Women teams and competitions in new FM series!!!!!!!!!!

Wouldn't be great to add women teams and competitions to the game?????

Would be nice to manage Martha and her Brazilian squad, win the women champions league with Umea,......?

I think its an added value for the game because it became more popular trough the last years and maybe it also would attract more women to the game!!!

Might be a good idea to implement this as some sort of expansion pack in future versions.

RRRight...for a moment i thought u were serious. Very funny.

Different (not necessarily inferior) sport altogether which would need a complete second line of coding. PLease not.

Wouldn't be great to add women teams and competitions to the game?????

Would be nice to manage Martha and her Brazilian squad, win the women champions league with Umea,......?

I think its an added value for the game because it became more popular trough the last years and maybe it also would attract more women to the game!!!

In an ideal world it would be great, but for SI it would be a huge task. They find it hard to find dedicated researchers each year for all the Professional English Teams (and other Countries) to ensure the data is accurate. To add Women's Football (which is developing a strong following and ever improving) to the mix would just add teams and names to the database, that would probably be inaccurate and underused.

i remember a huge thread about this before the last fm was released and the general feelings on the forum were that it would take too much time and effort for SI to add into the game and wouldn't add as much as other features people want put in.

A lack of interest in the womens game means it's commercially not an option.

Yeah, as much as it might be improving in popularity, it's still not very popular in the UK I'd say.

I'm always of the opinion that women's football and men's football are completely different and so would need to be a different game.

We could have a Women's Football Manager, but keep it separate from the regular FM.

I'm always of the opinion that women's football and men's football are completely different and so would need to be a different game.

what .. they use different rules ???

I think you'll find the only difference is women who play football are mostly on amature contracts ... they play for the FUN and enjoyment of the game.

As a sport, the difference is purely financial, there isn't as much ££ involved from sponsorship/TV

what .. they use different rules ???

I think you'll find the only difference is women who play football are mostly on amature contracts ... they play for the FUN and enjoyment of the game.

As a sport, the difference is purely financial, there isn't as much ££ involved from sponsorship/TV

You can see the difficulty in having a combined men's/women's FM game, because the two don't cross paths at all.

It would require a whole different database and setup.

I don't see why the technical issues are a difficulty. I can't believe it would be a great leap of software engineering to say, create a league structure within FM for women's football competitions and keep that seperate from the mens. Surely no different from adding a different continent or two, except you'd tweak it so that winning those leagues and continental tournaments didn't qualify you for the mens world club championship.

The more problematic issue would be the research. I daresay SI find it hard enough getting GOOD researchers to cover the mens leagues, especiallly lower down the pyramid. Because, in this country i.e. the UK, attendances for womens football are low, I can see big problems in attaining a critical mass of researchers that would make an FM11/12/1...whatever league viable in terms of the quality of research. Having said that, attendances for womens football are much stronger in the U.S.A. , Sweden, Norway and Germany, so these leagues might actually be better starting points for the creation of a database than the UK.

It's not only about creating a separate league structure.

You have to keep in mind that the women's game is less physical and a completely different style of football. For an accurate representation you would need a full second ME to be coded.

Also attributes would be difficult to handle. Either you select them relative to female physical abilities and thus give a 20 in physical stats which may be a 12 for men or you have to handle that within the existing system and not let them exceed a 12 which will feel discriminatory.

On top of that players from the female leagues must be unable to be signed for the male leagues and vice versa.

Lots of hassle for something which very few people would care about.

It's not only about creating a separate league structure.

You have to keep in mind that the women's game is less physical and a completely different style of football. For an accurate representation you would need a full second ME to be coded.

Also attributes would be difficult to handle. Either you select them relative to female physical abilities and thus give a 20 in physical stats which may be a 12 for men or you have to handle that within the existing system and not let them exceed a 12 which will feel discriminatory.

On top of that players from the female leagues must be unable to be signed for the male leagues and vice versa.

Lots of hassle for something which very few people would care about.

I know that women's football is less physical, though I also don't think the differences are as big as people make out. Tbh though I don't think potential match engine differences should be a barrier to this. You can't usually have perfection in one go and if you set that as a goal & are then put off by it being unattainable instantly, well no-one would ever do anything, but taking small steps at a time gets you there. Just making a start by compiling a database with playable leagues would be a significant step forward and then, if this generated interest (and sales), then other things including the match engine can be looked at in the future.

