Football Manager 22, as you know, is a management game that is extremely close to real life and constantly reflects the changes in the real football world with updates to the game, trying to provide as authentic an experience as possible. When big events happen in the real world (Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic are the first two that come to mind), the effects of this on the game are also huge.
The war between Ukraine and Russia is one of these big events, and these developments in the real world were reflected in Football Manager 22 with the winter update. This patch, a collection effort that reflects the transfer activities of leagues and tournaments that normally close later than others, and which SiGames calls “fixing minor game problems that are still going on,” brings deeper changes this year.
The article, signed by Miles Jacobson, explains these changes as follows:
When there is a real-life change in teams, leagues and federations, we have made changes to reflect this on the game (including the departure of some players and employees from their clubs). But with one notable exception; The Ukrainian league has been suspended in real life but is still fully playable in the game.
If you want to continue your career with a record of playing a game where you have progressed for maybe a few years, you may not see much difference except that the clubs of Russia and Belarus play international tournament matches on neutral ground.
But if you want to start a new career, you’ll notice a lot more changes. First, Russian clubs will no longer be able to participate in European tournaments, and no Russian national team will be able to participate in international tournaments, qualifiers or friendly matches.
In another change to the new registrations, Ukrainian players will be treated as EU citizens for three seasons (in-game). This reflects the real-life situation in which Ukrainians fleeing war can work freely in the EU for up to three years without the need for visas or work permits.
In addition, if real-life sanctions are imposed against a club owner, these sanctions will be reflected in the game in the new records (as much as we can). Where this applies to a club that is already for sale, an agreement is usually reached on the club in the first season played (which results in the lifting of sanctions). Another noticeable change in new careers is the reflection of any changes to real-world sponsorships due to the current situation.
As an organization that has supported War Child for decades, of course we cannot condone war. We didn’t make these rules, but we think it’s important to reflect changes in the real world into the game as much as possible because otherwise we can no longer be a simulation of the real world.
The update was first rolled out on the Epic Store, Steam and Microsoft Store (pc and Xbox platforms where the game is available), and will be released for all different formats in the coming days.
