Sega Just Announced a New Free-to-Play Game
Sega releases free-to-play soccer management game, Sega Football Club Champions 2025, after canceling Football Manager 2025.

Sega has revealed a brand-new free-to-play soccer management game, titled Sega Football Club Champions 2025, for PC, PS5, PS4, iOS, and Android. This announcement follows a few months after the cancellation of Sega‘s Football Manager 2025, which was another project in the same genre.
Back in February 2025, Sega-owned Football Interactive shared that the long-overdue Football Manager entry for the 2024-25 season had been scrapped in the end. This news came as a blow to fans of the renowned simulation series, who had already seen the game get delayed multiple times in the months prior to that point. In particular, this move was surprising because it was unprecedented—the Football Manager franchise hadn’t skipped a football season since its inception in 2005. Months after the cancellation, with Football Interactive having already shifted focus to the next entry instead, its Japanese parent company seems keen to address the void left by Football Manager with another game.
In an exciting update for soccer management sim fans, Sega announced Sega Football Club Champion 2025, a multi-platform free-to-play title coming in 2025. As confirmed on the game’s website, it features over 10K professional soccer players and offers two distinct game modes: Career Mode and Dream Team Mode. Among these two, the PvP mode, which packs Event Matches, Room Matches, and the Arena, is available in the Dream Team Mode. Moreover, the game has a few different license agreements with Manchester City, the J-League, the K-League, and FIFPro. It’s worth noting that, on the website, Sega also mentions that the forthcoming title is “powered” by Football Manager, suggesting that quite a few aspects might have been borrowed from Football Interactive’s long-running management sim franchise. Sign-ups for the closed beta of Sega Football Club Champion 2025 are open till June 13, with the testing period taking place from June 19 to June 30. On the other hand, players can also pre-register for the game and become eligible for Manchester City-themed in-game rewards.
Sega Football Club Champions 2025 Unveiled for PC, Consoles, and Mobile
Regardless of what happened with Football Manager 2025 earlier, this year is turning out to be a promising one for soccer fans. Not only is another soccer game from Sega on the horizon, but Sifu developer Sloclap is also set to launch an arcade soccer game called Rematch on June 19 (which I was part of one of the playtests). Combine these with the annual EA Sports FC release, which comes out around September, and there’s expected to be something to play for virtually every kind of soccer fan in 2025.
Sega’s move to cater to soccer management sim fans during the absence of Football Manager could be seen as a smart play from the gaming giant to retain fans of this genre. However, whether the company will be able to win the support of fans whenever the Football Manager IP returns from its slumber is anyone’s guess.