FM24 Backgrounds (by stevemc) - FULL DOWNLOADS AVAILABLE NOW!

[stevemc]

 

Welcome to my thread for full-screen backgrounds for Football Manager 2024.

*WILL BE FULLY AVAILABLE TO DOWNLOAD TUESDAY 7th NOVEMBER - I need the editor to link up some final bits of code in the config files*

As per the last 5 years, I work on background projects, I’ve been doing this for my own personal use, but decided to share with the community a couple of years ago and will continue to do so for FM24, something I've built up over 7-8 years now and continue to improve and flesh out further with each edition of FM.

I’ve made a lot of changes for FM24, 1000’s of additions and better-quality images included, code updates, future stadiums currently being built etc and I've been working on it intensively for the last 3 months. This is definitely the BEST and most comprehensive update I’ve ever done to these packs.

All are 2560x1600 resolution, which is basically current MacBook Pro Retina size, and the quality is superb (HQ) in most instances (forgive some of the obscure people/places). They have been compressed, twice, to their smallest file size possible without loss of quality so they are easier to download.

Screenshots are for reference only, ignore the quality loss, that’s just the Apple Preview ruining them to fit them under the 10mb forum post limit, they are high quality in-game.

Options available for this mod listed below, with the download link in each subsequent post:

1. Stadiums

2. Competitions

3. Nations

4. Continents

5. Referees

6. Manager/Staff

7. My Supporting Skin

You will require a skin that supports transparency for these to work, so you’ll either need to make your own, use the FM 24 Base Skin Transparent, download one or I’ve linked the skin I use in too (as I get asked via multiple DM’s every year for it). However I won't offer any support or changes on my skin as I'm not a competent skin creator and I made it for myself at my screen resolution.

You can pick and choose individual packs if you wish, but for a full working experience please use all 6 packs together as I’ve built them to co-exist with each other. If you do, your folder structure should look like this:

[PC] Documents⁩ ▸ ⁨Sports Interactive⁩ ▸ ⁨Football Manager 2024 ▸ ⁨graphics⁩ ▸ ⁨backgrounds⁩ ▸ ⁨

[MAC] Users ▸ YOURNAME ▸ Library ▸ Application Support ▸ Sports Interactive ▸ Football Manager 2024 ▸ graphics ▸ backgrounds ▸

Like every year, if you spot any errors or have any suggestions, image quality improvements or would like any additions for future updates, please comment in this thread below. Screenshots below are from the Early Access Beta.

These are free, but if you are going to redistribute these or include with a skin, please ask permission first.

Hope you enjoy them as much as I do… 

Edited November 6, 2023 by stevemc

[stevemc]

1. FM24 Stadiums Pack

It currently covers 223 different countries (thousands upon thousands of stadiums covered), all playable leagues included, most deep into the lower leagues too, all over the world so it's extensive.

This year also includes the newly added Gibraltar Football League teams and Japan's J1, J2 and J3 League teams. Plus further additions in Spain down as far as Segunda Federación RFEF - Grupo V and Italy as far down as Serie C Girone C and France down to Championnat National 2 Groupe D.

Stadiums in England are complete down to level 8 too (Northern Premier, Southern League, Isthmian League etc) and some into level 9.

 

Steps to add to your game;

1. >DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE HERE<

2. Unzip and place here: ‎⁨ 

[PC] Documents⁩ ▸ ⁨Sports Interactive⁩ ▸ ⁨Football Manager 2024 ▸ ⁨graphics⁩ ▸ ⁨backgrounds⁩ ▸ ⁨stadium

[MAC] Users ▸ YOURNAME ▸ Library ▸ Application Support ▸ Sports Interactive ▸ Football Manager 2024 ▸ graphics ▸ backgrounds ▸ stadium

3. Go to preferences, ensure "Reload skin when confirming changes in Preference" is ticked (you may need to clear your cache too), click "Reload Skin" and click "confirm" (bottom right).

Screenshots are for reference only, ignore the quality loss, that’s just the Apple Preview ruining them to fit them under the 10mb forum post limit, they are high quality in-game.

Edited November 6, 2023 by stevemc

[stevemc]

2. FM24 Competitions Pack

It currently covers 555 backgrounds from over the world. Most with trophies or specific competition branding. This year also includes the newly added Gibraltar Football League and Rock Cup and all Japan's competitions, plus some new additions like European/South American Club Challenge and the African Super League are also included.

 

Steps to add to your game;

1. >DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE HERE<

2. Unzip and place here: ‎⁨ 

[PC] Documents⁩ ▸ ⁨Sports Interactive⁩ ▸ ⁨Football Manager 2024 ▸ ⁨graphics⁩ ▸ ⁨backgrounds⁩ ▸ ⁨comp

[MAC] Users ▸ YOURNAME ▸ Library ▸ Application Support ▸ Sports Interactive ▸ Football Manager 2024 ▸ graphics ▸ backgrounds ▸ comp

3. Go to preferences, ensure "Reload skin when confirming changes in Preference" is ticked (you may need to clear your cache too), click "Reload Skin" and click "confirm" (bottom right).

