[FM16-19] Worldwide Champions League

I'd like to start by thanking Graaa, the mad genius behind this custom USA database from FM15. This edit includes a lot of his work on the Extended Club World Cup that was part of that file alongside the changes I made, and I'm only posting it because he's posted that he's not continuing that mod or updating it for FM16 (welp, now FM18) but left its details as fair use for others, and I thought the idea was too awesome to let it vanish - as someone who plays a lot in the Americas I really liked the option of being able to take my team onto a bigger stage than the CONCACAF Champions League could provide. But enough biography.

This database edit replaces all club continental competitions and the Club World Cup with three worldwide club tournaments: the FIFA Champions League, World League, and Youth League. All domestic leagues are left untouched and will run alongside the intercontinental tournaments: fancy midweek trips to Argentina to play Boca between your league matches? I BET YOU DO.

The FIFA Champions League and World League are senior-level tournaments that mostly work how you expect: Champions League has better competition and better payouts (though the difference between the two isn't as derisory as in real life), finish high enough in your domestic league or win your major domestic cup and you get a ticket (if your league of choice doesn't use a single table or has some other continental qualification shenanigans, it SHOULD work properly depending on how SI or your database modder of choice coded that specific league, but I can't be certain. 

There are qualifiers, and a group stage, and a knockout stage, and Big Fancy Neutral Site Finals. There is also a FIFA Youth League that uses a similar format and replaces the Viareggio Tournament or whatever it is called for people that aren't using the Susie Real Name fixes, that pits elite U18 teams against each other - I couldn't get the editor to choose exactly the teams that qualified for the CL, the way the UEFA Youth League does, but the idea is the same.

Downloads: 

A beta version of this mod that MOSTLY works in the FM19 beta (the FIFA Youth League does not work but everything else appears to) is available as an attachment to this post.

Since it was created using the FM18 editor, it will also work in FM18, and includes some experimental bugfixes and changes I've made since the last release of the FM18 version. Details in this post.

The FM18 version of the mod is available on the Steam Workshop, and also as an attachment to this post.

The FM17 version of the mod is available on the Steam Workshop and also as an attachment to this post, but will most likely no longer be updated.
The FM16 version of the mod is also on the Steam Workshop, but will most likely no longer be updated.

If you need more details, they're below. Let me know if there are any bugs or if you have any suggestions, and otherwise have fun!

Qualifiers:

The number of spots is fixed, unfortunately (even the advanced editor won't let me do otherwise), and laid out as follows in the FM18 version:

1 automatic CL group stage spot, 3 spots for the 4th qualifying round, 2 spots and the domestic cup winner for the 3rd qualifying round:

Spain, England, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Portugal, France, Argentina, Russia

1 automatic CL group stage spot, 2 spots for the 4th qualifying round, 2 spots and the domestic cup winner for the 3rd qualifying round:

Mexico, Netherlands, Uruguay, Belgium, Colombia, Chile, Croatia, USA, Switzerland, Ecuador, Poland, Czech Republic, Ivory Coast, Austria, Turkey, South Korea, Japan, Sweden, Ukraine, Denmark, Romania, Wales, Australia

1 spot for the 4th qualifying round, 2 spots and the domestic cup winner for the 2nd qualifying round:

Bosnia, Paraguay, Algeria, Ghana, Scotland, Greece, Tunisia, Slovakia, Cameroon, Egypt, Ireland, Norway, Serbia, Iceland, Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela, Slovenia, Northern Ireland, Peru, Albania, South Africa, Israel

2 spots and the domestic cup winner for the 2nd qualifying round:

Finland, Bulgaria, Bolivia, Zambia, Morocco, Cyprus, Hungary, Armenia, Estonia

2 spots in the 1st qualifying round:

Senegal, Montenegro, Burkina Faso, Honduras, Mali, Lithuania, Angola, Costa Rica, Macedonia, Latvia, Georgia, DR Congo, Congo, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Belarus, Iraq, Togo, Cape Verde, Jamaica, Guinea, Bahrain, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, China, Sudan, El Salvador, Uzbekistan, Oman, Moldova, North Korea, Kuwait, Benin, Guatemala, Uganda, Canada, Syria, Faroe Islands, Mozambique, Equatorial Guinea, Jordan, Cuba, Malta, Lebanon, UAE, Panama, India

1 spot in the 1st qualifying round:

All other FIFA members (in other words: all other countries in the DB except defunct, disputed, or the following: Bonaire, Martinique, Reunion, St. Pierre and Miquelon, Zanzibar, Micronesia, Kiribati, French Guiana, Sint Maarten, Mayotte, Northern Mariana Islands, Guadeloupe, Saint Martin, Wallis and Futuna Islands, Tuvalu).  

