Andy's Fantasy Canadian League V1.0

15/12/15: Updated to version 1.5

This is my attempt at a version of the Canadian league thats been rumoured for a while (supposedly its going to be announced after this year's Grey Cup, so fingers crossed). Its unlikely the real league'll play out exactly like this one, but it should provide a fun, competitive season, with a bunch of cups to play for and a detailed lower league and college system. I've also tried to add a full compliment of stadiums, managers, awards and youth leagues.

League Structure:

Canadian Premier League (CPL)

• A fully Canadian league at a level below the MLS, roughly on a par with the current NASL. Contains the two current Canadian NASL teams, the reserve sides of the three MLS teams, and seven brand new teams.

For the first part of the season, teams play every other team once, home and away. At that point the top eight go into another playoff league, where they all play eachother once for the championship.

• Meanwhile the four remaining teams, plus the winners of the four leagues below, duke it out in their own league for the shiel. I went back and forth on whether to include relegation, and eventually decided this was a good compromise.

• I've given each team (excluding the MLS reserve sides, as if you give them anyone too good, their main team'll just steal them) a few 'marquee' players on free transfers to add a bit of star-dust to the league (as much star-dust as a Georgios Samaras or a Brad Jones can bring). I've also let Edmonton and Ottawa keep some of their best players.

• The top four get to play the top four teams from the NASL for the Thanksgiving Cup later in the season.

Canadian Regional leagues (C2L & C3L)

• These leagues contain the best semi-pro and amateur teams from the USL, Ontario League 1, CSL, PLSQ and PCSL plus a few other amateur teams to make up the numbers and fill in a few under-represented areas of the country (because who doesn't want to play in -26 degrees in Yellowknife?).

• The teams are divided up into four local regions: PACIFIC (British Columbia), CENTRAL (The prairies), METRO (Ontario) and ATLANTIC (Quebec and the maritimes). A few teams near the borders have been shuffled around. The divisions are broken up into two leagues (bar the Central, which has less teams), wth promotion and relegation between them.

Canadian Inter-University Soccer League

• Contains 20 of the better college teams from around the country.

Amway Canadian Championship

• Expanded from the current version. A knockout cup where every team in the country enters, with the winner becoming Canada's entrant to the CONCACAF champions league. The three MLS teams enter at the quarter final stage.

Regional Cups

• Each of the four local regions have their own minor cup, with teams playing for local bragging rights.

Tim Hortons Cup

• A 'Johnstone's Paint Trophy' style competition for the lower league teams. Gives them something to do in the latter half of the season once the leagues have fi.

As a bonus, I've also created artwork for kits, logos and some Canadian ad-boards.

To install, copy the files from the zip into the folders with the same name your 'my documents/sports interactive/football manager 16' folder.

V1.5

- Updated structure of CPL and various cups.

- Fixed Champions league qualifying.

- Updated some competition graphics.

- Added matchday squad rules to CPL.

- Tweaked finances and prize money to keep most clubs financially stable for the foreseeable future.

V1.0

- Altered league structure.

- Rebuilt a version of the CONCACAF Champion's league where the winners of the Canadian Championship qualify.

- Fixed issue with no teams qualifying for the Canadian Championship in the first season.

- All CPL teams have youth/reserve sides from the beginning.

- Tweaked starting finances and reputations.

Known issues:

• CPL teams won't bother entering reserve or under-19 teams in the first season. You will get the option to enter one from the second season onwards though. Not too big an issue s you won't have any regens yet.

Some of the regional divisions for the reserve and U19 leagues look a little funny too. The majority are arranged into local division perfectly, but the game'll create a few 'miscellaneous' leagues of teams from all over the country as well.

• I've had to rebuild the CONCACAF Champions League from scratch and its a bit basic. It'll give the feel of the real tournament if you're lucky enough to qualify, but the qualification system for a lot of the smaller nations isn't there, so you may find the same teams qualify year on year. There are other NACL files floating around online, so any of them should be compatible with this one, if you want the full experience (just make sure the Canadian place goes to the 'FA cup' winner). You may also find Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal can qualify through the MLS as well as the Canadian Championship.

