M.C - Comments

I'm replying to acknowledge this - and I do note you posted in another thread, too (I didn't get a chance to reply to that until seeing this).

I am flagging this with the Site Admin, @Footygamer. For context - he is the only one who is able to support with such issues; the remainder of the staff (such as myself) do not have the level of permission required to assist. I totally agree with you about not sharing details about your account on the public forum; so good instincts on that front.

As well as tagging him in my reply, I have also reached out to him on Discord to draw his attention to it. From my perspective, that is about as much as I am able to do, alas. I am not aware of any widespread issues with site-issued emails (e.g. password recovery emails etc). If you wanted to DM me your username (only), I could look up the account and probably work with you to confirm that you are using the right details to trigger the recovery email…but really, the only thing we could get to is proving the email address associated with the account is correct. If it transpires there is an issue with the email being triggered/delivered then I would not be able to assist further and would, again, need to defer to the Site Admin.

The SortItOutSI Data Update doesn't provide a real fixtures/real results element. So that is not something that will ever happen from our perspective. There is a popular custom offering maintained by a community member, the thread for which is here: https://sortitoutsi.net/content/75040/fm26-2025-26-real-fixture-results-6-11-2025. I can see you've asked in that thread, so I would suggest waiting for a reply in there is the best bet.

From SortItOutSI's side, we are working on providing an in-game start date of 2026 across both FM24 and FM26. We talk about this in the following thread's opening post: https://sortitoutsi.net/content/76916/202627-league-updates-fm24-fm26

From my perspective, the timeline described in that opening post is as good an estimate as I can provide of when that will be available. It's a lot of work.

There will no doubt be some mistakes dotted around, however there shouldn’t be anything systematically incorrect. In any case, the specific example you’ve mentioned isn’t a mistake (I don’t think): Jari Litmanen came out of retirement late last year.

If you want to share some other examples that would be great and I can cross-check them. Some players do go on playing to very late ages!

Well, I've personally only looked closely at it in this pre-season - though I've been looking into it from the perspective of both FM26 and FM24.

In the case of FM24, it's hard to compare it like-for-like because the ruleset for FM24 has the old format Champions League set to take place in the first season. I know previous iterations of the Data Update struggled to get it ‘100% correct’ but, if you consider it was trying to fit the teams into the now-obsolete format, that is a position that you'd expect.

If it helps you/saves you some time/discovery effort, I have gone down the path already that you're on. My first theory was that it would require competition history entries and clubs' Last Position entries updated across all participating, active nations to ‘put it right’, because that made most sense. For the Data Update, we update those details as standard when we update a nation. For those nations we've done, it still doesn't ‘put it right’ by itself.

That led me to think that it could be that it needs all of the nations done before it'll come good. Which could be the case. Then I thought the coefficients might play a role - which they may very well do. Then I started to look at the Advanced Rules and it became quickly clear to me that in the Pre-Game Editor, the continental competitions are configured to select teams based on those that are ‘Qualified Teams’. What this essentially means is that the game looks up the previous season's results and picks the teams that way. So it looks up league positions, cup winners, runners-up and so on. It does this across all the different nations and it does it whilst also analysing co-efficients and so on. Therefore, if some nations/any part of the data is not aligned, you can end up with incorrect results. In reality, the data is only ‘completely accurate’ for the first season/official DB because this is the only point at which all of the data is truly correct…and SI, of course, design it with every consideration in mind.

As per my previous belief, you would expect that once a nation is updated with domestic competition history entries and Last Positions for all clubs it would get those qualifiers right for those nations; but as you've seen with Scotland (which I also observed), it selects the domestic cup runner-up when there is, actually, nothing in the rules that indicates it should.

The workaround needed (I think) is to alter the continental competition configuration to prioritise selecting teams based on those that are ‘Registered Teams’ - which can be done by editing those competition rules - for the first season only. This way, it should pick from the ‘Registered Teams’ list that we can populate and it will only fill in the gaps from the ‘Qualified Teams’ concept if it can't get enough teams. In my opinion, this should get us a ‘completely correct’ picture, or at least almost correct.

You could, in fact, forego doing it that way and in the continental competition rules actually select specific teams for the first season which would be an even more direct way to do it.

Either way, to update FM24, the entire competition rules need to be overhauled to get rid of the old format. For FM26, it's slightly less work but the same principle applies to adjust the way those competitions get teams.

I'm already working on it and have done enough testing to prove the ‘Get Registered Teams for Competition and Year’ approach through the continental competition's ruleset fundamentally works, I just haven't found time to finish the job completely. I am, more broadly, turning my attentions to configuring an actual 2026 in-game start date for all nations so, to be honest, I want to do that for all playable nations and then follow up with the continental competitions afterwards…because this will eliminate the need to fiddle with the continental competition rules quite as much.