The attributes, surely, would be relative to other women players, given that there wouldn't be an intention of crossover into the mens game. Re. players from the female leagues not being able to sign for the male leagues, nothing more difficult than a bit of coding or, easier still, just use a different database i.e. when you start the game you can select whether to load the mens league or the womens league. Simple. Little to no hassle at all for something that more people than you think might care about. How many girls & women play football in this country alone? I think its in the 100,000's. Then there's the USA, Sweden etc where womens football is much more developed.

As I said before though, I think availability of researchers is a stumbling block, though I wonder if SI will test the water at some point?

No, the effort required to do this will not result in increased sales, its just not worth it. Id rather they fixed the current game than spending man hours on stuff the vast majority will never play.

No, the effort required to do this will not result in increased sales, its just not worth it. Id rather they fixed the current game than spending man hours on stuff the vast majority will never play.

If developers completely ignored small "niche" markets because they are percieved as nonprofitable ...

Then no one would have ever played Eve Online.

If developers completely ignored small "niche" markets because they are percieved as nonprofitable ...

Then no one would have ever played Eve Online.

What's Eve Online?

I can only imagine the 'feature requests' for new animations in the match engine already

Lucas what could you possibly mean?..............

I can only imagine the 'feature requests' for new animations in the match engine already

Depending on what you offer here I might change my mind on things

If developers completely ignored small "niche" markets because they are percieved as nonprofitable ...

Then no one would have ever played Eve Online.

Womens football would not even be a niche market, it would be a non market. It would be lots of effort for zero return.

What's Eve Online?

Crawl back under your rock.

Womens football would not even be a niche market, it would be a non market. It would be lots of effort for zero return.

Opinion does not equal Fact.

You have access to extensive market research studies that support your opinion ?

If they did add it, I wouldn't be interested in it even slightly.

Crawl back under your rock.

So hang on, youre calling it a niche yet you thing everyone should know what it is? I dont have a clue either.

Opinion does not equal Fact.

You have access to extensive market research studies that support your opinion ?

I coached womens football at a fairly high level and even they were more interested in the mens game than the womens game. The fact is if it was going to be profitable then SI would have done it already.

Sorry but that is a terrible idea.

Women belong in the kitchen, not in my FM.

I just realised my mistake ...

Bigotry is a form of stupidity ...

I'm now in an argument I'll never win, as I will continually be beaten by experience.

So hang on, youre calling it a niche yet you thing everyone should know what it is? I dont have a clue either.

I coached womens football at a fairly high level and even they were more interested in the mens game than the womens game. The fact is if it was going to be profitable then SI would have done it already.

If you coached women's football, you'd think that you'd be supportive of anything that would promote the game, as opposed to your current position of putting effort into fixing bugs that, quite frankly, are minimal. Your priorities say a lot about what you really think of women's football.

To put it simply and practically, much as it might be a nice addition to the series, the positives are outweighed by the negatives.

Clearly it would be a niche game, but even a niche needs a sufficient return to make even the initial investment worthwhile.

Considering (as suggested by Miles in another topic) that sales for FM are around the one million mark each release, for a management simulation game about THE most popular sport on the planet, realistically a women's football version is likely to be a very small niche indeed, with a huge amount of effort required to get such a project off the ground. The numbers just wouldn't stack up in favour of making it, however...

...not all is lost.

The community could make an edited database itself.

Given in the game editor, it's now possible to have both male and female staff members (you're able to add/change to female staff by ticking a box), why not instead ask for SI to add the same tick box for players? This way, the community can create their own edited version of the game. If you look in the editors forum, there's a huge array of different edited "versions" of the game available, created by the community. There's no reason why a women's football edit can't be community created, with the addition of a tick box for players.

Arguably minimal fuss to implement within development of the editor and the community has total control over how they create and emulate women's football.

Does that not seem a more realistic and feasible option?

To put it simply and practically, much as it might be a nice addition to the series, the positives are outweighed by the negatives.

Clearly it would be a niche game, but even a niche needs a sufficient return to make even the initial investment worthwhile.

Considering (as suggested by Miles in another topic) that sales for FM are around the one million mark each release, for a management simulation game about THE most popular sport on the planet, realistically a women's football version is likely to be a very small niche indeed, with a huge amount of effort required to get such a project off the ground. The numbers just wouldn't stack up in favour of making it, however...

...not all is lost.

The community could make an edited database itself.

