Football Manager 25 has been cancelled, so make sure to hug a lad in your life today as they cry into their big file of teenagers who can execute a flawless rabona

Sorry, season ticket holders the world over. Football Manager 25 has officially been cancelled, SEGA and Sports Interactive have announced. It’s ok, though, take a minute to dry your tears on a corner flag, because Footy Manager 26 is still coming and will be the developer’s main focus going forwards.

As you may well be aware, FM25 had lived a troubled life prior to today’s news, with a couple of delays leaving it pretty out of position in a way that’d probably get you yelled at by a middle-aged man that you refer to as ‘gaffer’.

Now, it’s been put out of its misery. “Sports Interactive regret to inform that, following extensive internal discussion and careful consideration with SEGA, we have made the difficult decision to cancel Football Manager 25 and shift our focus to the next release,” the developer wrote in a statement.

“For the large numbers of you who pre-ordered FM25,” it continued, “we thank you enormously for your trust and support – we’re very sorry to have let you down.

“We know this will come as a huge disappointment, especially given that the release date has already moved twice, and you have been eagerly anticipating the first gameplay reveal. We can only apologise for the time it has taken to communicate this decision. Due to stakeholder compliance, including legal and financial regulations, today was the earliest date that we could issue this statement.”

It explained that “whilst many areas of the game have hit our targets, the overarching player experience and interface is not where we need it to be”, and that this made simply releasing FM25 as is and fixing issues post-launch was “not the right thing to do” in the developer’s eyes.

“Through the cancellation, every effort is now focused on ensuring that our next release achieves our goal and hits the quality level we all expect,” it finished, “We will update you on how we are progressing with that as soon as we are able to do so.”

There’s a Q & A section on the same page as the statement that’ll provide guidance if you’re one of those FM25 pre-orderers, and it also re-iterates that FM24 won’t be getting an extra squad update due to this cancellation, as “this is a substantial undertaking and would divert critical resources away from the development of the next release which requires our full focus”.

If you’ll be diving into EA Sports FC 25 to help you fill the gap between Footy Managers that this news sets in stone, make sure to check out our guides that can help you take on the game, including the best tactics codes and formations, plus the best young stars to sign in career mode.