Football Manager 2026 Beta Opens To A Flood Of Negative Feedback On Social Media

“Worst FM ever released”

Fans of the Football Manager franchise have been waiting for two years for the next installment, and after the Beta finally opened up on Oct. 23 on PC for those who pre-ordered the game, players were quick to voice negative comments on social media.

FM26 is the sequel to Football Manager 24 from late 2023 as the 2025 iteration was canceled on behalf of Sports Interactive Studio Director, Miles Jacobson, who cited the poor quality of the game and not wanting players to waste their money.

With the official release date of Football Manager 2026 set for Nov. 4, players fear that the current state is riddled with too many bugs and bad UI that the release date might be delayed.

“Yup, it’s the worst FM ever released. The UI is one of the worst designs there could be. It’s a mess, a giant shit show. It’s garbage,” Jack McGregshaw commented on X.

FM26 Bugs And Bad UI

Comments on social media are overwhelmingly concerning FM26 bugs and the UI, which ranges from bad to impossible to understand. Diehard fans of the franchise are the ones who express most concern while newer players are calling for patience and trust in the dev team to sort out issues before the game is released.

“I just find it baffling that this is the Beta version with less than 2 weeks away from launch. I have come across so many bugs after playing it for 2 hours – mainly just clicking things to see what they do. Why aren’t the testers finding these,” TimDYo asked on X.

Still, the window is closing and judging by the reactions, Sports Interactive may be forced into a crunch period that will put everyone involved to the test. X user taurus tempus offered a laundry list of issues they discovered when playing the FM26 Beta:

“UI/UX is NOT intuitive and extremely cluttered; Menu diving hell; Why remove numerical stats for staff?; Bugs everywhere in the UI, too many to report; Forced to see Womens footy info in a cluttered UI, should be able to hide it,” taurus tempus commented.

Some of the Beta testers feel like they have been betrayed and decided to ask for a refund. The comment from Jamsey704 was just one of many.

“Painful. UI is not something that’ll take time, it’s just flat out awful. Unenjoyable experience and to ask people to wait 20+ hours (to learn the UI) and then you’ll start having fun. Outrageous. First game I’ve refunded in 20 years. Back to FM24 I go,” Jamesy704 commented on X.

Youtubers Mostly Sing FM26 Praises

The tone on YouTube is very different from X. Most videos mention that there are a few issues but overall give the game a positive review. This is to be expected as most Youtubers fear that they will lose their early access to games by being overly honest in their assessments. One Youtuber even claimed to have played the game for 100 hours less than 24 hours after its Beta released.

While reviewing the game, Youtuber Omega Luke found that when he was setting up a manager profile, he could create a male manager with lipstick and eyeliner but there was no option to wear a hat.

“Been playing since Championship Manager 2 which is now Football Manager. The game is dead. It’s time to let it go unless they get football people making it. A team of woke soy boys and women are what’s killing the game,” Trevor commented.

The game’s official website wants to remind players that the current version is not the version that will be released on Nov. 4: “Please note that as this is a Beta version you may encounter some bugs and glitches that our developers will be working tirelessly to address in future updates.”

Based on the response from players, Sports Interactive Studio will be focusing on patches and hotfixes for the foreseeable future.

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