Given in the game editor, it's now possible to have both male and female staff members (you're able to add/change to female staff by ticking a box), why not instead ask for SI to add the same tick box for players? This way, the community can create their own edited version of the game. If you look in the editors forum, there's a huge array of different edited "versions" of the game available, created by the community. There's no reason why a women's football edit can't be community created, with the addition of a tick box for players.

Arguably minimal fuss to implement within development of the editor and the community has total control over how they create and emulate women's football.

Does that not seem a more realistic and feasible option?

I think the ideas you put forward here, heathxxx, are very positive and a good way forward.

I also think SI could do its part in this, for example.

a. Does SI ask for club researchers for major women's clubs in the same way as for mens clubs?

b. Does SI, on its forums, encourage an atmosphere (and moderate where necessary) where those with a real interest in and knowledge of women's football, can share the necessary knowledge to facilitate the building of such databases?

Over to you ;-)

i thinks it a bad idea and just will ruin the game

a. Does SI ask for club researchers for major women's clubs in the same way as for mens clubs?

b. Does SI, on its forums, encourage an atmosphere (and moderate where necessary) where those with a real interest in and knowledge of women's football, can share the necessary knowledge to facilitate the building of such databases?

Over to you ;-)

They should remain community organised, created and researched. Something along the lines of the lower leagues edits that have proven to be very popular and generally well supported... by the community, in the editors forum. That would be the ideal and existing location to "host" such a community orientated project. It would gain prominence within the forums by virtue of its own merits and "support" from the contributing community.

The only thing SI could do (and in fairness, is all they should do), is to add that tick box I mentioned to the player data entry page of the editor. It's not really fair to ask them to undertake recruitment of researchers for an area of the game they wouldn't be actively implementing in the current game, or creating a stand alone to cover. As I don't design the game or work on code, only they can tell you how easy (or difficult) it would be to add the tick box into the player editing options.

Again, community focus and if SI decided to do so, they could probably promote such a community project as "featured community created content" via their website and/or the forums. The only problem with the latter however, would possibly be regarding any "official" sanction by the governing bodies of the women's sport, clubs, or the players themselves. The insertion of "we are not responsible for any content herein..." type statements can usually cover that though, with user created stuff.

My best suggestion at this stage, for those that want it, is to start up a thread in the editors forum, link it to this thread, then see how much serious interest it generates.

I'm not against the idea in principal. I just don't believe it would be worth the resources and development time for SI to produce a stand alone product, or to integrate within their current "flagship" product. If we consider the millions (billions even?) following the men's game globally on the grand scale, somewhere in the region of one million copies sold of FM each release, seems very small by comparison. If we were to put that in the context of the estimated following for the women's game globally versus potential for sales of a stand alone women's version, or potential additional sales of FM if integrated in the current game, I doubt that any developer or publisher would invest in it as a viable product, financially speaking.

Nothing bigoted or sexist about such a logical way of looking at this proposal in the slightest. This is why I think it's geared towards being an entirely community orientated effort. If you want it to happen as a community, then it's up to you to do it really.

If you coached women's football, you'd think that you'd be supportive of anything that would promote the game, as opposed to your current position of putting effort into fixing bugs that, quite frankly, are minimal. Your priorities say a lot about what you really think of women's football.

Si arent in the business to promote womens football.

Womens football as a top level sport is so low down that its not even worth worrying about. I bet if you asked 100 people who the champions were this or last year, 1 or 2 at max would know. Its not just me, the vast majority dont give a damn about it. Women dont give a damn about it in general.

Its on a par with netball or volleyball in peoples interests. Should SI lose a whole load of money on a netball sim just to be PC.

Might be a good idea to implement this as some sort of expansion pack in future versions.

My eyes.! Expansion packs? This isn't EA

I do think womens leagues should be in the game, in the same way reseve and U-21 leagues are. However, it'd have to be all grey players, because otherwise the database would be HUGE. Probably uncontrolable for the developers, too.

Si arent in the business to promote womens football.

Womens football as a top level sport is so low down that its not even worth worrying about. I bet if you asked 100 people who the champions were this or last year, 1 or 2 at max would know. Its not just me, the vast majority dont give a damn about it. Women dont give a damn about it in general.

Its on a par with netball or volleyball in peoples interests. Should SI lose a whole load of money on a netball sim just to be PC.

Always Arsenal. It's the only league we win these days The last time we didn't win it, was around 2000. And even then, we were always in the running. I think we only didn't win it 4 or 5 times since it started.