Screenshots are for reference only, ignore the quality loss, that’s just the Apple Preview ruining them to fit them under the 10mb forum post limit, they are high quality in-game.

Edited November 6, 2023 by stevemc

[stevemc]

3. FM24 Nations Pack

It covers every nation in the world with their flag, waving.

 

Steps to add to your game;

1. >DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE HERE<

2. Unzip and place here: ‎⁨ 

[PC] Documents⁩ ▸ ⁨Sports Interactive⁩ ▸ ⁨Football Manager 2024 ▸ ⁨graphics⁩ ▸ ⁨backgrounds⁩ ▸ ⁨nation

[MAC] Users ▸ YOURNAME ▸ Library ▸ Application Support ▸ Sports Interactive ▸ Football Manager 2024 ▸ graphics ▸ backgrounds ▸ nation

3. Go to preferences, ensure "Reload skin when confirming changes in Preference" is ticked (you may need to clear your cache too), click "Reload Skin" and click "confirm" (bottom right).

Screenshots are for reference only, ignore the quality loss, that’s just the Apple Preview ruining them to fit them under the 10mb forum post limit, they are high quality in-game.

Edited November 6, 2023 by stevemc

[stevemc]

4. FM24 Continents Pack

It covers every continent in the world.

 

Steps to add to your game;

1. >DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE HERE<

2. Unzip and place here: ‎⁨ 

[PC] Documents⁩ ▸ ⁨Sports Interactive⁩ ▸ ⁨Football Manager 2024 ▸ ⁨graphics⁩ ▸ ⁨backgrounds⁩ ▸ ⁨continent

[MAC] Users ▸ YOURNAME ▸ Library ▸ Application Support ▸ Sports Interactive ▸ Football Manager 2024 ▸ graphics ▸ backgrounds ▸ continent

3. Go to preferences, ensure "Reload skin when confirming changes in Preference" is ticked (you may need to clear your cache too), click "Reload Skin" and click "confirm" (bottom right).

Screenshots are for reference only, ignore the quality loss, that’s just the Apple Preview ruining them to fit them under the 10mb forum post limit, they are high quality in-game.

Edited November 6, 2023 by stevemc

[stevemc]

5. FM24 Referees Pack

It currently covers 507 referee backgrounds over the world, generally covering the top leagues/competitions - Premier League (+ Championship/L1/L2), Serie A, La Liga, Ligue 1, Eredivisie, Champions League, Europa League, Conference League, World Cup etc - you get the idea. Plus the more high profile referees from the rest of the world.

 

Steps to add to your game;

1. >DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE HERE<

2. Unzip and place here: ‎⁨ 

[PC] Documents⁩ ▸ ⁨Sports Interactive⁩ ▸ ⁨Football Manager 2024 ▸ ⁨graphics⁩ ▸ ⁨backgrounds⁩ ▸ ⁨referees

[MAC] Users ▸ YOURNAME ▸ Library ▸ Application Support ▸ Sports Interactive ▸ Football Manager 2024 ▸ graphics ▸ backgrounds ▸ referees

3. Go to preferences, ensure "Reload skin when confirming changes in Preference" is ticked (you may need to clear your cache too), click "Reload Skin" and click "confirm" (bottom right).

Screenshots are for reference only, ignore the quality loss, that’s just the Apple Preview ruining them to fit them under the 10mb forum post limit, they are high quality in-game.

Edited November 6, 2023 by stevemc

[stevemc]

6. FM24 Manager/Staff Pack

It currently covers 6606 manager/staff backgrounds from all over the world; club and country (including an extensive selection of club legends - who doesn't like signing a club legend to coach their under 18s? ), there have been 100s of picture refreshes for FM24 too to bring them more up to date. Ajax & Germany staff backgrounds match the Real Name Fix config codes from sortitoutsi.

 

Steps to add to your game;

1. >DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE HERE<

2. Unzip and place here: ‎⁨ 

[PC] Documents⁩ ▸ ⁨Sports Interactive⁩ ▸ ⁨Football Manager 2024 ▸ ⁨graphics⁩ ▸ ⁨backgrounds⁩ ▸ ⁨staff

[MAC] Users ▸ YOURNAME ▸ Library ▸ Application Support ▸ Sports Interactive ▸ Football Manager 2024 ▸ graphics ▸ backgrounds ▸ staff

3. Go to preferences, ensure "Reload skin when confirming changes in Preference" is ticked (you may need to clear your cache too), click "Reload Skin" and click "confirm" (bottom right).

