[FM21] Worldwide Champions League [UPDATED 19/3/2021 for 21.4]

[Dallan]

As ever, 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 only posted it because he chose not to continue that mod or update it, but left its details as fair use for others, and I thought the idea was too awesome to let it vanish.

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 (the Champions League winner, World League winner, and champions of 30 specified leagues do not have to go through them, and instead get automatic group stage places), and a group stage, and a knockout stage, and Big Fancy Neutral Site Finals. There is now also goal line technology and VAR (in CL/WL group stage games and onward).

The FIFA Youth League 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. It pits the U19/U18 teams of CL participants (and, where not enough teams are available strictly from the CL clubs, additional elite youth teams from around the world) against each other. 

There is also a a FIFA Super Cup between the Champions League and World League winners, scheduled after qualifiers finish (since neither of those teams participate in them) but before the September international break and the start of the group stages.

News:

The FM20 version is unlikely to receive any further updates. The only change in functionality from the FM20 version is a new layout for qualifying slots, detailed below. This was done to ensure that all 211 member nations receive at least two qualifiers (previously, a handful only had one). 

Downloads: 

The FM21 version of this mod is available as an attachment to this post or on the Steam Workshop..

Known Issues

FM will crash dump in the first week of July 2020 if you use this file with a start date before then. Start dates after that work fine, as do subsequent years of the competition. I still have no idea why this happens but I'll keep trying to fix it.

Squad registrations may disappear upon loading a save game - this is apparently due to an SI bug, but on a CL/WL matchday you will still be able to select and register ineligible players even though it says you can't, so this is annoying but not fatal?

Duplicate squad registration prompts may appear on the deadline, and the second one usually has glitches. I can't see why this is happening yet (there's nothing in the editor rules that would explain it), so in the meantime I've changed the squad registration for the tournaments so that it's now possible to get past the broken prompts.

The system to allocate CL and WL spots dynamically based on league reputation has some unavoidable issues because of the way it has to be implemented in the editor:

• Firstly and most importantly, I'm not sure that dynamic league reputation even WORKS when you're using custom competitions like this one (I'm aware of the longstanding bug with it when you're using custom continental competitions, and I suspect it applies to this one as well. We'll see I guess. But it might well be that the choice is just between one static layout and another (at least until SI let us use these two features together).
• Because this is done by "qualifying" seven teams from every country and then filtering the extra ones out when the qualifying stage is actually set up, some (okay, many) teams may receive inbox items after their domestic season saying they've qualified when they will not even get a spot in qualifying.
• We still don't have access to the normal game UI and messaging for displaying coefficients, informing managers of slot gains or losses, or showing the number of continental slots on your domestic league table, so knowing whether you have actually qualified or how many spots your country has is unfortunately down to guessing and looking at the league reputation screen, or just waiting until the summer and seeing if/where you get added to qualifying.
• Since the actual slots in the competition are handed out by filtering teams by their division reputation, rather than matching the qualifiers assigned directly at the nation level as in the static format, a few weird wrinkles can result:
  
  If a lower division teams gets a spot in the qualifying phase by winning a cup, they might start at an earlier qualifying stage than their nation's top division would qualify them for (because their lower division has a lower reputation), and every cup qualifier between their top division and their actual division in the reputation list will be shifted forward to replace them. 
  
  A similar effect can occur in countries where teams from multiple divisions have access to the "league" slots (eg Belgium) and in this case it may be possible for a lower-division qualifier to that spot to lose it entirely, if their division has a low enough reputation compared to the top divisions from smaller countries. (this can't happen for cups because every national cup winner gets at least a spot in qualifying)
  
  Similarly, if teams from a higher-rep league than the national top division play and win in the national cup (eg Canada or Liechtenstein), the spot they get from doing so will start at a later qualifying stage than it would technically be entitled to.

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

Qualifiers:

The number of spots is static (update: I've found a way to maybe work around this but it has issues so I'm making it optional), and laid out as follows:

CL and WL holders: automatically qualify to the group stage and instead play a Super Cup.