Note: The FM17 version has the same qualifiers. FM16 is missing Gibraltar and Kosovo.

There are no automatic group stage qualifiers in the FM16 version, and the qualifying rounds are structured slightly differently. Details are on the FM16 version's workshop page.

Format Details:

The Champions League has four qualifying rounds, with two-legged fixtures starting in July. All CL qualifiers are seeded into these rounds depending on how high they finished and which league they qualified from or won the domestic cup in, as above. The 96 winners in the 4th qualifying round (August) go to the CL group stage along with the 32 automatic qualifiers, the losers go to the WL group stage.

Each group stage features groups of 4 (so six games each). CL plays on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, WL on Thursdays, from September through December.

CL: 32 groups of 4, the top 2 in each group qualify for the knockout rounds starting in February.

WL: The 24 group winners and the 8 best second-place finishers qualify for the knockout rounds starting in February, along with the 32 third-place finishers from the CL.

Everything goes as you'd expect from there.

Note: in the FM17 version, the CL group winners qualify for the knockout rounds and the second-place finisher falls into the WL.

in the FM16 version, the qualifying rounds start in June instead of July, both competitions use 24 groups of 4, qualify the group winners directly to the knockouts, and put the 24 second-place finishers and top 8 third-place finishers into 2 playoff rounds consisting of single neutral-site games in December - the eight teams that get through that join the group winners in the knockouts.

Prize Money (all amounts in Euros)

CL Qualifying Phase:

1st round: 75k

2nd round: 150k

3rd round: 250k

4th round: 400k

CL Group Stage (WL pays about half this amount)

20M for all Group Stage participants, 1.5M per victory, 750k per draw

CL Knockout Rounds (WL pays about half this amount):

7M for all knockout round participants, + 4M for reaching second knockout round + 6M for reaching QF + 10M for reaching SF  + 20M for winning final or 15M for losing final

Known Issues

The various continental awards disappear because there are no longer any active competitions attached to those continents. I don't think this is something I can change but I would be happy to be proven wrong. The world player awards function as normal (Lionel Messi still wins them for ten years straight.)

(FM17 version only) Having the Belgian, Bulgarian or Danish league active appears to cause a crash when they try to schedule their European Place Playoffs. I'm still trying to figure out how to address this. Oddly enough, the Dutch European Place Playoffs work just fine (except that they seem to assign the wrong teams to the wrong seeds, ugh).

FM17: Worldwide Champions League_DD36AC03-4674-4829-A971-AC82F606DAB5.fmf
FM18: Worldwide Champions League.fmf (updated Dec 15)

FM19: FIFA Champions League FM19 Public Beta.xml

you are a hero

Nice, ive an extended FIFA Champions league file, thats all the league winners only in a straight FA Cup draw knockout over the season, but this looks great.

By all nations, are we talking every nation in the world..

e.g. can your likes of South Sudanese team qualify and so forth?

one thing... you took the capital one cup out was that by design or just me?

By all nations, are we talking every nation in the world..

e.g. can your likes of South Sudanese team qualify and so forth?

There are 154 nations that send a qualifier to either the CL or the World League. I'm phoneposting so I don't have my list handy, but I'll post the rest when I get home.

jnazzaro, f the Capital One Cup in England is missing them a) that's a bug and b) it shouldn't happen because nothing I change in the file even touches English competitions directly. Maybe check any other edits you're using?

Nice, ive an extended FIFA Champions league file, thats all the league winners only in a straight FA Cup draw knockout over the season, but this looks great.

I create that every year.

I create that every year.

must be yours i used for fm13 i jsut keep updating it.. cheers

There are 154 nations that send a qualifier to either the CL or the World League. I'm phoneposting so I don't have my list handy, but I'll post the rest when I get home.

jnazzaro, f the Capital One Cup in England is missing them a) that's a bug and b) it shouldn't happen because nothing I change in the file even touches English competitions directly. Maybe check any other edits you're using?

yeah was an edit, sorry about that

These things happen!

