07 Nov, 2025
Football Manager 26 Player Count Drops as Refund Requests Rise
We take you through the scenario SI find themselves in with the FM 26 player count dropping as refunds rise – can they stop the slide?
Football Manager 26 launched on November 4th and after day one the game’s immediate future and the SI development team were facing a crisis. SI incurred the immediate wrath of the simulation games long long-time fanbase and the wider FM community, citing the game as ‘unplayable’, ‘non-functional’, ‘a mess’, ‘unfinished’, ‘a rushed job’ and so much more – all negative. Four days after the full release, Fm 26’s Steam rating sits at ‘Mostly Negative’ and is currently one of their 7 worst rated games on the platform.
Why are FM fans demanding refunds for FM 26?
Following a two-year development cycle and the promise of a foundational overhaul via the new Unity engine, players felt short-changed, labeling the release ‘the worst Football Manager game ever released’. The main reasons fans are demanding refunds are systemic: the game is riddled with thousands of bugs, crashes, and poor optimisation. The game has gone in a direction core fans did not ask for and do not approve of. Crucially, the biggest headache is the completely re-imagined UI. Despite Sports Interactive’s goal to simplify navigation, the UI has been universally criticised as being more complicated to navigate and clunkier than necessary and forces players to endlessly scroll to find essential data that was easily accessible before. Compounding the technical instability, features cherished by the community, such as detailed heat maps, pass maps, and the entire International Management system, have been removed or watered down, leading to the collective feeling that players want their money back.
FM 26 first week sales:
The current situation SI find themselves in presents a paradox, as initial sales figures look historically strong, but the negative sentiment threatens to shatter the series’ growth model. According to Steam data, FM 26 hit an all-time peak player count of 84,909 shortly after launch, which is roughly 23% higher than Football Manager 2024’s peak at launch (68,865).
This indicates massive hype and high initial purchase volume driven by the brand loyalty and the two-year wait. Football Manager fans were itching for a new game and it shows. However, unlike most games that spike and quickly decline, the FM franchise relies on aging”like fine wine,” exhibiting post-launch growth sustained by players settling into long-term saves, typically hitting its true player peak in December and January.
Because of the historically poor review score (only one in five reviews are positive) and the current lack of feel-good factor around the new installment, the massive pool of initial buyers is now equally a massive pool of potential churn. If players quit their saves and drop off early, FM 26 will be the first entry in years to miss its reliable post-launch sustainability, signaling a major hitch in the series’ long-term financial viability.
Are FM 26 refund requests an all-time high for the FM series?
While Sports Interactive and publisher Sega have not released official numbers on the total refund volume across platforms, the level of community organisation is creating significant financial pressure for SI. Players are actively urging each other to treat the refund mechanism as almost a weapon” to generate “urgency for Miles Jacobson and SI” to fix the thousands of reported issues.
Analysts suggest that while standard refund volumes are often factored into sales projections, a mass refund movement by the dedicated core audience could severely impact SI’s immediate financial reporting and damage consumer trust for future releases. SI now faces a a serious problem and have been making desperate attempts to implement comprehensive patches as quickly as possible – fans got a big one on the 5th November that did gain back some community goodwill. This effort is complicated by the fact that many removed features, such as International Management, are not simple bug fixes but are slated to be added in future updates, potentially arriving late into the following summer; this is less than ideal and will cause some fans to return the game for a refund until it is in a state they deem acceptable. This places SI under immense scrutiny from parent company Sega, who expect the franchise to bolster full game sales during the holiday season.
Final Thoughts:
Football Manager 26 is fighting a losing battle at this moment in time, driven by technical instability and a heavily flawed UI redesign stemming from the Unity engine switch. Despite high initial sales driven by two years of anticipation, the immediate and historically negative sentiment confirms a mass lack of player satisfaction. The success of FM 26 now hinges entirely on SI’s ability to rapidly fix the game’s foundation and deliver on missing features, stopping the community-driven refund wave from destroying the long-term reputation and financial stability of the franchise.
How to request a refund for FM 26 on ALL platforms – a full guide!
The Football Manager community gives it’s verdict on the new FM 26 patch update!
Is FM 26 worse than previous FM’s – we take a look at the numbers!
