However, they accidentally shared internal sales numbers in that presentation. A table of sales - thought to have been hidden from public view - was archived online before Sega noticed the error and removed the document from its website.
Thanks to a video on the FM Console YouTube channel, we got ahold of that document and were able to take screenshots.
Football Manager references on the Sega Sammy Management Meeting 2025
Cancelling FM25 was admittedly a challenge for Sega (and Sports Interactive of course) as outlined in their official review of previous fiscal year.
As a result, the medium-term plan is focused on regrowing the European business of the Football Manager franchise.
The channel expansion from FM20 to FM24 proved extremely successful, as the player base expanded to over 17 million players for Football Manager 2024 across all platforms.
And now the more juicy stuff, related to the scheduled release date of the next Football Manager iteration (FM26).
As you can see, the planned release for FM26 has been set for Fall 2025. For context, fall 2025 begins on Monday, September 22nd, 2025 and ends on Sunday, December 21st, 2025.
In other words, it appears that FM26 will have a regular release date like it used to in previous years. That means late October or early November for the full release, and roughly 2 weeks before that for early access.
This next screen shares slightly more info.
We should expect significant improvement of the game's quality compared to previous iterations in the FM series.
*Sega Sammy Holdings Inc. is a Japanese global holding company and conglomerate formed from the merger of Sega and Sammy Corporation in 2004.
On a side note, Sega started advertising two job vacancies in Sofia (Bulgaria) as of June 11th and June 24th respectively; both of them are of Quality Assurance type and one of them is 100% about the next Football Manager game.
Here's a brief summary of that job vacancy:
Football Manager QA Associate Functionality Tester
We're looking for bright and motivated Football Manager enthusiasts to join us on a temporary basis as Functionality Games Testers. Getting the chance to work on Football Manager before launch, you’ll be responsible for testing the game to ensure it plays as the developers intended it to and that it is free from any bugs.How do you feel about this official confirmation on the scheduled release date of Football Manager 26?
Discussion: Football Manager 2026 set for fall 2025 release
10 comments have been posted so far.
the base game is poor and relies on the genius modders, fm26 won’t be much different