Leagues ranked 1-9: 7 spots (champion gets an automatic CL group stage spot, cup winner and 2 more spots in Q5, 2 spots in Q4, 1 spot in Q3. )

Leagues ranked 10-30: 6 spots (champion to group stage, cup winner and 1 to Q5, 2 to Q4, 1 Q3. League 30 loses one of the Q4 spots and gains one in Q3)

Leagues ranked 31-57: 4 spots (champion to Q5, cup winner to Q4, 2 Q3.)

Leagues ranked 58 and below: 2 spots (champion and cup winner) starting at various rounds from Q4 (for the champions of leagues ranked 58-64) to Q1 (for the champions and cup winners from leagues ranked below 115).

In the Dynamic Version this ranking is done based on the reputation of leagues (with the caveats above)

In the Static Version the following countries get more than 2 spots:

6+1 (1 automatic CL group stage place, 3 places in Q5, 1 place and the cup winner in Q4, 1 place in Q3):

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

5+1 (1 automatic CL group stage place, 2 places in Q5, 1 place and the cup winner in Q4, 1 place in Q3):

Ukraine, Mexico, Belgium, Turkey, Czechia,  Switzerland, Netherlands, Greece, USA, Austria, Croatia, Chile, Denmark, Colombia, Paraguay, Poland, Sweden, Israel, South Korea, Japan, China.

3+1 (1 place in Q5, 1 place in Q4, 1 place and the cup winner in Q3):

Uruguay, Scotland, Romania, Ecuador, Cyprus, Norway, Bulgaria, Peru, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Costa Rica, South Africa, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, Tunisia, Slovakia, Australia, Hungary, Nigeria, DR Congo, Morocco, Qatar, UAE, Belarus, Canada

Countries that are playable in the base game that start with 2 spots include: 

Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, India, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore
 

Format Details:

The Champions League has five qualifying rounds, with two-legged fixtures starting in June. 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 final qualifying round (August) go to the CL group stage along with the 32 automatic qualifiers, the losers go to the WL group stage along with the 32 teams that survive the WL qualifiers, below.

The World League has four qualifying rounds, beginning in July after the first two CL qualifying rounds are complete.

• Teams that lose in the first 2 CL rounds start in WL Q1.
• Teams that lose in CL Q3 are drawn into WL Q2.
• Teams that lose in CL Q4 are drawn into WL Q3.
• The winners in WL Q3 are drawn into 32 groups of 3 playing two games each - the winner of each group qualifies for the WL group stage.

Each group stage features 32 groups of 4 (so six games each). CL plays on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, WL on Thursdays, from September through December.

CL: The top 2 in each group qualify for the knockout rounds. Third place teams fall into the World League knockouts.

WL: The top 2 in each group qualify for the knockout rounds. The 32 second place teams will be drawn against the 32 3rd place teams from the Champions League groups - World League group winners will receive a bye to face the winner of those ties.

Everything goes as you'd expect from there.

Prize Money (all amounts in Euros)

Qualifying Phase:

1st round: 75k for CL, 35K for WL

2nd round: 75k for CL and WL

3rd round: 150k for CL, 125k for WL

4th round: 250k for CL, (WL: 75k/win and 35k/draw)

5th round: 400k

CL Group Stage (WL pays about half these amounts)

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

CL Knockout Rounds (WL pays about half these amounts, Super Cup final pays approximately half of World League final):

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

 

 

Worldwide Champions League (static).fmf Worldwide Champions League (dynamic).fmf

Edited March 19, 2021 by Dallan
Updated for 21.4

[Xtal]

Thanks a lot!

[Steakk]

Is there a way to update this for the new database changes?

[Dallan]

I'm already working on updating this for 21.3: I want to run a quick test before I release but it looks like I should be able to put it up today or tomorrow.

Unfortunately they still don't seem to have fixed the bug with updating items on Steam Workshop but if you're reading this thread that clearly isn't a dealbreaker! 

[Dallan]

So this took a little longer than I had planned but here's the 21.3 update for both the static and dynamic versions.