So the OP now lists every country that qualifies (154 out of about 230 in the DB). To be honest I left most of the lower half (the "1 spot in the World League" group) untouched from the original edit, so I'll be lending some thought in the next few days to swapping some of them out and replacing them with countries that aren't currently involved in the setup but should be. I'm open to ideas as long as they don't devolve into endless nationalistic flamewars.

Adding countries rather than swapping them might be nice (ideally yeah the setup would include the whole world, even if only as qualifying round fodder to run up cricket scores against?) but it would mean adding another qualifying round or otherwise adjusting the qualifying structure, so I'd have to think about how best to do that and where to fit in the extra 2 or 3 weeks that would require. For now I'll stick to exchanges.

So I've updated the edit so that all 209 FIFA member nations now submit at least one club to the qualifying process.

I'll edit the documentation in the OP in the next few days, but as a rule of thumb higher reputation nations submit more qualifiers, who get byes to the later qualifying rounds.

-Qualifying rounds are now part of the Champions League rather than the World League, to avoid bugs and unpredictable behaviour caused by the double cross-over process.

-There are now four qualifying rounds, running from mid-June through the end of July. The final qualifying round still sends its winner to the CL group stage and its loser to the WL group stage, so the teams that automatically enter the 4th qualifying round (the previous CL winner, the previous WL winner, and league champions/high finishers in the top 62 nations) are guaranteed group stage football in either of the two tournaments.

I have a question about this. If a domestic leagues stature improves do you gain more continental spots per league or is it fixed?

Unfortunately it's fixed, there isn't a way in the editor to make it dynamic.

Hi, I love this sort of competition it has an added spice to the game. I have subscribed to the file through steam but cannot find it in the game. Help!!!

Sometimes Steam takes a while to download stuff you've subscribed to: there's a direct link to the file on Dropbox in the OP so you can just grab that and put it in Documents/Sports Interactive/FM16/Editor Data (or whatever the equivalent is on your system, the same place all the other database edit files go), and it should show up in the game's list of editor data files then.

Thank you will try that.

This is a thoughtful and innovative editor file. Thanks for putting this together.

This sounds impressive. I'f I decide to buy FM16, I will certainly download this and give it a try.

I think dynamic qualification can be achieved simply by deleting every field in the 'Required Teams' tab in the editor. It's not necessary, because the information in the 'Nations' and 'Teams' tabs should be enough to populate the tournament, and will do so dynamically. This is just a hunch, though.

Edit: Testing this, and it seems to work.

I think dynamic qualification can be achieved simply by deleting every field in the 'Required Teams' tab in the editor. It's not necessary, because the information in the 'Nations' and 'Teams' tabs should be enough to populate the tournament, and will do so dynamically. This is just a hunch, though.

Edit: Testing this, and it seems to work.

I've tried this myself, yeah. I don't think the Required Teams tab is necessary (so I'll probably remove that info in the next update) but at the same time I haven't seen the effect of varying the number of spots each league gets based on reputation or some sort of hidden coefficient, since it doesn't control anything like that to begin with - it just says "here's what the database needs to have for these rules to work", it's the Nations and Teams tabs that control who actually gets into the competition.

Another thing: testing this into 2018, the Champions League and the World Cup clash horribly.

i really enjoyed first season with Astra ( Romanian First Division ) i reach Fifa World League First Knockout Round, and i won title in Romanian, and now in the second season, i'm not qulified in Fifa Champions League... i spend 12hours 15 min in vein... it's nice to play only first season

i checked and are qulified the teams from the 3rd and 4th place and the winner from the cup

Another thing: testing this into 2018, the Champions League and the World Cup clash horribly.

Intended behaviour is that only the first two qualifying rounds should conflict with most of the World Cup (the third QR generally coincides with the World Cup quarterfinals in WC years) and those will mostly involve teams that are unlikely to lose players to the WC (similar to the early Europa League qualifying rounds, which take place in late June regardless of the WC) but since there are now teams in major leagues that qualify to the 2nd qualifying round I will look into tweaking things to reduce the number of conflicts there. There really isn't much give to the schedule so it may mean tweaking where various countries qualify teams to.

This may help address the bug viola is seeing with Romania/Astra, but I think that issue may unfortunately be a reflection of the issues I was having testing the "CL/WL winners qualify regardless of league position" feature, in which case I may have to remove that for the sake of getting the right league qualifiers in..

so im not sure if this is by accident or not but, the world league does not "activate" in my game. I will be in July and when i select the world league it says the draw will happen June 5th 2015. is this normal?

