How to play Football Manager 26 for free

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Martin Macdonald | Writer

Content writer covering football, formula 1 and movies

Football Manager 26 has been made available to play for free for a limited period this weekend.

The game has been one of the lowest-rated in the history of the franchise, but potential users can have a go to see if they like what they see without paying money to do so.

FM26 is available for free on Steam until 6pm BST on Monday and on Xbox until 7:59am BST.

"FM26 features more licensed clubs, leagues and competitions than ever before," a statement from the official website read.

"Both FM26 and FM26 Console have been regularly updated since launch to improve stability and performance. These updates have included enhancements to in-game navigation, the reintroduction of in-match Shouts, redesigns for multiple game screens and significant Match Engine AI upgrades.

"If you enjoy your initial spell in the dugout, you can get both titles at 40% off until April 23rd*. Any careers kicked off during the Free Play period can be seamlessly continued when you purchase the game."

FM26

The first 'FM' was released in 2005 under the Sports Interactive banner following that company's split from Eidos Interactive.

Prior to that, the game series was named Championship Manager and started in 1992.

In February of 2025, Sports Interactive made the unprecedented decision to skip one edition of the game so that FM25 would not receive a release, citing a dissatisfaction with the qualify of the product.

A new, updated database was made available on FM24 as fans who had to wait until November of 2025 to play FM 26.

The new game was released to almost universally negative reviews.

After a short period of the full release, reviews flooded in and it became the seventh worst-rated video game in the history of the Steam platform.

FM26 reviews

Here's some of the top reviews from Steam, labelled as 'Most Helpful'...

"Football Manager for dummies, stripped back to barebones; no imersion, limited control over your club, finances absolutely cooked impossible not to run at a deficit. A million glitches and bugs besides, cannot recommend this to anyone, having played FM for 2 decades i can say that this is the worst iteration ever. If you're on the fence i would advice you to stick with FM24 or previous version. 3/10." - User xonorroweamazon.

"So many bugs. New tactics are cool and game engine looks nice. But UI is horrible. Crashed so many times I gave up." User frank the tank.

"So many problems but here are a few:

- new UI with lots of widgets, you have to click a lot more to get the infos that you need. Everything is separated into smaller widgets, when everything could have been on one screen like before. It means 3 or 4 times more clicks, for one task.

- Simplification of interface feels like it's intended for beginners who don't want to get to a deeper level.

- Frequent bugs, technical issues (set pieces not saving and unable to load during game, fonts, lines, previews not always working properly)

- Horrible training feature (No drag and drop, each segments need to be opened individually)

- Missing options (saving squad, copy/past training, can't organize friendlies for reserve/U18, no drag and drop, no CTRL+A, etc)

- No option for modders to make skins (apart from changing colors here and there in the SI folder)

- Changing the staff stats from number attributes to text (Good, Very Good, etc instead of 0-20) and horrific staff coaching interface

- Women's leagues unbalanced (5-10 mill. in debt after 1 season, no point in playing with newgens since half of the current players are at 150/160 capabilities)" - User Frifonz.

"I'm not going to rant or rave, but ive put in 100 hours on the BETA. I'm a veteran of FM/CM since 1993. Sports Interactive: You have a dedicated community of modders/super users - make use of them. They do a better job than you!" - User yensensimon.

The perfect FM26 review. #FM26 pic.twitter.com/i6a3izl5KW

— StudsUpFM (@StudsUpFM) November 4, 2025

"Bad: Almost non existent data during matches. No pass network, no heat maps, no avg. position, nothing visual. Why remove a ton of data that was available during matches in the past iterations of the game? Horrible UI with no scaling. Endless bugs, and the game was released on an actual beta version." - User The Amazingly Randy.

"Almost 4000 hours in FM games since Football Manager 2014. Thank you Sports Interactive for finally making a game so bad that my obsession is over." - User Zhemil.

"This game is not even closed to being finished. The game is basically the same under the hood as it's always been in terms of the database and how the game works, just with a terrible paint job slapped over the top by a four year old. They are basically charging us £50 to be their play-testers. And to make things worse, the only update they made for release day from the early access build was to remove the most useful feature in the game. You guessed it: The ‘report bug’ button." - User OilyJohn.

"The entire UI and UX. The entire game has been redesigned from the ground up, and it's bad. There is one thing to force people to forget their muscle memory to learn something better and another to make everything a worse experience. Menus are hidden, screens are hidden, navigation is not intuitive, features are barebones, there are essential things missing, etc." User Mitza8.

"I honestly don’t even know where to start with FM26. Apart from the improved match visuals and the tactical changes, everything else feels like a huge step backward. The game costs €50, yet many bugs from the beta are still there. You’ve removed national teams just to add women’s football, and taken away a bunch of small but useful features that helped with navigation and team management. What’s even worse is the attitude towards the community. I’ve been buying Football Manager every year since 2007, and it feels like you’ve stopped respecting your long-time players. You’re not being honest about the product you’re selling. FM26 could have easily been released as FM24 with updated tactics and a refreshed database — definitely not at a full €50 price tag. Instead, we got an unfinished product that feels rushed and misleading. I really hope you change direction, because if you keep ignoring your community and focusing only on profit, things don’t look good for the future of this series." User RKostis.

"Wait for FM27, updates or MODS. As a 25,000+ hour FM veteran, I cannot recommend FM26 in its current state. While the new tactical system is genuinely brilliant, the game is plagued by a catastrophic UI/UX downgrade, removal of 100+ features, and feels incomplete. Unless you're desperate for the new In/Out of Possession tactics, stick with FM24 or wait 6-12 months for patches." - User Rellom.

A lot of these bugs have been fixed via patches but a lot of the problems still remain, particularly with regards to the unpopular interface.

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