Game Guide

Getting Started

Registration

Signing up takes three quick steps:

1. Create Your Account — Pick a name, email, and password. Your name doubles as your president's name.
2. Set Up Your Team — Name your team and pick your colors.
3. Join or Create a League — Every team needs a league to play. Choose one of three paths:
   • I don't have an invitation — A new league will be created for you with computer-managed teams. You become the league administrator and can customize league size (4–16 teams), set a start date, and pre-generate invite links.
   • I have an invitation — Enter an invite code from a friend to join their league.
   • Join a random league — Get placed into an existing public league with available slots.

When you create your team, you'll receive a starting squad of players spread across all positions.

Your Dashboard

Your dashboard is command central. From here you can see:

• Team overview — Your squad, formation, and upcoming fixtures
• Finances — Current budget, weekly income, and payroll obligations
• League standings — Where you sit in the table
• Notifications — Match results, financial reports, transfer confirmations, and more

Managing Your Squad

Player Attributes

Every player has:

• Position — Goalkeeper, defender, midfielder, or attacker
• Ability — How skilled the player is. Higher ability means better match performance.
• Morale — How happy the player is. Low morale drags down performance.
• Age — Players in their prime perform best. Younger players are still developing, and older players start to decline.
• Salary — What the player costs you per week. Better players demand higher wages.

Signing Free Agents

The free agent market has players looking for a club. To sign one:

• You pay a signing fee upfront (based on their salary)
• They join your squad and start earning their weekly wage immediately
• New signings arrive with full morale
• You can't sign players if your squad is already at maximum capacity

Star Players

The market occasionally features star players — elite talent with ability ratings of 15-20. They're marked with a ★ icon and amber highlight on the free agents page.

Star players demand premium salaries (€150-400/week), significantly higher than regular free agents (€20-100/week). Signing a star can transform your team's performance, but their wage bill can quickly push your payroll above your weekly income. One star too many and you'll be spiraling into debt.

Releasing Players

Sometimes you need to trim the wage bill. Releasing a player:

• Costs a termination fee (based on their salary)
• Removes them from your squad and payroll
• You cannot release players if it would leave you with fewer than the minimum squad size

Coaching

Hiring a Coach

Each team can employ one coach at a time. A coach provides a performance boost to your entire squad during matches.

• Browse available coaches on the market
• Pay a signing fee upfront (based on their salary)
• The coach's weekly salary is added to your payroll
• Better coaches cost more but provide a bigger boost

Firing a Coach

• Pay a termination fee to release your current coach
• You must release your current coach before hiring a new one

Finances

Weekly Income and Payroll

Each week, your club receives a fixed income. Against that, you must pay all player salaries and your coach's salary (if you have one). If your income covers your payroll, you're in the clear. If not, your budget shrinks.

Going Into Debt

Teams can go into debt. There's no instant game-over, but being in the red has consequences:

• Your players notice when the club is struggling financially
• Morale drops across the squad when the team is in debt
• Unpaid players lose even more morale each week
• Low morale means worse match performance

Recovering From Debt

• Release high-earning players to cut your wage bill
• Fire your coach if the salary is too heavy
• Win matches to keep morale from spiraling further
• Be patient — your weekly income will gradually pull you back if expenses are low enough

Player Morale

Morale is one of the most important factors in your team's success. Happy players perform well. Miserable players don't.

What Makes Morale Go Up

• Getting paid — When the club meets payroll, players' morale improves
• Winning matches — Honest victories give the squad a boost

What Makes Morale Go Down

• Not getting paid — When the club can't cover wages, morale drops
• Being in debt — Financial trouble weighs on the whole squad
• Losing matches — Defeats hurt morale, especially when the team was involved in shady dealings
• Losing while cheating — If you bribed the referee and still lost, the morale hit is even worse

How Morale Affects Performance

Morale directly scales each player's effective ability. A player at full morale performs at their best. A player with rock-bottom morale is barely functional. Keep your squad happy and they'll reward you on the pitch.

