M.C - Comments

Yes - we did those first. Please check the opening post of the thread; it contains a table that provides a full status update (it is continuously updated).

@thehet - I moved your comment to the general thread, just FYI.

It will be because the number of years it offsets put the contract end date to a date that has passed in-game when you start. You’re right that it’s because we‘re in the specific period we are, now, where we have ‘rolled forward to next season’ prior to 1st July. We do this because the community mostly want the transfers done earlier. But I think we don’t explicitly ‘release’ those players who are set to leave. I don’t know why - perhaps to avoid reversing the status on the players that end up staying after all. Perhaps just an oversight. Perhaps some other reason.

@Footygamer - thoughts on releasing all players that are ‘set to leave’, to avoid them having the first in-game season at the club they are about to leave (in real-life)? Alternatively, we can also just tolerate it and ‘wait it out’ - as their futures get resolved, submissions will take care of wherever they should be.

This is understood and just wanted to reply to acknowledge it is something we are aware of.

I have explained the situation/cause as best I can in the opening post of this thread: https://sortitoutsi.net/content/76916/202627-league-updates-fm24-fm26 

It will get corrected in due course, but there’s a chain of underlying dependencies and so we need to do those individual nation updates for it to all come good.

We have also agreed with the author that we can update that and subsequently include it.

However, it’s a mountain of work. I’m on the case and it will be done - but in due course. I can’t prioritise those lower leagues over the rest of the footballing world. If you check out our main 2026/27 update thread, you’ll see I refer to the fact that we are building out a new Lower League file for FM24 and that we will target the release for the point in time when we move to a 2026 in-game start date. As an aside, that is also probably the easiest point in time when reliable data will be available about the very lowest divisions, anyway (i.e. it would be impossible to make something truly accurate for 2026/27 much before then).

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.

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.

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.

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.

Fair enough - my mistake!

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).

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.

I can see why this is (sort of). It's a mix-up with the linking between created and official instances of players. This means the created version of Amir Ibragimov is being created in both FM24 and FM26 (whereas it should be FM24 only).

@Footygamer - can you purge any links from created players to 2000392429 (which is the official instance of Amir Ibragimov), please? I will then link 2100060712 (the active, created instance of the same player) to it. I get an error when trying to assign this link as it flags that “FM ID 2000392429 is already assigned to: Gazi Ibragimov”.

I've moved this comment to one of our other discussion threads - as it doesn't really pertain directly to the 2026/27 nation/league updates where your original post landed.

In any case, David Sullivan is a person who can be edited through the website's submission system and, I can see, that his removal from West Ham has already been submitted/approved: https://sortitoutsi.net/football-manager-data-update/person/4000667. Our community tend to be pretty quick in recognising and submitting changes, especially high-profile ones. So the next instance of the Data Update available (overnight tonight on the free tier or already on the paid tier) to you will have him released.

Are you sure this is the thread you intended to post this feedback in? I'm asking, because this thread is for the FM24-specific download. The download here is not FM26-compatible and the installation instructions, therefore, are only for FM24.

The FM26-specific equivalent, which can be found at https://sortitoutsi.net/content/74677/fm26-real-name-fix-placeholder-thread, has its own instructions and those instructions reference the correct folder paths for that version of the game. If you're playing FM26, you will want the download from the other thread and you'll want to follow the instructions in that associated thread.

As an aside, these files (both instances) are provided for free and so I don't think the comment regarding paid subscriptions is fair/relevant (unless I've misunderstood something).

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.

So far we've released one for FM26 - but it has quickly proven to not do the trick, fully. I need to investigate exactly what the various individual-nation dependencies are to get it working and, once I know what those are, I can make a plan across both FM24 and FM26 to get a new file included in each update.

The only thing I can ask for, for now, is patience. I will keep things updated in https://sortitoutsi.net/content/76916/202627-league-updates-fm24-fm26 - the opening post table has a row labelled ‘Europe’ which articulates the current status.

Unfortunately, this is not a straightforward/5-minute job, because the rules that determine who the game ‘qualifies’ for the continental competitions are drawn from a whole variety of sources (i.e. all of the domestic divisions and domestic cups that qualify the teams into the tournaments in real-life). The thing we pushed out a few days ago was an attempt to see if we could easily ‘override’ that but, alas, it wasn't that simple.

For some time, we've been including this database file as part of the SortItOutSI Data Update. Within the last few days, we have - with the original author's full permission - updated the file to reflect the 2026/27 season.