A couple of additional bug fixes:

• FIFA Super Cup colour scheme should be less eye-tearing
• One more desperate try at stopping teams from being drawn into both the CL and WL
• Squad registration bugfix

Worldwide Champions League (static).fmf Worldwide Champions League (dynamic).fmf

[ratio1618]

Hey so i loaded your files alongside Daves South America and Asia megapack and the African extended pack and i have ran 2 test sims 1 with an Angola league and 1 with a south African league and get a crash error at the end of June 2021 every time. using the static file. Im goinjg to do a test with dynamic to see if its fixed. I love the idea of this file btw i really hope i can get it working.

EDIT: Dynamic seemed to get past this point and is still simulating. But i want to use the Static as i dont like the janky FM coeffecint system to have a legaue lose a spot entirely so static would avoid this i assume.

Edited February 27, 2021 by ratio1618

[Dallan]

I prefer static as well honestly - I like the idea of dynamic but the compromises to make it work in the current FM are messy. The static version doesn't have the spot-shifting stuff, so nobody should lose spots. 

My test with both versions got past those dates but I'm sorry you're having crashes. Do you know the exact date in June they're happening? 

[ratio1618]

 

5 hours ago, Dallan said:

I prefer static as well honestly - I like the idea of dynamic but the compromises to make it work in the current FM are messy. The static version doesn't have the spot-shifting stuff, so nobody should lose spots. 

My test with both versions got past those dates but I'm sorry you're having crashes. Do you know the exact date in June they're happening? 

Towards the end i have continue game time out on so it speeds past it too fast i should turn it off and check. It might be the datafiles i have loaded as i have quite  a few  custom fmfs loaded. Ill try isloate and identify the issues. But for testing sake i tried with the default Dutch league the Angolan league Ghanaian league nad the default south african league all 4 tests just had the one league loaded.

[ratio1618]

BTw really really out standing work with the editor, looking over it it seems you know quite a bit more than most people here. Where did u learn?

[ratio1618]

Ok so i tested it with all my custom files removed and it simmed past the date and i tested again and added all my custom FMFs and it crashed again so it isnt playing nice with one of my files, i will keep isolating because i really want this to work haha

EDIT: Tested with both of Dave's megapacks loaded only and it crashed. 
EDIT: Tested with African Extended and it did not crash, im going to test with Daves South America file turned off maybe its opening and closing stages causing it in a custom league?

EDIT: Ran it with a German pyramid from steam the Nordic Royal league and lionel messis English T11 as well as a USA tier 10 system and some of the daveincds Mods and it ran fine.
Seems to be an issue with daves megapack but ive never seen a editor file crash the whole game before

EDIT: I tired with Weirys Pack and it seems to be running fine. Maybe need to check over Daves files maybe  a rule he set is crashing the game with your files, poggers time to start a save i think

 

Edited February 28, 2021 by ratio1618

[dave7867]

registration for CL big issue in december

ie you register your max 25 man squad then asks you to do again which i did but confirm button is blacked out  testing only cant go further

[Dallan]

On 27/02/2021 at 15:09, ratio1618 said:

BTw really really out standing work with the editor, looking over it it seems you know quite a bit more than most people here. Where did u learn?

Mostly, six years of trial and error, because as you surely know, the documentation for the editor is terrible and the bugs are worse. Steam tells me I have like 10,000 hours combined in FM games since I took over this file and I can assure you I've spent more of that time in overnight test saves than actually playing the damn game. 

Thanks for the compliment though!

Re your crashes, I was going to say that I ran a test overnight using Africa Extended, the Royal League Collection, a few of pr0's custom leagues, a couple of my personal custom leagues, and various database-only edits (basically, the setup I use in my personal games), and it got past that date fine as well.

My guess is that there's something in one of the files in dave's megapack that clashes with what I'm doing here (possibly it reuses one of the same two defunct competitions in the database that I do, or it re-enables or depends on one of the continental competitions I disable?) , but I can't promise I'll be able to take the time to pin it down. 

