FM19 and beyond... Womens football? Do you want it?

[bassistuk]

After knowing a few women who play professionally, I like the idea of finally being able to manage a women's club. Will we ever see this in future FM games? Other than licensing, is it easy to implement? Or at least provide us the tools in the editor to create women's teams?

[ben carter]

I don't know if SI's stance has changed recently but the last time I saw this talked about I think it was said that the games needs to be regularly pulling in Championship level attendances for it to be something SI would look at.

To be exact I think Miles has said "women's football will be a part of Football Manager when there are ten women's leagues around the world that see average attendances around the same level as the Championship"

[FrazT]

1 minute ago, ben carter said:

I don't know if SI's stance has changed recently but the last time I saw this talked about I think it was said that the games needs to be regularly pulling in Championship level attendances for it to be something SI would look at.

To be exact I think Miles has said "women's football will be a part of Football Manager when there are ten women's leagues around the world that see average attendances around the same level as the Championship"

Hard to see that happening in the short term

[ben carter]

9 minutes ago, FrazT said:

Hard to see that happening in the short term

Average attendance in the WSL is around 1000. Quite away to go if SI stick to this.

[Jonfun1980]

No thanks

[pablito15]

Depends on people willing to to the data research I gues... but yeah, of course you'd want it- why not. 

[JordanMilly]

I'd be interested, definitely, but I can't see it being economically viable for SI to spend the time on it, to be honest.

[KUBI]

Popularity and research are the key factors.

At the moment even top leagues like Bundesliga have an average attendance of 1000. 

That's far from being popular. 

[FootballManager89]

All they need to do is allow the option of female players and people could mod in the leagues and teams and logos. FM doesn't need to do much here. Just allow females on the pitch. That simple.

[bassistuk]

Yeah I understand about the popularity Nd attendance levels for women's football but surely that wouldn't matter if you're setting up say female regens etc. Or letting us mod our own. That would be a cool feature. 

[Robioto]

Personally I would never use it if it was in the game. To be blunt I'm a fan of men's football and don't care about women's football at all.

I've got nothing against it being in the game (actually I'd support it) or if other people enjoy it, but I, quite frankly, don't really care. 

[ThatGuyYouKnow01]

To be quite honest it would just be like what happened with FIFA 16, people will play 1-2 games with a women's team (in this case international only) and quickly get bored then switch back to men's teams. So while it'd be neat to try out most people will just move on very quickly and it'd be a waste of time/money for SI/Researchers when only a very small fraction of people will actually use them after the first few weeks after launch. (imo)

But yeah allowing females on the pitch for modders to come in and make the leagues would be nice, for the people who want it it'd be there!

[Guest El Payaso]

The ME would be perfect for women's football currently.

Only joking. Don't really care about it myself but if people want it then why not. 

[MoxeysTheName]

Don't see the point in it as you wouldn't be able to tell the difference

[Sebacid]

Please, God no! 

[CFuller]

I would love to see women's football included in FM in the future, so long as SI implemented it properly. FIFA including national teams is a start, but I'm sure SI will want to compile a sizeable multi-league database before they make their effort public.

As others have said, attendances for major leagues are nowhere near high enough to make women's football a financially viable inclusion in FM right now. Interest is steadily growing, though, and in 5-10 years (probably at the higher end of the scale), that might well change.

[hugo_rune]

I love the idea, and I hope women's football continues to grow around the world to the point where it's feasible and commercially viable for them to include it. I don't expect to see it for a long time yet.

I don't think complaining by people who are struggling to deal with social change is going to stop them, nor should it.

[Cougar2010]

8 hours ago, FootballManager89 said:

All they need to do is allow the option of female players and people could mod in the leagues and teams and logos. FM doesn't need to do much here. Just allow females on the pitch. That simple.

Really not simple.

Besides the players you would need to make sure that womens team only signed female players, mens teams only signed men.

Then you have the issue of the ME, realistically womens football might be the same game but its played differently and could well need a separate ME to take into account the style and difference in attributes.

[Deisler26]

I'd like to see it, would play the league too.

But I understand the viability of it.

[stoned_assasin]

No thank you. I don't really care what genitals my pixals have so i would rather SI work on much more popular things.

