Why Did Football Manager 2025 Get Cancelled

This Very Popular Video Game Was Cancelled Earlier This Year, But Why Was This?

What Is Football Manager?

Football Manager is a popular multiple-platform game that can be played single-player or online with friends and gives people the opportunity to take control of a football club and show their managerial skills on their way to achieving success.

In more depth, it is a data-driven game rather than the other football video games, for example, FIFA, which is more focused on the visual and gameplay sides of things. You really can take control of everything from the training and development of players right through to the scouting and recruitment of new talent.

If you were to ask the players of the game, many would tell you how addictive it can be once you get into a save with a club of your choice. There truly is a pull to the game where you have the opportunity to take clubs in step 6 of English football, such as Hereford, on the rise to becoming Champions of Europe.

What Happened To Football Manager 25?

After multiple delays to the release date of Football Manager 25 from the usual release date in November, fans of the game were beginning to wonder if they were ever going to play the game. In February this year Sports Interactive announced that they had made the “difficult decision” to cancel the 2025 version of the game, as it was “too far away from the standards” that their players deserved.

Sports Interactive regret to inform that, following extensive internal discussion and careful consideration with SEGA, we have made the difficult decision to cancel Football Manager 25. pic.twitter.com/tLRbq8305K

— Football Manager (@FootballManager) February 7, 2025

They had announced that it was going to be the first Football Manager addition to include women’s teams. Therefore, this was going to take a brand-new stats database and new motion capture sequences for all of these women’s teams’ players. As you can imagine, to get this right, it would take a long time to do so; this could have had an impact on why it was cancelled, as they would have wanted the game to be properly ready for release. They also added in the statement that releasing it any later would have been too late into the football season in their view, so they would focus on Football Manager 26 and making it the best version it could be for players.

Football Manager 26 was recently released on November 4th, and it is clear that a lot of work has been put into improving the graphics and the gameplay and trying to close the gap on the likes of FIFA. However, it hasn’t had the reception that they would have hoped for, as day by day the number of players is falling dramatically, with a lot of players unhappy at the focus on graphics rather than consumer enjoyment.

Miles Jacobson on why FM25 was cancelled:

“I literally sat there and couldn’t find things in my own game. It was pretty embarrassing. It was within an hour that I sat there and thought “We can’t release”” pic.twitter.com/SFGiZSNtQX

— Out of Context Football Manager (@nocontextfm1) August 29, 2025

This poses the question of whether it was worth focusing on the visual side of things, which seems to have had an impact on the cancellation of the Football Manager 25 edition. As the die-hard Football Manager players play the game due to their love of football and the opportunity to give management a go in the game rather than for the visual aspects.

Other Games Experiencing Similar Issues

Football Manager isn’t the only game recently that has been delayed multiple times, as Rockstar have recently announced that Grand Theft Auto Six has been delayed again until November 2026, which will be over a year from the original planned release date.

So are video game creators putting too much thought into making a game perfect rather than actually releasing it for players to enjoy?