Season 24: Smoother Management

Academy Upgrades and Pep Talks have given you a lot more to manage over the last few seasons, so Season 24 is focused on fine-tuning what's already there and making everything easier to manage, especially on mobile.

More than half of new managers now play Footium on their phone, so we've reworked parts you use most: tactics, live match management and training. On top of that, every division gets more FC in season rewards, academy upkeep gets a little softer, you'll get your first say on match times, and there are more zombie changes on the way. We're also hoping to get the Footium app onto the App Store before the season is out (pending Apple getting on top of their App Store approvals!).

Pre-season starts on Wednesday 7 October, with the first matches on Tuesday 13 October. Here's everything that's changing.

📅 Season 24 Dates

Pre-season begins: Wednesday 7 October

First matches kick off: Tuesday 13 October

Pep Talks, training and coaching unlock: Tuesday 13 October

Free Agents drop: Thursday 22 October

⚡ TL;DR: Season 24

• 📱 Mobile improvements: Tactics, live match management and training have been reworked for your phone, with a clearer tactics layout and much easier subs during live matches.
• 💰 Bigger FC rewards: Every division's FC reward pool goes up from 10,000,000 FC to 12,000,000 FC.
• 🏗️ Softer academy upkeep: The chance of an academy building needing maintenance drops from 20% to 15%.
• 📲 The Footium app: We're aiming to launch our iOS app publicly this season.
• 📣 Pep Talks: Back from the first matchday on Tuesday 13 October, alongside training and coaching, with a tweaked rating based on your feedback.
• 🕒 Match times: Your feedback on our proposal was split almost down the middle, so three quick questions are coming to your manager settings this season to help us decide what to build.
• ⚙️ Zombie teams: More changes are coming to how matches against zombie teams play out, with details to follow.
• 🔨 Legendary Auctions: We're working on a new auction format for this season. If it isn't ready in time, auctions will run on OpenSea.

📱 A better mobile experience

When you're managing a club, most of what you do happens in three places: setting your tactics, managing the live match, and running training. Mobile hasn't been as easy to use as desktop, and a lot of you have told us that in Discord.

For Season 24 we've gone back through each of them with mobile as the starting point rather than an afterthought.

• ⚽ A new tactics tweak: We're changing the tactics layout to make it easier to use and to see the important information you need when setting your lineup.
• 🔴 Easier subs and selection: When you tap a position, whether you're setting up before kick-off or making a sub during a live match, your players are now ordered by how well they fit it, colour-coded from green for a natural fit down to red for a poor one. You'll also see each player's rating in that position, their condition, their best position and whether they're already in your lineup, so the right player is always near the top.
• 🏋️ Training: Starting a training session on mobile used to be really fiddly, and it's now much easier to see and use.
• 🧭 A new sign-up flow: Getting started has been reimagined and redesigned for new managers, with particular attention paid to mobile users.

This is a step forward rather than a finished job. There's more on the list (including showing the live score while you're on the manage tab), and we'll keep shipping improvements through the season. If something still feels clunky on your phone, tell us in Discord, because that feedback is what shapes the next round of changes.

📲 The Footium app

Some of you have been testing our iOS app since Season 22, and it's been a big success. The managers using it check in on their clubs more often, catch more of their matches live, and the feedback has been really positive.

That's given us the confidence to take it further, and the plan is to make it publicly available on the App Store for iPhone users this season. If the iPhone app is received well and sees good use, Android is next on the list.

The app is built for following your club when you're away from your desk:

• ⚽ Live scores and goal alerts for your matches
• 🎙️ Live commentary as the match unfolds
• ⭐ Follow any club, not just your own
• ⏰ Kick-off reminders that warn you if your lineup isn't set

We're working through Apple's review process, so we can't give you a firm date yet, but we'll shout about it in Discord and on X the moment it's live. A huge thank you to everyone who's been testing it and sending feedback, because it's a much better app for it.

💰 More FC, softer upkeep

Academy Upgrades have been a major addition to Footium, giving you a lot more ways to build and develop your club, and Season 23 was the first season where maintenance kicked in on upgraded buildings. Having looked closely at how FC is moving around the game, the overall economy is in a healthy place, but the cost of keeping a fully built-out academy running was hitting harder than we wanted, particularly for clubs outside the top divisions.

So for Season 24 we're putting more FC into season rewards and easing off academy maintenance at the same time.

A few things worth knowing:

• 🏆 Reward distribution stays the same. Divisions 1 to 6 still pay out across the top ten places and Divisions 7 and 8 across the top six, there's just more in the pot.
• 🏗️ Level 0 and Level 1 buildings stay protected, so only buildings at Level 2 and above can need maintenance.
• 🔧 Maintenance still costs 40% of the upgrade cost into that building's current level, and an unpaid building still drops one level at rollover.

The aim is simple: if you're active and managing your club well, you should be able to keep what you've built and keep progressing. Maxing out both your stadium and your academy is still meant to be a long-term project, and lower-division clubs will still need to choose which to prioritise, but it should feel like progress rather than a constant drain.

📣 Pep Talk Changes

Pep Talks have been a hit, with a large share of active clubs trying one and around half of them coming back for more. We've read every bit of feedback on how they're scored, and we've tweaked the rating for Season 24.