Screenshots are for reference only, ignore the quality loss, that’s just the Apple Preview ruining them to fit them under the 10mb forum post limit, they are high quality in-game.

Edited November 6, 2023 by stevemc

[stevemc]

7. My Skin

My skin is basically just all the hard work by @TCSSkin on the FM 24 Base Skin Transparent skin, with a few tweaks I like, and so I can show my backgrounds packs through them, like the old Championship Manager days. I'm not a big fan of wild skins, I like the skin that comes with the game, just with a few subtle tweaks.

• Stadiums on schedule screen:
I use this download for the mini stadiums pictures.

 

• Shirt & Number, plus Media Handling Style on profile screen:

 

• Faces on tactics screen, team talks and subs bench:

 

Plus font changes, colour changes and opacity for backgrounds to show through.

If you wish to adjust the transparency to suit your own tastes, the open up this file:
Football Manager 2024/skins/FM24 Base Skin (Transparent) SM/panels/client object browser.xml

And adjust the number on the code transparency="0.8" on line 30 and transparency="0.6" on line 42 (between 0.0 and 0.9).

 

Steps to add to your game;

1. >DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE HERE<

2. Unzip and place here: ‎⁨ 

[PC] Documents⁩ ▸ ⁨Sports Interactive⁩ ▸ ⁨Football Manager 2024 ▸ ⁨Skins ▸ ⁨PLACE SKIN HERE

[MAC] Users ▸ YOURNAME ▸ Library ▸ Application Support ▸ Sports Interactive ▸ Football Manager 2024 ▸ Skins ▸ PLACE SKIN HERE

3. Go to preferences (and select skin), select the new skin in the dropdown menu and click "Reload Skin" (you may need to clear your cache too) and click "confirm".

Edited November 6, 2023 by stevemc

[stevemc]

My other FM additions:

FM24: Long Team Names File (England)

 

 

 

Edited November 6, 2023 by stevemc

[Jilech]

Awesome. Appreciate your work.

[stevemc]

1 hour ago, Jilech said:

Awesome. Appreciate your work.

Might get them out late tonight, depends how fast I am once the little lad has gone to bed  

[giggsxbr]

today is the day for me to start playing FM24, thanks to your amazing skin!!!!

[DominicForza]

@stevemc

Thanks again again again etc for your work and sharing it with all of us.  For years now you've been making FM significantly better. 

 

Hey SI, put stevemc on the payroll!  C'mon, its about damn time.

[ForTheLoveOfTheGame]

Looking forward to it. One of the best in the business.

Would be half the game without immersion adding graphics like yours!

[stevemc]

1 hour ago, ForTheLoveOfTheGame said:

Looking forward to it. One of the best in the business.

Would be half the game without immersion adding graphics like yours!

Working on it now 

[stevemc]

6/7 downloads are available now.

FM24 Manager/Staff Pack will follow at some point later tonight after I've linked up the Ajax staff. 

[statomatic7]

Loving your work as always!! And a massive thanks for all you do for the FM community, always a but, no files in the competition download...

[stevemc]

7 minutes ago, statomatic7 said:

Loving your work as always!! And a massive thanks for all you do for the FM community, always a but, no files in the competition download...

Thank you!

I've tested all the links and they work.

This is the Competition download link: https://www.mediafire.com/file/92yxg9i2y84snuc/comp.zip/file (181.68MB)

 

[stevemc]

All downloads available now, enjoy 

[Jilech]

2 minutes ago, stevemc said:

All downloads available now, enjoy 

Brilliant! Thanks for pushing this out so fast!  

[Watson156]

Great work as always.

[statomatic7]

Hi Steve, Not sure if this is a fault my end but when i open the competition folder there are no files, please see below

[stevemc]

2 hours ago, statomatic7 said:

Hi Steve, Not sure if this is a fault my end but when i open the competition folder there are no files, please see below

Someone else further up the thread had the same issue, but it's working fine at my end (I'm on a Mac).

This is the link: https://www.mediafire.com/file/92yxg9i2y84snuc/comp.zip/file

[smurfygray]

On 05/11/2023 at 19:01, stevemc said:

My other FM additions:

FM24: Long Team Names File (England)

 

 

 

Thanks mate it says I don’t have permission to view this not sure why I can see everything else is there any other way to download. Much appreciated I can start playing then finally   Cheers 

[stevemc]

1 minute ago, smurfygray said:

Thanks mate it says I don’t have permission to view this not sure why I can see everything else is there any other way to download. Much appreciated I can start playing then finally   Cheers 

It's been removed by the Mods, due to it breaking licensing agreements.

[smurfygray]

2 minutes ago, stevemc said:

It's been removed by the Mods, due to it breaking licensing agreements.

