Football Manager video game to introduce women's teams

Women's football teams are at last coming to the Football Manager video game series – developer Sports Interactive announced on Wednesday.

In a blog post, studio director Miles Jacobson says: “The FM25 cycle will see the long-awaited introduction of women’s football to the Football Manager series.

“Before I go into the details, I want to acknowledge that since we first announced our commitment to introduce the women’s game back in July 2021, we haven’t provided any further public updates on the project, which has led to speculation and some frustration.”

Attributing the delay largely to legal issues, Jacobson says: “The women's game deserves to be the best it possibly can be when it is released – and the new graphics engine will help deliver that.

“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.”

Football Manager is lagging behind Electronic Arts' Fifa video game franchise, now rebranded as EA Sports FC, which introduced international women's teams in 2015 and featured Australian attacker Sam Kerr on the global cover last year, alongside Kylian Mbappe.

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The next Football Manager title, FM24 will mark the series' 20th anniversary. FM24 is set for a last-quarter release, while FM25 will come out next year and will move over to the Unity engine.

“Incredibly well known in the gaming space, Unity powers many of the best-known games in the world, from Genshin Impact through to the Cities Skyline series. Project Dragonfly explored a number of game engine partners, but after all our research was concluded, Unity was the clear favourite to take us into an exciting new era for the series,” explains Jacobson.

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Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.

Scoreline

Syria 1-1 Australia

Syria Al Somah 85'

Australia Kruse 40'

Ain Dubai in numbers

126: The length in metres of the legs supporting the structure

1 football pitch: The length of each permanent spoke is longer than a professional soccer pitch

16 A380 Airbuses: The equivalent weight of the wheel rim.

9,000 tonnes: The amount of steel used to construct the project.

5 tonnes: The weight of each permanent spoke that is holding the wheel rim in place

192: The amount of cable wires used to create the wheel. They measure a distance of 2,4000km in total, the equivalent of the distance between Dubai and Cairo.