Why doesn’t Football Manager 24 have women’s soccer?

The Football Manager series is undoubtedly the best soccer management simulator, yet there’s a major feature lacking in FM24—women’s soccer.

Women’s soccer is exponentially growing in popularity and has been introduced to other big sports franchises like EA Sports FC and the now-defunct FIFA series. This has led players to wonder why FM24 doesn’t have a database for women’s soccer in the same way it has one for men’s soccer.

Here’s everything we know about why women’s soccer isn’t featured in FM24, and when Sports Interactive plans to add it to the Football Manager series.

Why doesn’t Football Manager 24 have women’s soccer?

Football Manager 24 doesn’t feature women’s soccer because Sports Interactive “hasn’t made enough advancements, a lot of which are legal issues,” according to a blog post from June 2023.

Sports Interactive originally promised to introduce women’s soccer to the FM series in July 2021, but acknowledged that it would take time as they didn’t want to release a standalone women’s version of FM.

The developer’s preference is to have women’s soccer fully integrated into the game, allowing players to manage women’s and men’s teams in the same save.

When is women’s soccer coming to the Football Manager series?

Women’s soccer will finally join Football Manager starting in FM25, Sports Interactive confirmed in July 2023. The developer said it made “really good progress” in areas such as research, translation, and match engine since it first made its promise in July 2021.

“Supporting us in bringing this project to life are some key people from inside the women’s game, who are passionate about helping us deliver the most authentic experience possible,” FM‘s longtime director Miles Jacobson said, adding that more details will be revealed in a future blog post.

Have any women’s leagues been announced for FM25?

Unfortunately, no league licenses have been confirmed by Sports Interactive for Football Manager 25, so we’re still in the dark in regard to teams and competitions.

It’s unlikely that we’ll hear any more information on confirmed licenses until next year when the developers announce the next installment of the game.