9 hours ago, dave7867 said:

registration for CL big issue in december

ie you register your max 25 man squad then asks you to do again which i did but confirm button is blacked out  testing only cant go further

The glitchy duplicate squad registration screen is a known bug, it's showed up again mostly because I changed squad registration to avoid a completely different bug where the rules would simply vanish at random between one season and the next.

(Honestly, squad registration/custom fixture rules in general has been THE most annoying issue I've faced in this mod because of the way the editor and the game handle them, and if I were smart I'd just remove it entirely, but it's A Thing I Like so instead I put effort into making it work)

Rambling aside, this has been happening for years and there's nothing in the editor to explain why it's happening, but here's a workaround that works for me every time:

1. Once the squad registration prompts appear in your inbox, do not save the game. If you do, once you reload it the longstanding SI bug that erases custom squad registration rules will trigger, and since you'll then be "outside the registration window", this other bug will trigger, you won't be able to confirm changes, and you'll be stuck.
2. Register your squad the first time.
3. Respond to the second prompt, then before you do anything else, hit auto select.
4. Then make whatever changes you want to the players but do not change the dropdown above the squad list that will normally change which competition you are registering the squad for. Ideally, do not hit undo or clear either, but I can't confirm whether these will get you stuck.
5. Confirm your selection again.
6. Both prompts should be clear and you should be able to continue.

Edited February 28, 2021 by Dallan

[Dallan]

So, good news: in 21.4 SI finally fixed the editor bug preventing me from updating my Steam Workshop entries.

Bad news: I need to reverify the files again to work with the 21.4 database, so here they are (both down here, the OP, and Steam Workshop should be updated).

There are no other changes, so no need to restart a current save or to re-download if you don't plan to start a new save with the 21.4 database.

Worldwide Champions League (static).fmf Worldwide Champions League (dynamic).fmf

[Domoboy23]

On 19/03/2021 at 18:33, Dallan said:

So, good news: in 21.4 SI finally fixed the editor bug preventing me from updating my Steam Workshop entries.

Bad news: I need to reverify the files again to work with the 21.4 database, so here they are (both down here, the OP, and Steam Workshop should be updated).

There are no other changes, so no need to restart a current save or to re-download if you don't plan to start a new save with the 21.4 database.

Worldwide Champions League (static).fmf 32.98 kB · 3 downloads Worldwide Champions League (dynamic).fmf 33.28 kB · 7 downloads

Hey,

I'm currently trying to get an CONCACAF file sorted which basically makes the competitions a bit bigger, has a group stage before it and also allows teams from aruba etc to enter the group stage.

An issue I'm currently having, and have done on other custom continental rules before is that if I set the season update for the continental comp to be say the 1st of November... then this takes teams from the final season in USA for example (so top 4 in the MLS) which is great and as intended, but would only take the team currently in 1st (about 5 games into a season) in Arube, when the aim would be for it to be the winner from the season before. Do you have any ideas on a work-around for this?

Also I had never heard of this dynamic league rep bug before with custom comps! If I'm using a north american custom comp, do you know if it will stop dynamic league rep changes across in Europe? Or just that continent? 

Any answers much appreciated!

Edited March 24, 2021 by Domoboy23

[Dallan]

@Domoboy23Sorry to take so long to see this!

For your first question: how are you currently qualifying teams to your custom competition? I've never run into that issue using the normal custom continental rules that I use in this file, but the base game's CONCACAF rules are a weird jury-rig that I've never entirely understood. I suppose that if those rules aren't working for you, you could edit the domestic leagues to qualify winners directly to your competition and use the settings there to dictate which year of your competition they qualify for- basically "push" teams from the domestic league instead of having your continental comp "pull" them  - but a) obviously that would be a lot of work to do for every nation and a compatibility nightmare.

For your second question: I think it's a by-continent thing, so if there's a continent you don't change in your save, dynamic league rep will work as normal there.

[Morgan Kane]

If I may ask, I have two editing questions I can't figure out for the life of me

 

1- how were you able to make it so that teams from every continent can parricipate in these cups, instead of just from one single continent?

