For millions of football fans around the world, the annual Football Manager title is a highlight of the video game release schedule.
Unfortunately, however, developer Sports Interactive has been struggling with the development of the latest entry, leading to the game being delayed until March on PC (via Steam).
With the March release date just around the corner and still no sign of any gameplay footage, Sports Interactive has since announced that Football Manager 2025 has been cancelled, much to the disappointment of fans.
In a statement posted on social media, Sports Interactive said that it will now ‘shift its focus to the next release’.
“Due to a variety of challenges that we’ve been open about to date, and many more unforeseen, we currently haven’t achieved what we set out to do in enough areas of the game, despite the phenomenal efforts of our team,” reads a Sports Interactive statement.
“Each decision to delay the release was made with the aim of getting the game closer to the desired level but, as we approached critical milestones at the turn of the year, it became unmistakably clear that we could not achieve the standard required, even with the adjusted timeline.”
Sports Interactive pinpoints the player experience and interface as the two main areas in which Football Manager 2025 wasn’t at the required levels.
“Through the cancellation, every effort is now focused on ensuring that our next release achieves our goal and hits the quality level we all expect,” the company adds.
Needless to say, pre-order customers are able to request a refund on Steam, even though at the time of writing the game is still on sale.
Fans are obviously extremely disappointed with the news, with many calling for a free data update to Football Manager 2024 in order to make things right.
“Will you at least release an updated database for FM 2024 then?” one user posts on X.
Another writes: “Should have released an update patch for FM24 with updated transfers and promotions/relegations etc. that was the least you could have done.
“Bit of a big F You to customers who’ve been loyal to the product for decades, what a mess and a huge loss of confidence in your company.”
“Things happen, but I appreciate not releasing a half-ready game for us. We all love FM, so we will be here waiting once it’s ready to go. In the meantime, a data update for #FM24 should be done as a goodwill.”
It’s unlikely Sports Interactive will be able to update Football Manager 2024 with the latest teams and transfers due to licensing issues.