role) and consideration over how it would be moderated.

I appreciate that on an individual level, for an individual player in the database, it is a small amount of work but when you expand that and give it consideration on a global level, it becomes an exercise in maintaining another changeable data-point for 500,000+ people records. To be clear: I'm not disagreeing about whether it would be a good thing to do - the Data Update is constantly evolving and looking for things to ‘do better’ but the more it does, the more work it is. Therefore some things end up being ‘out of scope’ or on a ‘future features’ list, as it were.

For what it's worth, alongside Nationalities, Playing Positions is probably the other ‘core’ detail that often comes up that falls into the same category. We have internal discussions about these topics and perhaps in the future these could be implemented. However, right at this moment in time, the key effort is also around continuing to get things updated to reflect 2026/27. The end of the season is a very busy time for that reason.

I'm going to do some baseline estimates for the next batch of nations between now and the weekend. For right now, my priority is to complete the nations that have been updated for either FM24 or FM26, but not both…after which I'll move on to the next group of nations.

Difficult to provide an ETA. A lot of it depends on how work and family life goes, for me…and the current heatwave in the UK is making things very difficult, to be honest.

Updated files for Türkiye have now been uploaded for both the FM24 and FM26 Data Update. I had estimated today and I am glad I was able to turn it around on that estimated day. First post of this thread is updated and will always be updated as soon as new files are completed and added. So I recommend checking that for any specific nations you are seeking the latest status for.

Just to confirm, the situation is as follows:

Whenever FM26 receives an official update which adds new players to the official database, it offsets the ID mappings of newly-added players. There is nothing we can do to prevent this - we can only react to it.

Whenever an update is released, we need to re-process our data - and we haven’t had a chance to do it following the latest update. It’s a process that the Site Admin needs to take care of - I don’t know exactly what it requires/how involved it is; but given the time of the season, I suspect it just hasn’t been done yet because of other priorities.

As I’m sure you can imagine, FM26 receives such updates quite frequently and so this task is a recurring one. For this latest update, it is on the to-do list and will get taken care of as soon as time allows.

As per the opening post - it is on track to be released later today, for both FM24 and FM26.

Just to follow-up - I have just done a test using the FM26 Data Update and I see the updated data, reflecting 2026/27. As such, I think that perhaps you have an installation/enablement mistake, as per my message above.

That’s correct. Graphics are not new-game dependent. You’ll be able to update the facepack - once it is updated - and those new/corrected images will apply to any ongoing save.

@Gabi.e - can you please check that you are installing all of the files and enabling them when setting up a new game?

Netherlands was updated earlier this week and you should see a ‘Netherlands (League)’ file which includes these changes.

I believe FM26 doesn’t auto-enable newly-added files by default, which catches some people out. You can check which files are enabled during the game setup process - after you click ‘Start New Career’ there is a database selection box in the top-right corner. If you click on that it’ll show a list of editor data files. To use our Data Update fully, you need to ensure all the files are ticked.

Once you have checked, please reply and confirm. Netherlands should absolutely work.

Nothing has changed with the general method. Whenever FM26 receives an official update which adds new players to the official database, it offsets the ID mappings of newly-added players.

We need to re-process our data after such an update - and we haven’t had a chance to do it following the latest update. It’s a process that the Site Admin needs to take care of - I don’t know exactly what it requires/how involved it is; but given the time of the season, I suspect it just hasn’t been done yet because of other priorities.

As I’m sure you can imagine, FM26 receives such updates quite frequently and so this task is a recurring one. For this latest update, it is on the to-do list and will get taken care of as soon as time allows.

We do this because the vast, vast majority of our playerbase are very keen to start having the experience for ‘next season’ as early as possible - in particular over the summer/off-season. Every year, we ‘roll forward’ to next season from around 1st June, instead of 1st July, for this reason - which includes ‘processing’ all of the future transfers that officially take place on 1st July and making them go through.

If we left everything following the official/real-world dates - which we do all the rest of the year - we would spend the entire month of June bombarded with complaints and explaining why ‘next season’ isn't reflected yet. Just wanted to explain that so you understand the rationale.

I must admit, I'm not 100% on exactly which date this cutover took place this year. However, the historical/previous releases of the Data Update can be accessed via https://sortitoutsi.net/football-manager-data-update/releases. You could try the oldest one on there, which is from 1st June. Maybe it'll get you what you are after.