Yes, this is normal. The World League draw will occur at the same time as the Champnios League group stage draw (that is, usually at the end of July), but the message still says it will occur June 5th. I'm not certain this cosmetic issue is fixable but I'll look into it.

Before the winter game patch, I've posted another update to Steam Workshop, it'll be on Dropbox momentarily. A few minor bug fixes and a couple of major changes.

I've changed the qualifying process so that the top 32 nations qualify all their teams to the 3rd or 4th qualifying round, in order to minimize conflicts with the World Cup and similarly scheduled tournaments. I have also, unfortunately, had to remove the rule that qualifies CL and WL winners to the next year's tournament, due to it causing incorrect qualifier selections for some bizarre reason.

Before the winter game patch, I've posted another update to Steam Workshop, it'll be on Dropbox momentarily. A few minor bug fixes and a couple of major changes.

I've changed the qualifying process so that the top 32 nations qualify all their teams to the 3rd or 4th qualifying round, in order to minimize conflicts with the World Cup and similarly scheduled tournaments. I have also, unfortunately, had to remove the rule that qualifies CL and WL winners to the next year's tournament, due to it causing incorrect qualifier selections for some bizarre reason.

Just one info, off-topic ... How can i set, editing a sort of new european competitions regulation, the third of group stages (UCL) into UEL? Thanks!!!!!

Just one info, off-topic ... How can i set, editing a sort of new european competitions regulation, the third of group stages (UCL) into UEL? Thanks!!!!!

I don't know for sure, since I didn't do that here, but have you tried setting a Qualification Rule in your group stage for your third place teams, where Next Stage - Competition is set to the UEL instead of left blank like usual?

I don't know for sure, since I didn't do that here, but have you tried setting a Qualification Rule in your group stage for your third place teams, where Next Stage - Competition is set to the UEL instead of left blank like usual?

Yes, i've setted the qualification rule in group stage but it's not enough... i don't know what i have to set in "team" in UEL: "get qualified team from stage", "get qualified team from comp" or "get league stage teams" ... do you remember the right one?

The dropbox link doesn't work anychance for reuploading?

Yes, i've setted the qualification rule in group stage but it's not enough... i don't know what i have to set in "team" in UEL: "get qualified team from stage", "get qualified team from comp" or "get league stage teams" ... do you remember the right one?

I would use "get qualified teams from stage", set "Competition" and "Stage" to your UCL group stage, then set "Competition Qualified For", "Main Stage Name" and "Sub Stage Name" to whatever you set in your group stage qualification rule. You may also want to add League Fate Actions in your UCL group stage to "Set Continental Cup" for third place teams to the UEL, but this may not be necessary to get the qualification to work, I think it just cleans up some things with respect to news entries and players complaining about the tournament they're in.

The dropbox link doesn't work anychance for reuploading?

Whoops, sorry, that should be fixed now!

I would use "get qualified teams from stage", set "Competition" and "Stage" to your UCL group stage, then set "Competition Qualified For", "Main Stage Name" and "Sub Stage Name" to whatever you set in your group stage qualification rule. You may also want to add League Fate Actions in your UCL group stage to "Set Continental Cup" for third place teams to the UEL, but this may not be necessary to get the qualification to work, I think it just cleans up some things with respect to news entries and players complaining about the tournament they're in.

Whoops, sorry, that should be fixed now!

Thank you very much :-)

Whoops, sorry, that should be fixed now!

Thank you!

so the World League is a part of the Champions League? How are they related? Is it like the Europa League where certain teams from the Champions LEague drop down?

What are the following databases to be compatible with this one?

so the World League is a part of the Champions League? How are they related? Is it like the Europa League where certain teams from the Champions LEague drop down?

They're separate competitions in the database, but they have combined qualifying: there are four qualifying rounds for the CL, and if you lose in the last round (the qualifying playoff) you play in the World League group stage instead of the Champions League. There is no other point at which you can drop down from the CL to the WL - once you're in the group stage, you win or you go home.

What are the following databases to be compatible with this one?

I'm not sure what you're trying to ask. What other database edits are you trying to use with it?

I'm not sure but I mean the databases compatible with any version from 16.0 to 16.3 i.e. claassen's megapack.