Tactics

Choosing the right formation is one of the most important strategic decisions you'll make. Each tactic shapes how your players are deployed across three phases of play.

Formations Available

Three Phases of Play

• Defence — Goalkeepers, full-backs, and central defenders limit goals conceded. A stronger defence reduces the opponent's scoring chances.
• Midfield — Midfielders control possession. The team with more midfield strength gets more attacking opportunities — the opponent gets fewer.
• Offence — Attackers and wingers drive goals scored. More offence means more expected goals against the opposition's defence.

Each formation places different emphasis on these phases. Choose based on your squad's strengths.

Changing Your Tactic

You can switch formations at any time from the Tactics page. Changes take effect immediately for your next match.

Match Day

How Matches Work

Matches are resolved using a three-phase formula. Your team's performance in each phase is calculated from:

• Formation — Your tactic determines which phase each player contributes to
• Squad strength — The combined ability of your best players, selected automatically by position
• Morale — Each player's morale scales their contribution
• Age — Players in their prime contribute more
• Coaching — Having a good coach amplifies the whole team's output across all phases
• Home advantage — Playing at home gives a meaningful boost
• Bribes — If you've bribed the referee and they accepted, you get an extra edge (at a risk)

Midfield dominance determines possession — the team that wins midfield gets more chances to attack. Missing players penalise that phase by 8% per slot.

Improving Your Chances

• Pick a tactic that suits your squad's strengths
• Sign talented free agents to strengthen weak positions
• Keep morale high by paying your players and winning matches
• Hire a quality coach for an across-the-board boost
• Consider your home/away schedule

The Shady Side: Bribing Referees

Every match has an assigned referee, and every referee has a price — or doesn't.

How to Offer a Bribe

Before a match, you can choose to offer a bribe to the referee. You decide how much to offer, within a set range. The money is deducted from your budget immediately.

Will the Referee Accept?

Each referee has their own level of integrity. Some are easy to sway; others are practically incorruptible. The more you offer, the better your chances — but there are no guarantees. If the referee rejects your bribe, the money is gone.

The Boost

If the referee accepts, your team receives a performance boost for that match. Bigger bribes produce bigger boosts.

The Risk

Accepted bribes have a chance of being detected after the match. Detection chance scales with your Heat Level — base 10% at heat 0, rising 0.5% per heat point, capped at 35% above heat 50.

If you're caught, the fine is income-based and heat-scaled:

• Heat 0 → fine = 50% of weekly income
• Heat 50 → fine = 150% of weekly income
• Heat 100 → fine = 250% of weekly income

The Morale Trap

• Win with a bribe — Your players don't celebrate — the victory feels hollow. No morale boost.
• Lose with a bribe — Your players are demoralized even more than a normal loss. They risked their integrity and still lost.

Use bribes strategically. Over-reliance spirals into financial trouble, runaway heat, and a miserable squad.

Heat Level

Every shady action your club takes increases your Heat Level — a public reputation score (0–100) visible to everyone in your league.

What Increases Heat

Weekly Decay

Heat naturally falls by 2 every week. Stay clean and your reputation fades over time.

Heat Tiers

When your heat reaches Most Wanted (71+), you'll receive a warning notification. At this point, a single caught bribe can cost you multiple weeks' income.

Influence

Influence is your president's power currency. A well-connected president can smooth things over, reducing the heat you accumulate from dirty dealings.

How Influence Works

Each point of influence passively reduces heat gain from bribery — up to a maximum 50% reduction at 200 influence. Even small amounts add up over a long season.

Influence Tiers

Earning Influence

Influence is earned by completing Challenges — special objectives tied to your gameplay:

• Logging in consistently
• Playing matches
• Winning seasons
• Pulling off undetected bribes
• Inviting friends
• Reaching budget milestones

Challenge completion and influence earning is coming soon.