I am not sure there is anything exactly published that has the file list…however, I'm happy to provide a summary which should help your understanding.

Broadly speaking, there are two ‘types’ of files that are part of the FM24 Data Update - nation updates and non-nation updates. This isn't a formal classification, I'm just separating them this way for the purpose of this explanation…as I am familiar with MasterIgor's files and what they do and it'll help me explain more simply.

Firstly, for the nation updates files - our Data Update is structured so that the relevant changes to any individual nation's structure/situation are held in the file named after that nation (so for example: Germany (League), Italy (League), Spain (League), etc). The actual contents of the changes in those files will only be some/all of the following: updated Nation/Advanced Rules, if there has been a need to make those to reflect reality and the promotions/relegations and history entries for clubs/competitions that take place in that nation.

In-game in FM24, the individual files that contain Nation/Advanced Rules are those that show up with the nation's flag when you are choosing which Editor Data files to activate. FM24 only allows one file to be activated, at a time, that adjusts the Nation/Advanced Rules for any given nation…which makes sense, because otherwise the game would be trying to ‘merge’ different structures together about how the competitions work.

In many situations, the original rules implemented by Sports Interactive are still valid/up-to-date and, in those cases, we provide a database changes only file for that nation. These files do not show the nation's flag in the setup screens and will contain only promotions/relegations and club/competition history entries.

MasterIgor's files typically include Nation/Advanced Rules and so it's true that you won't be able to use his file for a nation alongside the Data Update file for the same nation if the Data Update file contains Nation/Advanced Rules. You can, often, use MasterIgor's file alongside the Data Update file for the same nation if our file only has database changes.

If they do not work together, this means that whatever Nation/Advanced Rules MasterIgor's file is setting up results in a mismatch with the promotions/relegations we have applied in our file. An example might include a scenario where MasterIgor has made a lower division playable and specified a set number of teams, but our Data Update file hasn't ensured those originally-non-playable divisions have the right number of teams. Because we are generally catering for the ‘default playable levels’ we don't always have time to ensure the non-playable levels also match the real-world structure. Having said that, many of the files do contain accurate structure for non-playable levels and so are compatible with MasterIgor's Nation/Advanced Rules files, assuming he has reflected reality. I know this because I, myself, combine them when playing, much like you are trying to I suppose.

Now, on the non-nation updates side, each file has more of a one-off purpose and, typically, they are not doing anything related to league/national structures and so things like MasterIgor's files are typically compatible. All the same, here's a summary of the main files and what they contain. In all cases, I'm just naming the file using the ‘end’ of the filename - they all start with “sortitoutsi.net FM24 Data Update” as well:

Contracts.fmf - this is the ‘main’ file that contains all of the changes to Person records related to transfers, contractual adjustments and so on; both players and non-playing staff.

Remove Bans.fmf - this removes the default/original global footballing bans configured in the FM24.3 database, as they are now obsolete.

Remove Injuries.fmf - same as above, but for injuries.

Remove Media Predictions.fmf - this removes the hard-configured start-of-game media predictions, where they exist, allowing the game to generate them dynamically on game start.

Europe.fmf / South America.fmf - these adjust first-season continental qualifications for the respective continents.

Player History.fmf - this adds playing history records reflecting the 2023/24 and 2024/25 seasons to players all around the world.

Age and Contract Years.fmf - this adjusts all Person records, in the default/original 24.3 database, to have DOBs and original contract data that is three years earlier than the real-life date. This is done to reflect the passing of three years in real-life since the game was released (i.e. we are reflecting 2026 at game start, despite the in-game date still being 2023).

New People.fmf - this file contains all newly-created Person records who have been added to the database. These are all players and mostly young footballers (there is something around 25,000 at current count).

There are other files as well, but these are what I consider the ‘core’ ones, alongside the nation updates. Where the purpose of a file is to reflect the latest season, please note that not every file has yet been updated to reflect 2026/27. We have a tracking thread for specific progress that is being maintained here: https://sortitoutsi.net/content/76916/202627-league-updates-fm24-fm26.