I use some of claasen's edits in my own save, and the only one I've had problems running this with was Sudan for some reason. Otherwise it should be compatible with most database edits, since it only changes club continental competitions and nothing else.

Amazing work, Dallan.

Thanks!

The only thing is that awards in both club competitions won't be given, do they work in your game?

Thanks again!

this is by far my favorite file.

On the rules page of the EPL for example, shouldn't it say "top however many teams qualify for _____"? I could swear I noticed that when I dabbled in this file a few months ago, but it doesn't say that for me now. Is this problematic?

Sorry for people who'd been waiting for an answer, I'd taken a break from FM and wasn't really checking the forums!

The only thing is that awards in both club competitions won't be given, do they work in your game?

They do work in my game (they are awarded shortly after the final in both the Champions and World leagues) so I'm not sure what's giving you trouble. Are you using other edits? Do the awards appear in the list under the awards button but just aren't awarded, or do they not show up at all?

On the rules page of the EPL for example, shouldn't it say "top however many teams qualify for _____"? I could swear I noticed that when I dabbled in this file a few months ago, but it doesn't say that for me now. Is this problematic?

Nothing like that appears in my game, but the PL still qualifies its top finishers as intended, so I wouldn't worry about it.

Nice file, I do have one idea. In both group stage, perhaps changing who gets through to the knock out round. Either Top teams plus 8 best 2nd place teams or Top 2 plus 16 3nd place teams. (Then a 3rd knock out would be needed. ) And do away the play off round, so that the group stage can be played later and the ealier rounds are played later and not clashing with National tournaments.

I would just have top team plus 8 best 2nd places myself. I would do it If I knew how to change it.

I've imported this edit into FM17 and it appears to work (except that updating the uploaded version on the workshop is Deeply Annoying Somehow in a way that wasn't so bad last year?) so sure, away we go.

Lewesrook, going to group-winners + 8 is an interesting idea, as much as I like giving the poor bastards who draw Barca or whoever in their group a bit more of a chance to actually make something of their tournament. Hopefully turning the early qualifying rounds into a minnow thunderdome (much like IRL, where even in WC years you have early EL qualifying starting in June) will keep sufficiently out of the way of international tournaments, but if not then I'll probably have to do that.

I forgotten to mention on a side note that the UEFA did have 6 champions league groups in 97/98 & 98/99 seasons. 6 group winners plus 2 best runners up.  In my eyes I don't like the idea of play-offs after group stage before the knockout round. And was trying to kill 2 birds with one stone. I know Wenger would like to keep the amount of extra games down. If the play-offs had to be in I would not have then at neutral stadium myself. Each time I try to tweak it it would work first season before causing problems in the 2nd season.

Perhaps try two versions? And see what people like?

I actually did do up a version for testing without the playoff round (here, group winners and the 8 best runners-up advance) - it doesn't seem to blow anything up so I figure I might as well post it even if I'm not sure I like it "officially" - so if you want to use it @Lewesrook, go nuts.

WCL (test winners+8)_78DD77C0-3DD4-4DD3-A177-ABECBA3BA9F4.fmf

When i use this custom database the game crashed always around february/august 2017. I tried it for five times with the same result.

Huh. Neither of those times seem particularly significant to it (the tournament updates in June in the release version, July in the test, and shifts stages in December. But I'll look into it and run some more holiday testing to see if the game gives me any hint as to what's going on. Thanks for the heads-up.

16 hours ago, Dallan said:

I actually did do up a version for testing without the playoff round (here, group winners and the 8 best runners-up advance) - it doesn't seem to blow anything up so I figure I might as well post it even if I'm not sure I like it "officially" - so if you want to use it @Lewesrook, go nuts.

WCL (test winners+8)_78DD77C0-3DD4-4DD3-A177-ABECBA3BA9F4.fmf

Thanks @Dallan, I will give it a go thanks!

I been giving this some more thought @Dallan, I believe there is a way which we can improve this more.

I been playing round with FM16 & found a way to increase the number of groups beyond 26.  And have either just group winners and or group winners + runners up going though. I yet to buy FM17 however I can explain how I did it on FM16 if you want to try yourself. Go via stream folder to FM17 Editor>Data>Format>Rule Group>Advanced go to group XML and in the section (Number of groups change the max line to at least 32 - Side effect is the name of the groups does get messy, which I cant find a way round to get it to work nicely.

Of course you would have to add another knockout round if you include both top team and 2nd team.