[themadsheep2001]

Deleted a couple of the more sexist responses to this. So think before you type because next time I'll just infract those posts instead 

[enigmatic]

I think that the interest in terms of gameplay and publicity would be a lot bigger than the low WSL attendances suggest, but a lot of the problems are political.

SI would get criticism whichever option they picked from (i) have a different version of the match engine to reflect the significant differences between the top levels of male and female football, especially in terms of physique (ii) use the same match engine (bar cosmetic differences to players), but scale female attributes (and regen attributes) accordingly so even the top level female footballers all have single digit attributes in many areas, especially physique or (iii) use the same match engine and attribute ranges since it's a separate football world, and it's not as if the statistics for km covered are exactly right for men's football anyway and hope that nobody objects to them representing women as basically short men...

There's similar complications for the financial and transfer models since they don't really resemble any level of men's football, and introducing novel reasons for taking time out the game like pregnancy but at least that bit isn't likely to see accusations of patronising female footballers levied at them.

[\'Appy \'Ammer]

I would play it, and it should be included as SI try and emulate a realistic FIFA world, and women's football is now very much part of that world. 

The league structure alone would be fun to play, and the Champions League gets to the knockout stages far quicker than the men's version, which appeals to me as I love the old style European Cup format. 

For me, both male and female worlds should be played along side each other to allow the option of moving from managing a men's team to a women's team and vice a versa. It has been spoken of in the past of female coaches going on to manage lower league men's teams. Surely it'll happen one day. The current N Ireland women's manager used to manage men's teams in the NI premier division. So there is a real life example of it happening. 

Unfortunately there seem to be many on here that don't think the women's game is worthwhile. 

[forameuss]

1 hour ago, \'Appy \'Ammer said:

I would play it, and it should be included as SI try and emulate a realistic FIFA world, and women's football is now very much part of that world. 

The league structure alone would be fun to play, and the Champions League gets to the knockout stages far quicker than the men's version, which appeals to me as I love the old style European Cup format. 

For me, both male and female worlds should be played along side each other to allow the option of moving from managing a men's team to a women's team and vice a versa. It has been spoken of in the past of female coaches going on to manage lower league men's teams. Surely it'll happen one day. The current N Ireland women's manager used to manage men's teams in the NI premier division. So there is a real life example of it happening. 

Unfortunately there seem to be many on here that don't think the women's game is worthwhile. 

There's a big difference between thinking the women's game isn't worthwhile, and thinking adding the women's game to FM isn't worthwhile.  

SI have to balance up the effort it would require to bring this in with the benefits of doing so.  It just isn't worth it at this stage.  When it is, I imagine they'll make moves to do it.  Until then I'm sure we'll get the usual sexist comments on one side, and passive aggressiveness from the other side believing that anyone who disagrees obviously hates women.

[Hingis]

23 hours ago, KUBI said:

Popularity and research are the key factors.

At the moment even top leagues like Bundesliga have an average attendance of 1000. 

That's far from being popular. 

I can confirm you that : I've been to some of the vfl Wolfsburg frauen team matches : the attendance is between 1000-1500 spectators ! It hardly is so popular contrary what the press tells you ! 

[pablito15]

12 hours ago, themadsheep2001 said:

Deleted a couple of the more sexist responses to this. So think before you type because next time I'll just infract those posts instead 

Women's football is huge at grassroots / junior level, it'd be great to see FM get behind it early.

[upthetoon]

Well.. they have added gays into the game. so why not Women's football? But it should be a separate DLC and maybe charge about 5 bucks for women's football add-on package.

[FootballManager89]

19 minutes ago, upthetoon said:

Well.. they have added gays into the game. so why not Women's football? But it should be a separate DLC and maybe charge about 5 bucks for women's football add-on package.

Where do I look to see if my players gay or not?

[django_z]

I'd definitely like to see it added to the game. But it would help if there were more women's leagues around the world.

[JordanMilly]

1 hour ago, FootballManager89 said:

Where do I look to see if my players gay or not?

It's only regens, and there'll be a news item when they come out.

[HUNT3R]

3 hours ago, upthetoon said:

they have added gays into the game. so why not Women's football?