• I know custom graphics can be a bit of a problem in FM16 and I've had a few issues with the ad-boards. Right now I've just supplied the graphics, as I can't get a decent .xml file to work that isn't based on someone else's work. If you can get new ad-board graphics working in FM16, simply swap out the 'default' folder supplied in this file, with the one in your 'Football Manager 2016/graphics/pictures/ads' folder.

I'd recommend starting with the MLS active (each CPL team has an MLS affiliate, so you'll get some good loanees). I'd also recommend adding key staff, and players based in North America as this'll be the extent of your scouting range to begin with.

Also if anyone wants to tweak my file or use it as the basis of another editing project, feel free, but please credit me. Thanks.

LINK: https://www.mediafire.com/?2eh4n4yreakebg4

So this is a pretty awesome file!! Quick question. How did you do the add boards I am trying to do that with my file!!

Thanks!.

I haven't got any third-party ad-boards working in-game in FM16 yet, sadly, but I included the graphics anyway. I basically downloaded someone else's ad board patch, them swapped out the images in their 'default' folder. Keep the originals though, as they'll replace the default ad-boards (SI, Kickitout, Warchild etc.) for whatever league you're playing .

This sound incredible, i will be sure to try it out in a dual Club/NT save

So if we work with a different NACL file, it will still work the same but be "less basic" ? This confused me a bit, could you elaborate ?

Yup, thats pretty much it. My NACL just gets the top teams from every nation, so you may find it gets a bit repetitive if you qualify year after year. As long as any other file gets their Canadian entrant from the Amway Canadian Championship, it should probably work with my file.

Thanks!.

I haven't got any third-party ad-boards working in-game in FM16 yet, sadly, but I included the graphics anyway. I basically downloaded someone else's ad board patch, them swapped out the images in their 'default' folder. Keep the originals though, as they'll replace the default ad-boards (SI, Kickitout, Warchild etc.) for whatever league you're playing .

Thanks man!! I can't wait to see ads like Molson or Canadian Tire in game haha. Plus I have a few custom league images so that should be awesome

How do you correctly install the graphics when also using the Shiny Logos Megapack ?

Just copy the 'canada' and 'competition' folders into the 'sports interactive/football manager 16/graphics/logos' folder along with the shiny logos folders. The game'll use any graphic from that folder.

Doesn´t work for me unfortunately. Actually cleaned out the folder just in case and even with only the Canada/competition folders inside the logo folder it won´t load most of the logos. Maybe has to do with some of the numerous editor files installed ...

Thanks! I was thinking of doing something similar, but this looks far better!

I've been playing through a full season and I'ver noticed a few other things that need tweaking (dates, finances and the damn NACL still isn't working properly). I'll try work out the kinks and release a new version soon.

I'm sure I'm being dumb but doesn't the Canadian Championship winner qualifies for the NACL in the standard db? This looks like a great file anyways.

theres two fml files whats the difference between the two?

so The Canadian Premier League you only play 10 games plus the playoffs thats it...

After looking at it, theres 10 games (regular season), Greta Lakes Cup (prob 3-4 games depending on how far u go), the Canadian Legaue Cup (wanna say 2-3 games if you win) and the thanks giving up 3 games (Quarter, semi and final) so you league only shows 19 games if you reach anything? i would of thought for sure there would be more games then just 19

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've posted a final version of the file, with a new league format and a few issues cleared up. Its a little simpler than the versions I posted previously, but hopefully more playable and stable.

I got rid of the conferences in the CPL (you ended up playing the same teams over and over again and it got a little boring). CPL teams now get at least 30 fixtures a season (plus cups) which should give a bit more variety. The Canadian championship and regional cups both have new formats too.

This is probably the last update I'll do, as I'm reasonably happy with this file. It may not be to everyone's exact tastes but should hopefully be a good template to make your own edits off if you want to tweak it. Thanks for all the feedback.