On your final question, regarding the World Cup - our Data Update does not include anything like that. I am not aware of any other creators who have released such a thing - but perhaps someone, somewhere, has. It's important to remember that the World Cup - in FM24 - will still take place in-game in 2026…so it is a bit ‘offset’ in terms of timing.

I think you're likely referring to the FM26 Data Update. In which case, the explanation is a straightforward one: at this time, the Data Update isn't doing anything to alter the injuries status of any player in the database. As such, any ‘starter injuries’ that are configured in the official SI database will still be showing up.

In the FM24 Data Update, we introduced a ‘Remove Injuries’ file (I don't know exactly when but, probably, at the end of the first season of that game's lifecycle) to strip out these now-obsolete starter injuries. I suspect the same will be done for FM26 in the near future…but it's just not been done yet as the game has just arrived at the end of its first season and, since then, we've been hard at work and prioiritising promotions/relegations and so on.

Just for clarity: we don't maintain a continuous reflection of injuries, globally (i.e. injuries aren't added to players who suffer them in real-life) because, well, that would be almost impossible to keep up with and it wouldn't really make sense to have ‘any current injuries’ taking place at game start.

Not for all nations at this stage, no - but we are actively working on it. It took a bit of time to get the process up and running for FM26, for a variety of reasons. In any case, we have a formal thread set up which provides the latest status and is regularly updated - and you should see progress continue regularly from here on out, if you follow that thread. In the last 24 hours or so I have added a number of nation updates and I expect more to follow throughout today (starting with the remaining ‘major’ European nations).

The opening post contains a table and that has all of the latest information:

https://sortitoutsi.net/content/76916/202627-league-updates-fm24-fm26

Apologies all - I know that this thread (after a period of very regular updates and staying on top of things) has fallen over a bit and there has been a visible slow-down in any further progress. That's my fault - I had some unexpected, time-consuming real-life stuff I had to attend with and so I vanished off the face of the internet for a while.

Looking through the questions asked that haven't had answers, I see that:

1. A few have asked about European qualifications. The position stated in the first post (in bold, just above the nation-by-nation table, starting with “Continental Qualification:”) remains the case. Getting continental qualifications right, across the board, is tricky and relies on the individual nations being taken care of. It's difficult/impossible to ‘force’, properly.

2. @gp131993 - acknowledging regarding the Greek Cup. I would have expected the rules in the file to account for the new number of teams because, when I was configuring it, I did it with the new Super League 2 structure in mind. However, I will take a look and try and get this fully tested, replicated and corrected as necessary. I cannot promise how quickly I will do this - as you may be able to tell, the to-do list is rather long.

3. For those asking about specific leagues. Everything that is in the Data Update for either FM24 or FM26 is updated in the first post. If the league you're asking about is not on the list, the answer is that it is not updated (yet).

Again, I can only apologise for the relative delay/slowing down. I will do my best to progress individual nations with ‘quick’ updates for 2026/27 in parallel of the bigger piece of work to move to a 2026 Start Date, which I can confirm is being worked on. I will update the first post with any new nations that are added to the Data Update.

Are you reporting this based on using the files in-game, or are you just going based on the filenames?

In the Data Update, all of the ‘transfer data’ is in the file named ‘Contracts’ and a core part of what the Data Update includes is up-to-date transfers…so at any time, the version of the Data Update you download should contain all of the latest, approved transfers.

Just to answer that question - that is something we are working on and that plan is all laid out in the opening post of this thread. So I would kindly direct you to that post; as the broad sequence is outlined there.

I am hoping to finalise a whole bundle of nations, for FM24, later today. I have just been a bit waylaid with real-life duties in the last few days.

I think it really depends on what the experience is that you are after.

• If you want the first in-game season to reflect 2026/27 in every way possible, simply use the ‘main’ Data Update and enable all files. This is, by all accounts, the most cohesive way to enjoy the update.
   
• If you want the first in-game season to reflect 2025/26, simply use the ‘No Date Changes’ version and enable all the files it comes with. You'll get updated transfers/squads, but league constitutions (promotions/relegations) will be unchanged from last season and there will be no offsetting of player ages/contracts.
   
• If you want the teams in leagues to reflect 2026/27, but you do not want anything else to be ‘offset’ then you will want to use the ‘No Date Changes’ version of the Data Update, with the individual nation files (e.g. 'sortitoutsi.net FM26 Data Update - England (League).fmf') from the main Data Update.