Ahhh no problems I’ll keep my eye out incase it’s allowed up anywhere else   Thank you for all the work you do especially the backgrounds can’t play without them. 

[statomatic7]

17 hours ago, stevemc said:

Someone else further up the thread had the same issue, but it's working fine at my end (I'm on a Mac).

This is the link: https://www.mediafire.com/file/92yxg9i2y84snuc/comp.zip/file

Thanks for the link but again when downloaded still no files in the folder!! Will keep using last years competition pack

[stevemc]

48 minutes ago, statomatic7 said:

Thanks for the link but again when downloaded still no files in the folder!! Will keep using last years competition pack

Is it something in your settings maybe? It’s had 100s of downloads already, and I’ve double checked it too

[statomatic7]

I've downloaded the other files and no issues with them....at a loss!!!

[testing12345]

2 hours ago, stevemc said:

Is it something in your settings maybe? It’s had 100s of downloads already, and I’ve double checked it too

Had the same problem: it's because Windows doesn't allow the ">" symbol in folder/file names, so Windows' native unzipping tool decides the best solution when it comes across folders with said symbol is to hide them from the user completely and not extract them at all.

Third party zip tools like 7zip recognised the folders (and subsequently the files) fine, although they changed the names from "africa > club comps" to "africa _ club comps" when they unzipped them.

Edited November 8, 2023 by testing12345

[statomatic7]

11 minutes ago, testing12345 said:

Had the same problem: it's because Windows doesn't allow the ">" symbol in folder/file names, so Windows' native unzipping tool decides the best solution when it comes across folders with said symbol is to hide them from the user completely and not extract them at all.

Third party zip tools like 7zip recognised the folders (and subsequently the files) fine, although they changed the names from "africa > club comps" to "africa _ club comps" when they unzipped them.

Ah yes I'm with you, done as suggested and have the files!! Thanks for the suggestion mate!!!!

[Wong77]

Amazing work mate! 

[LolloViola]

Great job as always, I tend to download your pack every year to mix it with my own that I keep updating and using since.. a lot!

If I may help, the picture of both Carrarese and Sestri Levante in Italy Serie C is wrong (the Stadio dei Marmi from your picture is in Rome, while they play at an homonyms in Carrara. I use the picture attached, if you want to add it to your pack!)

 

 

[stevemc]

9 hours ago, LolloViola said:

Great job as always, I tend to download your pack every year to mix it with my own that I keep updating and using since.. a lot!

If I may help, the picture of both Carrarese and Sestri Levante in Italy Serie C is wrong (the Stadio dei Marmi from your picture is in Rome, while they play at an homonyms in Carrara. I use the picture attached, if you want to add it to your pack!)

 

 

Thanks for the info mate, I’ll get this updated 👍🏻

[LolloViola]

Hi Steve!

here to help again! Correct picture of the Juve Stabia stadium (Italian Serie C) attached, previous one was Vicenza's one (same stadium name).

 

[stevemc]

15 hours ago, LolloViola said:

Hi Steve!

here to help again! Correct picture of the Juve Stabia stadium (Italian Serie C) attached, previous one was Vicenza's one (same stadium name).

 

Thanks mate, I'll get this one swapped too!

[bigbeezer]

Hi Steve,

 

great work again mate,

 

Quick question - I had these backgrounds etc for FM23, im about to load up FM24,  Do i need to download them all again or is there any way to get them working on 24 without doing all that?

 

thanks again.

[stevemc]

6 hours ago, bigbeezer said:

Hi Steve,

 

great work again mate,

 

Quick question - I had these backgrounds etc for FM23, im about to load up FM24,  Do i need to download them all again or is there any way to get them working on 24 without doing all that?

 

thanks again.

Re-download, my packs are tailored to each release so for the latest/best experience, re-download the new versions.

[One hell of a keeper]

Cracking work on these packs! 

 

I'd thought I'd ask but when ingame you have a new stadium built and you move in this therefore has a new ID associated to it. Initally I assigned a "r-xxxxxxxx" number to it as the player pics naming convention was changed this way. No joy, so changed to just the number xxxxxxxx. 

The first two images go fine and im happy with those. 

However on gameday, now i get a champs league background instead of the stadium. 

Orignally saved the stadium in same resolution as your packs so 2560x1600 and then copied and entered into the config xml accordingly. 

Wasnt sure if you have seen or experienced this before? 

[stevemc]

No idea sorry, maybe it's a clash with other files you are using?

[One hell of a keeper]

36 minutes ago, stevemc said:

No idea sorry, maybe it's a clash with other files you are using?

No worries mate, thought I'd ask! 

[Amazingortega]

Wonderful work. I have a request tho is it possible to add instant request button to your skin? If you’re making your next update thanks