Leagues & Seasons

League Structure

Leagues follow a double round-robin format — every team plays every other team twice (once at home, once away). Standings use standard football points: wins earn the most, draws earn some, losses earn nothing.

Creating a League

Create a league during registration or from the League page. You can configure:

• Team Count — Choose from 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, or 16 teams. Larger leagues mean longer seasons.
• Private League — Hide from public listings. Only accessible via invite links.
• Season Start Date — Set a future date for the first match.
• Pre-generate Invites — Create invite links upfront to share with friends via copy or WhatsApp.

Inviting Friends

League admins can generate invite links — single or bulk — from the League page. Each invite reserves an NPC team slot. Share links by copying them or sending directly via WhatsApp.

Roster Management

Between seasons, league admins can add or remove NPC teams to adjust league size. Roster changes are locked during active seasons.

League Types

• Instant Play — Matches happen when all human-controlled teams mark themselves as "ready." NPC teams are always ready.
• Scheduled — Matches run on a fixed calendar.

Instant Play

League admins can enable or disable instant play from the League page. When enabled:

• A ready-up panel appears on your Dashboard showing the next matchday and how many teams are ready.
• Click "Ready Up" to signal you are prepared for the next match. Click "Cancel Ready" to undo.
• The Fixtures page shows which teams are "Ready" or "Waiting" for the next matchday.
• Once all human-controlled teams are ready, the matchday simulates automatically.

Season End

When all matchdays are complete:

• Champion crowned — The team at the top of the table is recorded in league history
• Prize money — End-of-season bonuses are distributed based on your final standing
• Player aging — Every player ages by one year
• Retirements — Older players may retire
• Youth promotions — Your academy produces young prospects to join your squad
• Free agent market refresh — New players and coaches appear on the market
• New season — The next season's schedule is generated automatically

The Daily Whistle

The Daily Whistle is your league's newspaper — a live feed of everything worth reading about your competition.

What Gets Published

• Newspaper editions — Matchday summaries you generate after completed matchdays. Click "Generate" for any pending edition.
• Bribe receipts — When a bribe goes undetected, a tacky receipt is filed in the paper.
• Leaked documents — When a bribe is detected, the scandal becomes public.
• Transfer rumours — Every signing and release generates a tabloid-style card.
• Rivalry cards — When two teams meet for the third time or more, a GRUDGE MATCH card is published.
• Prediction outcomes — After a match resolves, your prediction result is recorded.

Shame Wall

The public league page shows "This Week in Scandal" — the five most recent bribe receipts and leaked documents for the league. Visible to anyone on the internet.

Sharing Articles

Every article has a Share button that copies its public URL to your clipboard. Send it to rivals, post it in your group chat, or use it to trash-talk after a big win.

Match Predictions

Before each unplayed match, submit a prediction on the Fixtures page:

• H — Home win
• D — Draw
• A — Away win

Once the match is played, a prediction outcome article is published in The Daily Whistle. Track your record and brag about correct calls.

Your Public President Profile

Every president has a public profile page showing your name, team, league, heat level, influence, win rate, and seasons played. Visible to anyone without logging in.

When your heat reaches Most Wanted tier (71+), an "UNDER INVESTIGATION" badge appears on your profile — and a Wanted Poster shows up on your dashboard. Use the Share Profile button to send your profile to rivals.

You can also find your Public Profile link in the user menu at the top right.

Notifications

Your inbox keeps you informed about everything happening at the club:

• Match results — Scores and outcomes
• Bribe outcomes — Whether the referee accepted, rejected, or whether you were caught
• Heat warnings — Alerts when your heat level reaches Most Wanted tier
• Financial reports — Weekly settlement summaries
• Transfer activity — Confirmations when players or coaches are signed or released
• Season events — Retirements, academy promotions, prize money, and championship announcements
• League updates — Matchday readiness status and simulation confirmations

Frequently Asked Questions