Because these two aren't even close in terms of the scale needed to add it to the game? One is a little easter egg message while the other needs a lot of work in terms of research, ME work etc.

[\'Appy \'Ammer]

On 20/11/2017 at 00:10, forameuss said:

There's a big difference between thinking the women's game isn't worthwhile, and thinking adding the women's game to FM isn't worthwhile.  

That's a valid point.

I do believe the women's game is only going to get bigger. Admittedly I have been won over because my daughter plays and is playing at a good standard. 

 

22 hours ago, pablito15 said:

Women's football is huge at grassroots / junior level, it'd be great to see FM get behind it early.

I totally agree with this. 

[bababooey]

Hell no. 

I want to see SI improve the CORE elements of the game and stop adding fluff.  It would be nice to add something like this once the game has 100% nailed the core experience.

 

[Etebaer]

No, i do care for Woman Football as little as the lower Tiers of Man Football...they do not have the Teams i want to challenge Long Term nor have they the level of Commercial Weight that makes them a valuable management target.

As i like to play CaC Clubs i tend to start in the lowest leagues but can work my way up to where i want to go - thats not to meet Turbine Potsdam but Liverpool, Barcelona, Juve...

[Maaka]

Of course I'd like it, but I just don't see that it would realistically become a feature for at least 5-10 years. As it has been pointed out, it would require an enormous amount of effort on SIs part to implement it, not to speak of the extended research needed, and it would probably not be worth it (economically speaking) for several years yet.

So, yes, please, but I understand why it cannot be as of now.

[themadsheep2001]

Would love to see it added, but admit it's not viable financially. That said it's still as core as adding any other minor attendance leagues or countries 

[santy001]

There's 2 elements to this, if the game allowed for it to be modded in, it could be done pretty poorly (no offence to modders, you just wouldn't have access to the things needed to be able to make it truly work) but if SI were to do anything down this line the level of polish/finish and standards associated would have to be so much higher.

Average heights of regens need to be re-worked, the spread of talent around the world needs to be reworked to fit how it is in womens football, there needs to be a whole new attribute weighting system that takes into account physical features of women, and there would have to be different coding for it as well as it'd be unrealistic to suggest that a 20 strength female footballer should be equivalent to a 20 strength male footballer. As others have mentioned, the research infrastructure has to be there, you'd have to be testing slightly different things, but different nevertheless because it'd essentially be a second world of football within football manager. 

Looking at average wages, for a handful of additional developers to be brought on board, and some additional testers even over a temporary period, when you add in national insurance contributions and all the other factors for employers - you'd probably be looking at something like £250k - £500k. That was with me using very conservative figures and assuming that the current main aspects of FM would not be sacrificed in anyway to make it happen. 

Given that typically game studios tend to mention it takes new hires quite a while to become established and fully familiar with an established game (to be fair that's pretty true of any work environment beyond doing the basics) it would be a massive burden to take on, and depending just how much SI get after all is said and done from sales you'd be looking at needing quite a few sales.  

[HemHat]

On 19/11/2017 at 10:30, Cougar2010 said:

Besides the players you would need to make sure that womens team only signed female players, mens teams only signed men.

 

That really wouldn't be hard to do

[Nacaw]

To me, that's something which should be developed like FMT, as a separate version of the game, with its own game world. While female coaches will likely (hopefully) cross into the game on a more regular basis in the future, there is no indication that female players will be signed by even low level professional teams. Mixing the two worlds do not really make sense at this point

[tiago_wakabayashi]

On 18/11/2017 at 23:46, pablito15 said:

Depends on people willing to to the data research I gues... but yeah, of course you'd want it- why not. 

I think that part the main one beyond the attendence requested by SI. The funny fact here in Brazil, there is a Amazonas State team named Iranduba, where play some internationals of Brazil, takes in media about 15,000 a match at their stadium (the World Cup stadium that isn't used too much). That is bigger even the Men's Amazonas State league average. The Santos stadium have about 17,000 as maximum attendence and lately are complaining the stadium is NOT always full even when the team was fighting for Brasileirão title, making the club play some matches in a bigger and more accessible stadiums in São Paulo capital.  What gives for sure more return in attendence are International games or decisive matches from some club tournament (if the team is female part from a popular men's team, helps a lot). 

