Design Notes

Design notes from ManageFC: why the game works the way it does, the decisions behind each system and the trade-offs we chose on purpose.

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The club mascot wearing the full home kit with the main sponsor's mark on the chest

Design NotesOctober 2026

Your sponsor is on the shirt now — and around the pitch

Sponsorship used to be a line in a contract. Now the marks are drawn: on the chest and back of your shirts, on the club mascot, and on the ribbon around the pitch in the 3D stadium.

21 October 20262 min read

The weekly training plan of a small club

Design Notes

Paying amateurs like amateurs

Why divisions 9 and 10 now pay no wages at all, why expenses only start at division 8, and how real football pyramids shaped the numbers.

19 October 20262 min read

A ManageFC squad of procedurally generated players, every name invented for your world

Design Notes

Why there are no real names in ManageFC

Every club, player and stadium in ManageFC is generated from scratch, in a world built for your save alone. Why we chose procedural worlds over real teams and players — and what it gives you that a licence never could.

9 October 20262 min read

The ManageFC wallet screen showing the cosmetic currency

Design Notes

Cosmetics without pay-to-win

ManageFC is free, and during the open beta nothing can be bought. When payments arrive, everything for sale will be cosmetic. The rules we have set ourselves for the in-game currency, loot boxes and collectibles — and what will never be for sale.

1 October 20263 min read

A calm ManageFC dashboard with no countdown timers or reward tracks

Design Notes

Designing against FOMO

Most modern games are designed to make you afraid of missing out. ManageFC is designed the other way round. The specific choices we made — and the one place where we have not fully lived up to it yet.

1 October 20262 min read

About Design Notes

Design Notes is where we explain the why behind ManageFC. Every system in the game started as a trade-off: how long a season should take, what a manager should be able to buy, how deep a tactical setting can go before it stops being fun. These posts set out the reasoning, the alternatives we rejected and the rules we hold ourselves to.

Some of those rules are commitments you can check against the game itself: nothing for sale will ever make your team better, the game should never punish you for taking a break, and fictional clubs and players are a deliberate choice rather than a limitation. When a decision changes, we say so here and link to the post that explains the change.

If you disagree with a design decision, we want to hear it — write to support@managefc.com or join the community on Discord.

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