I would hate to have the womens leagues in the game

Terrible idea. End of story. Nomore threads on this please.

id actually like to see this, it wold be great to take over Hope Powell's (who people have said should get a job in the mens game) job as England Ladies Manager and see if you can win anything with them....

Why does the idea of having women's leagues in the game bother such a number of people so much? If they were added, no-one is forcing you to play them. They'd be an option, just in the same way you can pick & choose different countries leagues to run.

Why does the idea of having women's leagues in the game bother such a number of people so much? If they were added, no-one is forcing you to play them. They'd be an option, just in the same way you can pick & choose different countries leagues to run.

I think now that you have around 10 votes after a few days, you should give in that too few people care.

Including this would hurt a lot, not because we would have to use it, but because it would take too much of the coding resources away from important issues. We would get a worse game in the remaining part than otherwise and that remaining part should clearly be the priority after this idea got close to no support.

I think its a dreadful idea, but surely it would be possible to set up with a few tweaks to the competition editor for those who want it. They could then design the leagues.

I think now that you have around 10 votes after a few days, you should give in that too few people care.

Including this would hurt a lot, not because we would have to use it, but because it would take too much of the coding resources away from important issues. We would get a worse game in the remaining part than otherwise and that remaining part should clearly be the priority after this idea got close to no support.

Not a case of giving in or not giving in, just making a valid argument. Not really fussed about how many people on this board care or don't care as its an unrepresentative sample.

Taking coding resources away from important issues??? Anyone would think the game was falling apart by the seams. Its an excellent game played by many for hours and days on end. Yes there are some issues but I really don't think they're that significant in the great scheme of things.

I would give up on the game if they added this.

The effort is better spent on some random amateur league in England.

Totally agree Dyllan. And where are they going to get the researchers from. Not enough people watch womens football.

I don't think this will ever be a consideration for SI, as even if it's not a massive amount of effort (and I suspect it might be trickier than you think to keep the playing staff separate, but allow now players to move between the mens and womens leagues). It just adds unnecessary complication, for not much benefit to SI.

Just my 2 cents: I have absolutely no interest in womens football, therefore I'd have no interest in a womens FM. If it was done as a new game and that didn't hamper the development of the core game then fine let them do it, but otherwise no thanks.

it wouldnt be long until people were posting saying it inst fair that the womens stats are not as good as the mens. Then you would have SI making women with the same PA as the men so as not to discriminate, and i am pretty confident in saying that there are a lot better youth male prospects than female. I think if this got added in FM12, by FM13 it would be removed and as Heath said, turned into an editable option.

Considering the roots of modern association football, women's football is still fighting a bit of an uphill battle. Heck, football was seen as men's excersise in physicality in Britain, a run and tackle sports up to the point were the option of passing the ball was considered UNMANLY. Many countries followed, in Germany, now on of the forerunners in women's footballl, it was forbidden for women to play competitive football until the 1960s or something. My mother used to play football in the women's team that was formed at a local club (and has long since disbanded), and she could tell a couple stories of how that women's team was being handled: as barely anything but a cost factor to consider, no matter how successful they were - and they were, winning promotion to a level the mens' team had never played in.

So, yeah, probably still not a feasible option - and even then it could also well be that largely male SI staff aren't that interested in the women's game personally, and have little insights into this sports. I know my personal focus is almost exclusively on the male side of football myself, that is what I have grown up with, that is what appeals to me the most, as has been pointed out, women's football is different. I think the popularity will definitely increase some more, but it's never going to be as popular as the men's game worldwide. But it will likely establish itself as a standalone sports that doesn't need to be compared to the males' game. At one point it will find its own identity, and as physically "inferior" women may be to men, technically there is no reason to believe otherwise. Here's to you

at the tender age of 15. A women's football manager game? Someday, maybe. Perhaps from SI, but more likely from a development house consisting of a staff that has grown up with what women's football might become, rather than what it used to be: a sports ridiculed, belittled and in some cases even outlawed for generations.

Wouldn't be great to add women teams and competitions to the game?????

Would be nice to manage Martha and her Brazilian squad, win the women champions league with Umea,......?

I think its an added value for the game because it became more popular trough the last years and maybe it also would attract more women to the game!!!

you can not be serious,no way i could never see this happening please dont put these ideas in to sports interactives heads:D

Well, they already have the English and French national sides included .