• 📅 When they're back: Pep Talks unlock on Tuesday 13 October when the first matches kick off, at the same time as training and coaching.
• 🎯 Updated rating: We've been tuning how talks are judged, and a properly good talk should now have a better shot at hitting +5, and fewer mediocre ones will sneak a +4.

🎭 Pep Talks Anonymous

Some of the talks you've been sending your players are genuinely brilliant, some are unhinged, and a few are both. It felt wrong to keep them to ourselves, so we started Pep Talks Anonymous, a weekly series on our X account where we pick out a real Pep Talk from the community and share it, along with how the player took it.

• 🕵️ Every talk is anonymised, so no club or manager names are shared.
• 📅 A new one every week through Season 24.
• ✍️ Want to be featured? Write a talk worth remembering. Whether it lands at +5 or goes down as "Heads gone", it could be next.

👉 Follow along on X: https://x.com/Footium

🕒 Match times: the next step

In Season 23 we shared our proposal for letting each club choose its own home kick-off time, and asked for your thoughts in Discord. The thread ran to over 1,000 messages in 24 hours from around over 50 unique managers, and the result was close.

• 🏠 Most of you favoured our proposal (22 managers), mainly so you can manage at least your home matches live. That was especially true for managers in Australia, outside Europe, or in the UK with matches that clash with work.
• 🤝 Almost as many preferred a different approach (18 managers), mostly one predictable kick-off time per league, whether that's voted on, based on when everyone is available, or picked from a small set of fixed windows.
• ⚠️ Both sides raised good suggestions, including condition recovery between matches at different times, saved lineups and auto-subs, how inactive clubs are handled, and making sure available slots and notifications are clear.

With opinion split that closely, the next step is gathering data from as many managers as possible, including everyone who didn't post in the thread. Later this season we're adding three quick questions to your manager settings for you to fill in:

Nothing changes to match times this season. We'll use your answers to model each option against the real league structure, and we'll share what we find before we commit to a design. The more of you who answer, the clearer that picture will be, so keep an eye out for them in your settings.

⚙️ More zombie changes on the way

Our recent changes have made a real difference to zombie teams picking up results they had no business getting. Since Season 21, win rates for much weaker teams have dropped by more than 10x, and draws by almost two thirds.

That's good progress, but you've told us there are still the odd frustrating result, so we want to go further. The next change is in testing now, and we're aiming to have it in before Season 24 matches kick off. We'll keep you updated either way!

One thing worth saying while we're here: football isn't played on paper. A side that's slightly stronger on ratings won't win every time, and plenty of the results that feel unfair turn out to be between two pretty evenly matched teams when you look closer. That's part of what makes it football, and we don't want to lose it.

🔨 Legendary Auctions

We've been working on a new format for Legendary Auctions, and we're hoping to have it ready for Season 24.

• 🛠️ The new format is still being built, so we can't promise it'll land in time for this season's auctions.
• 🌊 If it isn't ready, Legendary Auctions will run on OpenSea as a fallback.
• 📢 Either way, we'll confirm the format, schedule and how to bid in Discord this week.

🎁 Bringing your mates into Footium

The best way to enjoy Footium is still playing against people you know, and there's not long left to get the Season 23 referral bonus.

• ⏳ Two days left: The Season 23 referral rewards run until Season 24 pre-season begins on Wednesday 7 October. Refer 2 managers who upgrade to Local Backer or above for a Prime Silver, and reach 4 referral points for a Prime Rare on top (Local Backer is half a point, Investor Group 1 point and Oil Money 2 points).
• 🎟️ Use code S23FINALE: If you're trying to tempt a mate over the line, code S23FINALE gets them 20% off Investor Group ($63.99 instead of $79.99) until 10:59 UK time on Thursday 8 October.
• 🆓 They can still start free: You earn 10,000 FC when a mate signs up as a free Caretaker through your link, and another 40,000 FC after their third active day.
• 👀 Season 24 rewards are coming soon: We'll announce this season's referral rewards shortly, and we're planning to go much bigger on rewards for bringing in free Caretakers. Now's a good time to start lining your mates up.

👉 Get your invite link: https://footium.club/game/invite

🚀 Behind the scenes

Season 22 set a new record for club sales, and we don't want to stop there, so alongside everything in this post, there's a lot happening behind the scenes to keep Footium growing.

• 🎥 Some of the biggest names in FM now manage clubs in Footium, including TomFM, Clayts, OmegaLuke and Jake Cooper, and you'll be seeing a lot more of them this season.
• 🤝 More of your mates in the game: Bigger free Caretaker referral rewards are on the way, so there'll be more people to play against than ever.
• 🔧 Plenty more in the pipeline that we'll share as it gets closer.

👋 Here we go

So that's Season 24. Managing from your phone should feel a lot better, there's more FC up for grabs in every division, your academy is a little less demanding to look after, you can help shape how match times work, and with any luck you'll be able to download Footium from the App Store before the season is out.

Pre-season begins on Wednesday 7 October and the first matches kick off on Tuesday 13 October.

Give the new mobile screens a go, let us know what you think in Discord, and as always, thank you for playing and for building this game alongside us.

Forza Footium ⚽️