The ‘sortitoutsi.net FM26 Data Update - Age and Contract Years.fmf’ file, specifically, adjusts every player in the official database's age by one year and also adjusts the original contractual data by one year. It is intended to support the first scenario I have bullet-pointed above. If you choose not to use it, the game will load - and function - just fine, but those specific changes won't be applied.

@Sandert0821 - just to add, we also offer a No Date Changes version of the update, available here:

https://sortitoutsi.net/football-manager-data-update/no-date-changes-data-update

This just includes the ‘core’ feature of updated transfers and doesn’t do anything that reflects the progression of time. You may find you want to try that and, possibly, combine it with the updated nation files to get the experience you want.

I don’t personally recommend it for the reasons of inconsistency I mentioned in my previous reply - but thought I’d signpost you to it just in case.

Well, that file is only offsetting the ages and contracts of players from the default DB and not the newly-created players. It is also worth noting that any players with submissions through the site have their contractual offset set directly.

I would recommend it as ‘necessary’ if you want a cohesive experience. The game will work if you do not enable the file, so you’re welcome to experiment.

But it makes no sense for Coventry to be in the PL (2026/27) and for Player X to still be the age he was when Wolves were in the PL (2025/26). That’s inconsistent.

In general, we are working towards configuring a ‘current’ in-game start date; when we do that, all of the workarounds that help handle an in-game start date that is now a year old will vanish and everything will be simpler.

It offsets ages and contract years by one year in FM26.

This is so that when you start a new game, which starts in July 2025, the footballing world reflected is that of real-life July 2026.

It’s to maintain parity with the fact the season is finished and the next one is starting.

The opening post explains the overall direction in which we're heading. The basic concept, however, is:

• In a scenario where the in-game start date is the ‘original’ start date (in the case of FM24, that is Summer 2023 in Europe), but the promotions/relegations/league structures are reflecting the latest season, it makes sense to offset ages and contract lengths. Essentially, the general concept is that the in-game date of Summer 2023 is a representation of the real-world date of Summer 2026. If we removed the ‘offsetting’ of ages/contract lengths, then you end up with a slightly different but also unrealistic situation: you would have teams in the right divisions, squads up-to-date (as per reality), but relative to that reality the players would be the ‘wrong’ age and with the wrong length contract. The solution we use - and have always used - is imperfect, strictly speaking, but the most cohesive solution all-round for a reflection of the current footballing world despite the in-game date being in the past.
   
• The ideal scenario is, in fact, modifying the in-game start date to be Summer 2026. Achieving this eliminates the need to do any ‘offsetting' of ages, contract lengths and so on. As per my first post, we now understand the work required to achieve this and are beginning to work towards it. However, it is a lot of work and so will take some time. The approximate timeline is explained in the first post.
   
• Until then, as an interim measure we are catering for the community with an update that reflects the upcoming 2026/27 season - because people expect that and want it - and we maintain the ‘offsetting years’ concept.

In terms of the work involved to move to a true 2026 start date, for all playable nations - this is where the workload is large, which is why it can't just be ‘easily’ done immediately. Without configuring the 2026 start date, nation-by-nation, there is no way to achieve an in-game 2026 date with all of the divisions reflecting the reality of the upcoming 2026/27 season. Applying a blanket change to all ages, for example, can be done via a single, uniform ‘data adjustment’ but the complexity behind configuring in-game start dates for each nation is not so simple. There isn't a single parameter you can just ‘stamp’ on all the relevant configuration to make it work.

It's not a silly question, at all - and this is one of those specific things that our regular contributors learn/become used to at this time of year.

So, as you know, we generally stick to all real-life dates and we respect when things happen in real-life throughout the year. The exception to that is at this time of year - because most of the community are eager to have summer transfers, which officially happen on 1st July, to be realised in-game a bit sooner, we normally make the ‘cutover’ on/around 1st June.

So, from 1st June (9 days ago), the instruction we provide for contributors is to start releasing players onto free transfers who are known to be leaving at the end of their contract and to start submitting future transfers as ‘current transfers’.

When you are making a submission, there is a small, written instruction that appears explaining this timeline - this is the only time of the year where we move away from strictly reflecting what is happening in real-life and, as I say, it is just so we can provide something that the community wants.