Not that I want to ‘wade in’ on @renskay's thread and his work, but I suspect his file and the file in the Data Update - which I have put together and, basically, to the same standard/concept - will probably have the same issues.

I am still working on the Data Update continental qualifications and I have come to the conclusion that to get it to be ‘fully correct’, it basically needs an overhaul of the way the rules are setup, specifically the mechanism via which the game qualifies teams to the competitions (for the first season).

All the same, if you want to try Renskay's file instead of the Data Update file, simply disable/delete the ‘sortitoutsi.net FM26 Data Update - Continental Qualifications - Europe.fmf’ file and use the one provided here. The file I mentioned and the one provided here essentially provide the same function - so you will want to test with one, or the other, enabled and not both at the same time.

I don't think I had done it before/been involved in this one…but I've just taken a look and I think this created player was linked to another similarly-named, incorrect official instance.

I've juts corrected it - it all looks to be aligned correctly now, as best I can tell.

Sharing the details you have above is enough - I've located the three created instances and now linked them to their official DB counterparts. The duplicates should now vanish in-game.

For now, the best thing is - in fact - to just share the details in a post in this thread.

The ability to de-duplicate can only be undertaken by staff/moderators, so we can act on any reported duplicates.

If it helps, the reason all of your submissions are coming up as Invalid are because you're failing to select at least one position for the players in question. At least one position needs to be set to a ‘natural’ level (i.e. a rating of 20) to validate the submission.

As an aside, when making your submissions please try to take care on ensuring the name is input in the full, correct standard (including things like capitalisation).

Seen the post in the other thread - but hadn't had a chance to reply, yet. All the same, I'll reply to this one as it is probably a better fit.

Just to confirm: I simply haven't got around to doing an update of the worldwide transfer embargoes file (in FM24), which is why that's a bit out-of-date. It's on the to-do list and will get sorted out in the coming days/week or so. I think I may have stripped out the restrictions in FM26 directly via the England file - because we haven't built a dedicated ‘transfer embargoes’ file as part of that Data Update.

When I sort it at a point in time in the coming days/week, I'll make a consistent approach for both to keep things neat.

There are certain things that are mandatory, as prompted by the form.

In general, as a minimum, it’s good to fill in the basic details (Name, DOB, Nationality, Preferred Foot, Position). Anything beyond that is great, if known, but not strictly necessary.

Just give it a try and see how you get on. All submissions get moderated so you’re not going to cause any problems if you do something incorrectly.

Just to confirm, @conway970, I've moved the conversation to a different thread to keep the 2026/27 league updates thread clean.

The best starting point for submitting newly-created players is via https://sortitoutsi.net/football-manager-data-update/attributes

There is a web form that guides you through the process and, once approved, those players will then be integrated into the Data Update.

I've moved your comment to our main troubleshooting thread.

As a general position, these sorts of errors typically happen when you are combining updates to the same nation from multiple sources (e.g. the SortItOut Data Update file for a nation, plus someone else's update file for the same nation). In order to fully assist, I'd need to know which version of the game you're playing, what nations are showing this sort of error and to understand what custom database files you're using.

If you use the SortItOutSI Data Update standalone, you shouldn't see any such errors.

Good news on the overall facepack.

Regarding Amir Ibragimov - it's a bit more nuanced, with him. You're correct that he's been added as a newly-created player (once) and he now also exists in the official DB (in FM26). We would still want the one created instance to exist as this caters for FM24 players (where he doesn't exist officially).

The issue, here, is that the created instance has been linked to the created instance (I think) of Gazi Ibragimov. Basically, he's been linked to the wrong counterpart - this is a human error. He needs to be linked to the official Amir Ibragimov and then everything will be correct - the system then ensures he is created for FM24, but not created for FM26.

I'll flag internally - it'll need to get fished out from the data directly and then corrected.

I've answered you via Direct Message, but in case the answer is useful for others, here it is again:
 

Just to confirm: the situation with the European competitions is challenging. Of course, we haven't deliberately ‘made them wrong’ - with things like Barcelona being out of Europe.

The reality is that the rulesets the game uses to calculate the first-season qualifications are complex…and I'm still working on resolving it. I am hoping to have time, this weekend, to tackle it fully. I think I know the way to resolve it, I just haven't had time to actually sit down and do it.

Now, in terms of getting the paid version versus the free version - both versions give you access to all of the update files in terms of league structures, etc. You won't ‘get the fix faster' on a paid plan. The Site Admin doesn't lock that content behin the paid tier.

