Football Manager 27: Release Date, What Is Confirmed and What To Do With Your FM26 Save

Last verified: 6 September 2026. Every claim on this page links to the Sports Interactive statement it comes from. When a fact changes, the date above changes with it.

The short answer

Football Manager 27 launches in November 2026. Sports Interactive confirmed the month on 27 August 2026 and said the exact launch date and the platform list will follow. Nothing else about the release is official yet.

Source: Getting ready for Football Manager 27, Sports Interactive, 27 August 2026.

What Sports Interactive has confirmed

Here is every first-party FM27 statement so far, in SI's own words where they gave them.

Launch window: November 2026. "As the final stages of development near on Football Manager 27, we are pleased to confirm that the game will launch in November, with the specific launch date alongside confirmed platforms to follow." (27 August 2026)

Feature reveals from September. "A series of feature deep dives and first looks at gameplay will roll out from September." The reveals are fronted by Community Manager Chris Groves. (27 August 2026)

Design direction. "We're evolving the current design whilst restoring ideas and behaviours you (our players) value and that worked well in previous editions." No screen, role, duty or mechanic has been named yet. (Chris Groves, 27 August 2026)

An official Discord in September. SI said an official Football Manager Discord server is due to go live in September for the run up to release. (27 August 2026)

A playtesting programme. SI posted "Playtesting Program for FM27 - Register Your Interest" on the FM26 Steam page on 11 August 2026. Terms and eligibility are in that post.

FM26 is finished. SI's community team said in July, in a forum post reported by several outlets, that update 26.3.2 was FM26's final update and that the studio's focus had moved to the next title.

What is still unknown

Anyone giving you the following as fact is guessing:

• The launch day. SI said November and nothing narrower. Fan predictions of a specific Tuesday are predictions.
• Platforms. Not confirmed. For context only, FM26 shipped on PC and Mac (Steam, Epic Games Store, Microsoft Store and Xbox Game Pass), on Xbox and PlayStation 5 as FM26 Console, on Apple Arcade as FM26 Touch and on Netflix as FM26 Mobile. That is last year's list, not this year's.
• Price and pre-orders. No Steam listing exists yet, so there is nothing to pre-order and no price.
• Advanced access beta. Not announced. FM26's advanced access beta opened on 23 October 2025, twelve days before launch. That is precedent only.
• Any feature, role, duty or screen. The design quote above is the whole of it until the September deep dives land.

How the FM26 to FM27 changeover usually works

A new Football Manager edition has always meant a new database and a fresh save. Career saves do not carry across editions, so whatever you are building in FM26 now, you are building it to finish.

If you are mid-save and enjoying it, finish it. Set a real end point. A trophy, a promotion, a wonderkid's debut. A save with an end point gets played. A save with no end point gets abandoned the day the new game arrives.

If you are between saves, start something short. A one season challenge or a lower league promotion push fits the window. The FM26 save ideas guide has several that finish inside a season.

Squad planning still matters for the last stretch. A last season in FM26 is a good time to test a formation you have avoided, or to sign the wonderkids you never quite trusted. There is no long-term cost now.

What to look for in the September reveals

SI has said it is restoring ideas that worked in earlier editions while keeping the current design. When each deep dive lands, the questions that matter for your tactics are:

1. Do in-possession and out-of-possession shapes stay? FM26 introduced separate formations for each phase. If that survives, most FM26 tactical thinking carries over. If it changes, FM26 tactic guides become history.
2. Do roles and duties change? Renamed or removed roles are the single biggest source of bad advice after an edition change. Guides written for the old edition keep circulating for months.
3. What comes back from older editions? SI's own phrase was "restoring ideas and behaviours". Watch for which screens and mechanics return.

This page will record each confirmed reveal, with the source, as it is published.

Does FootballGPT work with FM27?

FootballGPT's FM tools are verified against FM26. FM27 support is switched on tool by tool once each tool has been checked against the real game, so that a role, duty or instruction from one edition is never passed off as the other. Until then the FM26 tools keep working, and this page will say which FM27 tools are live and when they were verified.

If you ask the FM advisors an FM27 question before that point, they will tell you it is not verified yet rather than answer from FM26 knowledge.

Where is the FM27 wonderkids list?

There is no honest one yet. A wonderkids list needs the FM27 database, and the database does not exist outside Sports Interactive. Any "FM27 wonderkids" page published before the game ships is either an FM26 list with the number changed or a guess about real-world players. The FM26 wonderkids by position list is the current one and is maintained against the latest FM26 data.