 

2 - what do you do in the editor that causes change between static and dynamic reputations?

 

Ps! The site tells me that the files are unavailable for some reason...

Cheers

Edited April 5, 2021 by Morgan Kane

[deivis10]

Do you eliminate the Champions League? Is it possible to create a version of the patch without deleting continental competitions?

[Dallan]

I'd written a reply to this but I guess I didn't click Post, sorry. 

On 05/04/2021 at 01:21, Morgan Kane said:

If I may ask, I have two editing questions I can't figure out for the life of me

 

1- how were you able to make it so that teams from every continent can parricipate in these cups, instead of just from one single continent?

I set these cups to a "blank" continent, both in the Continent page of the advanced club continental rules and on the competition's database entry (well, for the database part, I actually edited cups that were already set that way: the Club World Cup, an extinct entry for the Toulon Tournament, and the Viareggio Tournament) so the game treats them as "World" or "Intercontinental" tournaments and doesn't block entry from other continents.

On 05/04/2021 at 01:21, Morgan Kane said:

2 - what do you do in the editor that causes change between static and dynamic reputations?

I'm not sure what you mean by this question: The changes between my two versions don't change how reputation works,. they just change the way my competitions pick teams to account for leagues changing reputation (even though, because I remove the standard continental competitions, those changes apparently do not actually happen).

Speaking of which:

On 10/04/2021 at 06:47, deivis10 said:

Do you eliminate the Champions League? Is it possible to create a version of the patch without deleting continental competitions?

I do eliminate the CL. I believe it would be, technically, possible to create a version without doing so (basically, I have a set of blank rules that I apply to the existing continental competitions to make sure they don't run, so it would just be a matter of removing those blank rules from the file) but practically, scheduling these comps,  the existing continental competitons and domestic leagues would be a nightmare and I wasn't interested in trying to do so or in troubleshooting the game's attempts to do so.

[vietthaidinh93]

Hi Dallan,

 

I played dynamic version however I didn't see the changing of Competition reputation.  Is it FM or file fault?

 

Thank you

[Dallan]

11 hours ago, vietthaidinh93 said:

I played dynamic version however I didn't see the changing of Competition reputation.  Is it FM or file fault?

A little of both:

On 29/11/2020 at 23:12, Dallan said:

Known Issues

The system to allocate CL and WL spots dynamically based on league reputation has some unavoidable issues because of the way it has to be implemented in the editor:

• Firstly and most importantly, I'm not sure that dynamic league reputation even WORKS when you're using custom competitions like this one (I'm aware of the longstanding bug with it when you're using custom continental competitions, and I suspect it applies to this one as well. We'll see I guess. But it might well be that the choice is just between one static layout and another (at least until SI let us use these two features together)

Basically, the dynamic league reputation system turns out to depend on using the normal continental club competitions, and won't work with customized ones - so the dynamic version doesn't work like it should because the league reputations don't change. Basically I keep the dynamic version available as a proof of concept/in case SI ever patch the game so that it'll work - I don't even use it myself.

[deivis10]

You indicate that there are two world competitions, but only the FIFA Champions League appears to me. In Spain they play it from 1st to 6th place, the 7th place does not play any world competition, is that correct? There is no World League.

Edited May 8, 2021 by deivis10

[Dallan]

23 hours ago, deivis10 said:

You indicate that there are two world competitions, but only the FIFA Champions League appears to me. In Spain they play it from 1st to 6th place, the 7th place does not play any world competition, is that correct? There is no World League.

In Spain, 7th should only get into a competition if the Copa Del Rey winner finishes top 6 in the league.

If the World League isn't appearing when you start a game but the World CL is working correctly, what start date are you using? If it's early enough, the competition might just not have been set up yet - the World League is set up after the first two qualifying rounds of the CL finish (because the first qualifying round for the WL is between the teams that lose in those CL rounds) so it may not appear before then. 

[Dallan]

Just to confirm, I did buy FM22 and do plan to update this for it once the editor for that releases. 

[lukavski]

Great to hear that, Dallan!