The file named sortitoutsi.net FM26 Data Update - England Lower League Pyramid.fmf that is contained within the FM26 Data Update is this base file, updated as best I was able to for now. For full clarity, the update has updated promotions/relegations down to Level 7, at this time. I will complete it the rest of the day in the coming days.

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.

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.

There isn't currently a feature/capability that allows ability/attribute submissions for non-players that become part of the site's Data Update - only playing staff, unfortunately.

@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?

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.

I've moved your comment to another thread - as I think it fits better here.

In our Data Update, the file that contains the transfer data is the one that ends with Contracts.fmf. However, the entire concept behind our Data Update is that it can be contributed to by the community, through the website, and those submissions then appear in the Data Update for all. So I would strongly recommend against doing anything manually in the files - it would be much better to make submissions via https://sortitoutsi.net/football-manager-data-update/contribute. Any submissions you make - once approved - will then be part of the Data Update that you (and anyone else who downloads the Data Update) then gets the benefit of.

I've moved your comment to our main troubleshooting thread - as I think it is probably more appropriate.

With respect to the updated qualifications for continental/European competitions: this is something we're working on. Unfortunately, the dependency chain to get these all correct relies on a lot of other data to also be updated and so until we finalise more of the individual nations, this will likely continue to only be partially correct.

With respect to you not seeing any transfers, this suggests an installation issue at your end. Can you please share screenshots that show your ‘editor data’ folder and also the in-game screenshot that shows which additional files you have selected as part of your game setup? Can you also please confirm which mode you are using? If you are using the World Cup mode, I believe this does not allow you to use custom databases…which would probably explain why you're not seeing the updated data if you are starting in that mode in FM26.

Just to give a reply - and direct you to what SortItOutSI are working towards: our Data Update will, in due course, provide updated playable leagues to reflect 2026/27, along with the associated continental qualifications. We have begun the overall process and we will track progress here: https://sortitoutsi.net/content/76916/202627-league-updates-fm24-fm26 

The opening post outlines the longer-term picture and I would suggest can serve as a good reference point for what this site’s Data Update will do.

I cannot comment on what any other creators or sites may be working on. However, I can say that what you’re asking for is a significant piece of work (I would estimate it as many hundreds of hours of effort) and, fundamentally, is impossible to have been completed at this stage, accurately. Some nations are still playing matches that decide promotions/relegations; many others have just finished. Others still have not formalised the lower division teams because they are often regional and get finalised later in the summer.

If someone out there has already made updates to ‘all major leagues’ I would be astounded, but also I would confidently predict the accuracy of those files would be limited.

I just want to acknowledge that I’m aware the continental qualifications will be tricky to get 100% right; and I know the current file doesn’t achieve it, based on comments.

I‘m away with work until tomorrow so haven’t been able to engage with the discussion as quickly as I normally would. In my experience, to get all qualifications in place it is typically requires to have all of the individual nation files updated, as well, as a minimum. Certain qualifications seem to be prioritised based on Registered Teams; others on domestic competition winners (history entries).

I will review the full ruleset when I’m back and that will give me an understanding of exactly what the dependency chain is. It may transpire we first need all of the individual nations updated before the continental qualifications will reliably work. The file I quickly put together before my trip was a ‘free hit’ intended to get us some of the way quickly.

I would not expect that to be the case - I will need to investigate that on my return in a couple of days. Perhaps one of my staff colleagues will get to it quicker than that.

I have now uploaded the additional file that manages continental cup qualifications for Europe, for FM26. This should be available immediately for those on the Enhanced Data Update and should appear from tomorrow morning for those on the free tier. This will appear as a new file in the downloaded FM26 Data Update with the name sortitoutsi.net FM26 Data Update - Europe.fmf.

FM24 equivalent will follow in the near future - however, I also need to amend the Champions League ruleset to correct the first-season format before releasing that one.

I am, as I type this, working on the additional file that handles continental cup qualifications for Europe. To answer your question directly: if I manage to finish those files for FM24/FM26 tonight and upload them, then tomorrow's release will include those updated Champions League, Europa League and Conference League qualifications.

If I do not, then the European qualifications will still reflect 2025/26.

Right, so that shows me that the file is working - it's the “E20 - England to Level 11” file.

Sorry, between me explaining the other bits and pieces in this discussion, it may have become unclear - but, basically, you're still receiving the ‘old’ version of the file (i.e. not the one that I uploaded earlier today). This is because, on the free tier of the Data Update - the contents in the downloadable package are updated once per day (at around 04:30 UK-time). So when you re-download the FM26 Data Update from 04:30 tomorrow morning onwards, you'll have the updated England file in it.