This is a known issue and it is on the to-do list to be rectified. We have a dedicated thread where we are tracking the progress of 2026/27 updates and where we publish the overall direction for the Data Update.

In addition, in the opening post, we call out the common/known challenges we are facing (such as continental cup qualifications). I recommend keeping a track of that thread as it will always contain the latest position in the opening post:

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

I believe, in the last 24 hours or so, the issue with offset UIDs for the New Players Facepack for FM26 has now been corrected. I do know the Site Admin looked at it, recognised the offset and re-processed the numbering system.

I am not an active FM26 player so it is hard for me to validate in-game - as such, can someone download the latest version of the New Players Facepack for FM26, install, test and confirm whether everything is now correct again, please?

I believe, in the last 24 hours or so, the issue with offset UIDs for the New Players Facepack for FM26 has now been corrected. I do know the Site Admin looked at it, recognised the offset and re-processed the numbering system.

I am not an active FM26 player so it is hard for me to validate in-game - as such, can someone download the latest version, test and confirm whether everything is now correct again, please?

The continental competition qualifications remain on the ‘to do list’ to get tackled fully. There is an explanation in the opening post about the challenge associated with getting this completely right.

I've been doing some testing and I think I now have a sense of what the configuration is to get it to work - but I need to find the time to do it; it's time-consuming, as it requires configuring the advanced rules, saving, testing, simulating and iterating that process. Also, just to be honest, I've been short on time due to work/family commitments in the last week or so…but it's not fallen away completely. I'm hopeful of making progress this weekend - or, at least, finding time to dedicate to the effort.

With respect to the EFL Trophy qualifications - that is an oversight that I didn't really think of. I will add that to the to-do list - hopefully it's a straightforward correction within the England file.

As an aside, I have started to (in parallel) turn my attention to building out the files for in-game start dates of 2026. I am focusing on FM24, whilst other staff members are working on FM26 (we're co-ordinating, though). The plan remains to target a release ASAP and, realistically, I think this will be some time in August - perhaps towards the end. The key thing is that in order to get a sensible/proper in-game experience when activating multiple nations, all of the files need to be prepared and released together.

Just as a point-in-time marker of progress - I have already proven the concept and, in FM24, have the entirety of South America working with a 2026 start date. However - and this is important - the amount of time to ‘make it work’ for each given nation can vary. Sometimes, there are hardcoded rules that result in the ‘standard’ approach not working - and so that bogs us down. A good example of that is England which, as we all know, is a core, popular nation and so the idea of not having England working is a non-starter.

In other cases, the actual structures/promotions/relegations/history entries haven't been updated previously so the starting point is a bigger deficit. My overall point is that the actual, end-to-end workload is significant to get it done and we are cracking on but we need some time.

As I have always maintained - I am a keen FM player just like everyone else and I commit my time to this because I enjoy it; but it is just a volunteer role and so the time I can give to this is variable. But I am as keen as anyone to get this done.

Just to confirm: I have it on my to-do list to update the transfer embargo status of clubs, globally (for both FM24 and FM26 versions of the Data Update).

I will circle around to this as soon as my time allows - naturally, when we do it, this will update things to reflect reality.

I just wanted to circle back on this: I am unable to replicate this issue, using the latest/current versions of each of the FM24 Data Update and FM26 Data Update. I performed a clean install of all of the files contained within each download and loaded a new game, in each of FM24 and FM26, with all files enabled.

Can you please share more details and/or screenshots of exactly what you are seeing (error message) as that'll help me understand what is going wrong at your end.

Just to confirm, the latest version of the official database should be selected in whichever game you're playing and, if you're having issues despite doing this, please also check to ensure you don't have any issues being caused by other custom database files (from other creators).

Can you please confirm which specific file(s) this refers to? They should all be verified against the DB but if I’ve missed one I can only apologise…and will get it rectified.

Just to confirm - each of Germany (FM24 & FM26), Hungary (FM24), Portugal (FM24) and Switzerland (FM26) have received updates in the course of today.

The updates to Germany are to ‘tidy up’ the non-playable Regionalliga level - these should enable the file to work even when using custom databases that enable this as a playable level (I personally tested with a well-known one that I use on FM24).

I have also added a new file to the FM26 Data Update that removes all of the SI-configured injuries from the game. The equivalent file for FM24 has existed in the relevant Data Update for some time.

We ask everyone to post in English, please.

However, all the same - just acknowledging there is some work to do on the non-playable levels of many files, including Germany.

I know this often makes our files incompatible with files that deepen the playable levels. I will take a look at Germany as soon as my time allows this week. Correcting the Regionalliga level should be very doable. Not sure if we will have time to go to the level below that, however, as it starts to get very regionalised.

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?