18 Aug, 2025
Our resident FM expert brings you 5 great new potential features that Sports Interactive could include in the long awaited Football Manager 26 and why!
Football Manager 2026 had its first teaser trailer last week, and excitement is mounting. We already know there’s going to be an entirely revamped match engine thanks to Unity, the long-awaited introduction of women’s football, and some fresh tactical roles. But what about the features they haven’t announced yet? I’ve had a think about what could be on the cards, based on what makes sense, what the series is still missing, and where the gaming industry in general is heading. To be clear, these are all features that haven’t been revealed.
Financial rules like Profit and Sustainability (PSR) are no longer background noise in the Premier League. They’re centre stage, shaping transfers, wage bills, and even league survival. In real life, clubs such as Everton and Nottingham Forest have already been hit with points deductions, while others are walking a financial tightrope just to stay compliant. Yet in Football Manager, PSR is still treated as a vague afterthought rather than a proper game-defining challenge. For FM26 to feel authentic, PSR needs to be front and centre. It should be a system that forces managers to balance ambition with sustainability, weigh up whether that £40m striker is worth the risk, and deal with the real consequences of overspending. Just as tactics and scouting define a save, navigating PSR should become a crucial part of the modern Football Manager experience. Like it or not, PSR is a huge deal right now, and that needs to be reflected in the game.
There’s a lot of controversy around AI, and I don’t think it should be plastered all over Football Manager just yet. But if there’s one area crying out for improvement, it’s the in-game social media feed. This is where AI could actually make a noticeable, positive difference. Imagine a social feed that felt genuinely dynamic instead of recycling the same few canned responses over and over again. It would make the game feel fresher every time you played, and it would generate a whole lot more content for people like me.
Football is constantly changing, and nowhere more so than at boardroom level. Ownership models are volatile, boards change direction overnight, and expectations can shift with the wind. In Football Manager though, boards tend to stick rigidly to one strategy, regardless of what’s happening on the pitch. FM26 should bring more unpredictability to the boardroom. For instance, if your board insists on a defensive style but you start racking up wins by playing attacking football, they should eventually change their tune rather than stubbornly clinging to their original demands.
Football is now as much about business as it is about the sport itself. FM26 should capture that reality by letting managers expand their club’s global brand. This could come through social media campaigns, pre-season tours, sponsorship deals and more. Hardcore purists might not love this addition, but if the goal is realism and immersion, then the off-pitch branding battles need to be represented too.
I know this is tricky when it comes to real players because of potential legal issues, but with regens there’s no excuse. They should have more unique, randomised situations that make each save feel alive. Imagine a regen tweeting something controversial that you have to discipline him for. Or a striker flat-out refusing to take a penalty because his nerves got the better of him. Or a youngster rejecting a new deal because his dream is to play in Spain. A few more moments of randomness like this would make the world of FM feel much more unpredictable and lifelike.
Can you think of features that should make their way into Football Manager 2026 but haven’t been announced yet? Drop any ideas in the replies to our X post of this article on the @OOCFM page.
Check out some of our other Football Manager related content, including our FM 26 release date article which is constantly being updated with new news, and also we took a look at the Football Manager new cut-scene overhaul and potential collab with EA.
