Football Manager 25 cancellation - full quotes, timeline, claims vs
evidence, and what SI must fix next
TLDR
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Quality was the core reason - “I wasn’t happy with the quality of the game.”
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Releasing would have “damaged us forever” - reputational risk over short term revenue.
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Too many changes at once - new engine and an overworked UI experiment that “tried to be too clever”.
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The first postponement had different causes - a forgotten development item, a legal issue, and a third party problem on the same day.
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Communications were constrained by Japanese stock market rules - announcement timing controlled by the parent company’s listing.
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Women’s football is going big - multiple leagues and licences, seamless switching between men’s and women’s football.
Pull quote: “If we’d released FM25 in the state that it was in, it wouldn’t have been good value for money and it would have damaged us forever.”
Watch the full BBC interview
Miles Jacobson speaks to BBC about cancelling Football Manager 2025.
Introduction - what really happened and why it matters
Sports Interactive pulled the plug on FM25. In this piece we approach the BBC interview like an investigative breakdown - every key answer from Miles Jacobson quoted verbatim, then put under the microscope. Where the answers are clear, we say so. Where they are thin, we show the gaps - and we end with concrete follow ups SI should answer before FM26.
Q&A - every key answer, then our analysis
Why cancel FM25 at all?
Miles Jacobson: “We know we looked a bit stupid. It was a little bit embarrassing. If we’d released FM25 in the state that it was in, it wouldn’t have been good value for money and it would have damaged us forever.”
Analysis: The framing is reputational - not just a bad Metacritic, but a long half life of distrust. Strong language - “forever” - without concrete KPIs. Missing: crash rate, performance targets, and user test pass rates that triggered stop ship.
Miles Jacobson: “The reason for the cancellation was really simple, which is I wasn’t happy with the quality of the game.”
Analysis: Direct and owner-like. Still lacks measurable thresholds for quality - useful for an investor note, thin for players who want specifics.
Miles Jacobson: “It was the most ambitious title that we’d ever set out to make. We’d changed our engine.”
Analysis: Scope plus engine swap is a classic risk stack. It signals tooling churn and pipeline pressure as likely failure points - rendering, UI framework, build stability, save compatibility.
So why did the first postponement happen?
Miles Jacobson: “We originally postponed the game actually for different reasons to the cancellation.”
Miles Jacobson: “At the time that we postponed the game, not all of the content was inside the game and there were three things that went wrong on the same day. One was a big development curveball of something we’d simply forgotten about... One of them was a legal thing and one of them was something with a third party.”
Analysis: This is a pivotal reveal - postponement and cancellation had different root causes. The legal item and third party point to licensing or middleware dependencies. The “forgotten” development item suggests scope oversight or poor program management.
Miles Jacobson: “Those three things happened on the day that we announced that the game was coming. If they’d happened a week before, we would not have announced that the game was coming.”
Analysis: Implies a comms plan that could not react in time. This will matter for the transparency debate below.
When did the stop ship decision crystallise?
Miles Jacobson: “I got a build of the game just before Christmas… I was about two hours into playing it when I just said to myself, ‘This isn’t good enough. We can’t do this. This isn’t to our normal quality level.’”
Miles Jacobson: “First day back in the new year… I spoke to the COO here, I spoke to the comms director here, and I spoke to my production director, and then spoke to Sega’s CEO to say that this will be a very big mistake if we are to release.”
Miles Jacobson: “We’d made too many changes to the UI. We tried to be too clever with what we were doing.”
Analysis: A clear internal sequence - personal playtest, internal escalation, executive alignment. The most actionable root cause named here is UI complexity. Expect FM26 to re-centre recognisable patterns, fewer clicks for common tasks, and less novelty for novelty’s sake.
Were SI transparent enough with players?
Miles Jacobson: “We know we looked a bit stupid… we couldn’t say anything in January because of Japanese stock market rules where our parent company are based.”