On 19/11/2017 at 00:37, Robioto said:

Personally I would never use it if it was in the game. To be blunt I'm a fan of men's football and don't care about women's football at all.

I've got nothing against it being in the game (actually I'd support it) or if other people enjoy it, but I, quite frankly, don't really care. 

And that's good. You like men's one, I like both. The annoying thing would you being against using the same FIFA players speech like "you should spend time bring other "important" features that spending with that" being I only see that kind of complaint with the Women's teams but and the other low popular leagues in the game? I don't like that and that elitism view of football in games and IRL. I play with the girls and men, top teams, "s****" teams, all them. There is space for everyone. 

On 20/11/2017 at 00:51, django_z said:

I'd definitely like to see it added to the game. But it would help if there were more women's leagues around the world.

There are many of them. The problem is data research and that SI request for attendence. 

 

I think for now could make easy for modders to create women's DB. About to avoid transfers among men and women, some option in the programming to block women's players go to men's clubs and vice-versa, just allowing the staff crossing the worlds (the current Brazil coach is a man that is famous coming from Men's Football and he's not the first. Just recently we had a manager that comes fully from women's football taking that charge).  But I imagine to do that must be hard. 

[MrPompey]

I think the changes to be fairly simple to include  league and cup structures, perhaps a separate database but possibly the biggest challenge would be data research and the effeorst to create and maintain both for SI and AR's,  assuming people would volunteer to do it

 

 

[Nobby_McDonald]

The annual add women's football to FM debate has finally surfaced.

[WizbaII]

On 11/19/2017 at 02:30, Cougar2010 said:

Really not simple.

Besides the players you would need to make sure that womens team only signed female players, mens teams only signed men.

Then you have the issue of the ME, realistically womens football might be the same game but its played differently and could well need a separate ME to take into account the style and difference in attributes.

If it's played differently, that's why there are attributes and PPMs to reflect that. The rules of the game are still the same afaik.

[Ant26587]

Personally, I wouldn't use it. I don't have any knowledge beyond watching the world cup. I'm not opposed to it but think it would need another decade of growth for there to be enough leagues and researchers to make it worthwhile

[FootballManager89]

We just need players with long hair and it'll be close enough.

[Artin]

i'd rather be able to play the role of a Director of Football rather managing a women's club.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, WizbaII said:

If it's played differently, that's why there are attributes and PPMs to reflect that. The rules of the game are still the same afaik.

The main issue for me is how do you rate the players? Using the current scale has the benefit of not requiring a second ME but it does mean that most of the players in the database will have low single digit attributes & the regen model would have to ensure that the PA ranges stay low, that’ll probably be a cue for allegations of sexism due to the huge disparity in ability between male & female players.

The alternative is for women to have their own attribute weighting system so that they can have higher value ca/pa scores but that would require a massive ME rewrite & SI creating a second team to work on the women’s ME.

[wateronglass]

I wouldn't mind its inclusion, but would personally prefer that the focus and resources be spent on fleshing out youth football, the lower leagues of England, and lower reputation leagues worldwide.

[forameuss]

2 minutes ago, wateronglass said:

I wouldn't mind its inclusion, but would personally prefer that the focus and resources be spent on fleshing out youth football, the lower leagues of England, and lower reputation leagues worldwide.

The problem with a lot of that will be the standard of research in all cases, and the attributes range for the latter two.  You already see in some of the more extensive Lower League edited files that once you get down to a certain level, teams are essentially the same standard because they've all bottomed out.  I'm not sure they're going to bring in a whole new attribute range system just to get those low leagues in.

3 hours ago, Barside said:

The alternative is for women to have their own attribute weighting system so that they can have higher value ca/pa scores but that would require a massive ME rewrite & SI creating a second team to work on the women’s ME.

For me it would have to.  Despite some trying to desperately compare them on both sides, they're almost different sports in the way they're approached.  They'd either need a new ME to model that, or a severely tweaked one.  A whole new ME to support...can imagine SI would be delighted with that.

[Tiger666]

I'd rather the time and resources were spent improving the main game thanks.