Miles Jacobson: “At the earliest opportunity, which ended up being 2:30 in the morning UK time, we put out the announcement to say that the game was cancelled.”
Miles Jacobson: “We own it. I think we have been massively transparent as a studio.”
Analysis: Two truths can coexist - regulatory disclosure rules do constrain messaging, and the fan experience still felt like a vacuum. For credibility, SI should publish a simple comms timeline and clarify what can and cannot be said under listing rules.
What about women’s football and FM26?
Miles Jacobson: “We have gone quite big on women’s football… there will be a good selection of leagues. There’s a good selection of licenses… you can also seamlessly move between men’s football and women’s football inside the game. It doesn’t differentiate.”
Analysis: This is the most concrete forward-looking promise. Expect multiple licensed leagues and unified career progression. The big test - database depth and AI parity between men’s and women’s simulations.
Timeline - how we got here
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Pre Christmas - leadership playtest flags quality below SI’s internal bar.
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Early January - internal escalation and alignment with Sega - release would be a mistake.
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Late January - players expected more news but comms constrained by parent company’s stock market rules.
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Cancellation announced - early hours UK time - the studio formalises the stop ship.
Note - precise dates are based on the interview sequence above and will be updated if SI publishes an exact calendar.
Claims vs Evidence
| Miles’s claim - verbatim | What we can verify right now |
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| “I wasn’t happy with the quality of the game.” | Matches leadership playtest narrative - supported by the cancellation announcement and this interview. |
| “It would have damaged us forever.” | Reputational risk is subjective - we would need internal QA targets to quantify. |
| “We’d changed our engine.” | Consistent with prior SI messaging about a tech transition - awaiting full tech notes. |
| “Three things went wrong on the same day - a forgotten dev item, a legal thing, and a third party.” | Requires clarification - likely licensing or middleware - open question to SI. |
| “We made too many changes to the UI. We tried to be too clever.” | Actionable and falsifiable - expect UI simplification in FM26 - we will review when previews land. |
| “We were bound by Japanese stock market rules.” | Plausible - parent company is listed in Japan - we await a plain language summary from SI. |
| “We have gone quite big on women’s football… good selection of leagues and licences.” | We will verify when SI publishes the league list - watch this space. |
Open questions SI should answer next
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What were the hard QA gates that FM25 failed - crash rate, performance targets, P0 bug count, UX task completion - and by how much.
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What exactly were the “legal thing” and the “third party” blockers - licence names or middleware vendors.
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What elements of the “too clever” UI are being simplified - examples players will notice on day one.
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What are the women’s leagues and licences at launch - and will staff, facilities and youth pathways mirror real world structures.
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What part of the new engine ships in FM26 - what was cut or deferred to stabilise development.
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How will SI adapt communications under listing rules so players are not left in the dark next time.
What this means for players - and for FM26
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Expect a back to fundamentals UI - fewer clicks for core squad and scouting tasks.
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Database and licensing work for women’s football looks substantial - deeper saves should be viable.
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Tech debt will be paid down before flashy system overhauls - stability over novelty in the short term.
FAQ
Will there be a demo or beta before FM26?
No confirmation yet - if SI follows prior practice, an early access window is
possible, but we need explicit dates.
Is women’s football separate from the men’s database?
No - Miles says progression is seamless and non differentiating.
Does this mean FM25 content is dead?
Officially cancelled. Expect communication to pivot to FM26 features, UI
adjustments and women’s football.
Will saves be compatible with the new tech?
Unknown - engine changes often break save compatibility - we’ll update when SI
confirms.
When will we know the exact licensed leagues?
Miles says in the next few weeks - we will update this section when SI
publishes the list.
Internal links - further reading on FM Blog
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FM26 news hub - Latest FM26 coverage
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Women’s Database - first look - FM26 Women’s Database revealed
Credits and sources
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BBC interview with Miles Jacobson - embedded above. Quotes transcribed from the interview.
