I’m glad I spoke with Melissa Andreatta last week, because I know whose job I’ll be taking and who’s in the Scotland squad. Yes, when Grampa @SxyMnUFN69 on Twitter is clanging saucepans, screaming “EPA! EPA! EPA!” because he’s misheard a vague translation through the grapevine, he might be talking out of his manky ring piece. Yes, the Miles interview I mentioned last week was a thing, but no one mentioned that his words were in English, translated into Korean, had to be written out in Korean, then either you used Google or that vague translation back to English on Reddit. Yeah, as it turns out, International Management isn’t in the game… at launch.

Announced on Friday afternoon for those of us who are sane (kind of), international management is, in fact, a thing. Not only international management, but also the FIFA World Cups, without the need for downloading assets from a weird site that looks like it is from the 2000s. Officially licensed, and Twitter officially got rock hard, the CUM World Cup in 2026 will be licensed to the nines, including official kits of the 48 qualifiers.

The blog post on Friday notes, “Elevating authenticity to truly global heights, we’re delighted to have signed our first partnership with FIFA, football’s world governing body. The multi-year deal brings official licences for FIFA’s biggest competitions to the Football Manager series, including the FIFA World Cup 26™ held in Canada, Mexico[,] and USA.” Oh, stop being boring and just call it the CUM World Cup!

“The inclusion of officially branded and titled FIFA competitions will begin in FM26 with the FIFA World Cup™, FIFA Women’s World Cup™[,] and FIFA Club World Cup,” hopefully without an orange man stealing the trophy to go along with his 34 other felonies. Oh yes, if the eternally online weren’t angry enough, now you have even more Women’s competitions in the game so that they can complain for some reason about a bit of the game they say they aren’t going to touch. Don’t worry Jimmy, women don’t want to touch you either.

Now, yes, there is a whole caveat to the inclusion of international management and the World Cup, that being that this will be a content update sometime next year. “Announcing this partnership allows us to answer your questions – this licence coincides with the inclusion of a playable, revamped International Management module in a Content Update next year for FM26, FM26 Console[,] and FM26 Touch in advance of [the] FIFA World Cup 26™.

Full feature details will follow once we’re in a position to confirm every element[,] but we can reveal that for the FIFA World Cup 26 – the 23rd and largest edition in tournament history – the official kits of all 48 teams will be included in FM26 when they’re available alongside broadcast graphics and tournament branding.” So with all that said, let’s talk a bit more about the details we may know and try to dispel/give the benefit of the doubt about some of the speculation going on right now.

It is the full-chawk international management for Men’s, Women’s, and Club World Cups, which is a good thing, and licenses all the way up to the official 48 Men’s teams. With that, there has been a spate of ideas about how this “revamped International Management module” will work out, most notably the idea/rumor/speculation that international management will only be those 48 teams. If that were the case, it would seem to be a waste of a development cycle. I get it in terms of PR from FIFA’s side, but the reality is that not everyone wants to play as those 48 teams exclusively, especially the political side of it.

It is the word “module” that has several people on edge about whether or not this will be a full-fat yogurt of international management, especially since we’re focusing on FIFA here. The Euros, AFC Asian Cup, Nations League, Copa América, and all the silly little “we’ll host a competition we will win” like the SheBelieves Cup, where Japan won it last year, none of those are sanctioned directly under FIFA, but rather their own federations. More interestingly, we could talk about the Olympics, and how that is sanctioned under FIFA but not mentioned.

The reason I’m singling out the Olympics, however, is the fact that there are different rules over Men’s and Women’s football; Men’s Olympic football isn’t on the FIFA match calendar, but is for the Women’s, and as a result Men’s club teams can refuse to release players for the Olympics, but can’t for Women’s clubs. The truth is, we don’t know everything, and that’s kind of the point of this news telling us about international management. It shuts up the people who have been crying until sometime this week (we assume) when Advanced Access drops, hopefully.

I think what is fueling a lot of this speculation and the rumor mill about the International Management “module” is, firstly, the phrasing, and also the lack of discussion beyond FIFA. So will it only be 48 teams? Probably not; maybe the CUM World Cup will be hardcoded for qualifiers, but beyond that, it will be up in the air. What makes me doubt the theory of only 48 qualified teams is the fact that International Women’s football and the Women’s World Cup are there, with only Brazil qualified so far. That’s only a 32-team World Cup, and last time Zambia qualified for their first appearance in any World Cup at all.

Everyone seemingly wants to cycle on doom and gloom for their speculation on how this will work, without really applying a bit of logic. Yes, there is a lot unsaid about International Management; however, this blog post/announcement wasn’t entirely about international management but rather about the FIFA license itself. Remember where that name last was in major football games? It is a big deal that FIFA and EA split, only for Football Manager to pick up that license for fully branded experiences across the board.

Again, speculation suggests that the Advanced Access for Football Manager 26 will be coming this Thursday, but as Sports Interactive noted this past Thursday to derision before the FIFA announcement, nothing has been publicly said. Either way, I’ll be looking to write more about it when it does come, to which I can hear my editor loading a shotgun, and of course, more when the game officially launches on November 4th. As I’ve repeated throughout these articles, pre-orders get you that two-ish weeks of Advanced Access, and quite frankly, that can’t come soon enough.

Phenixx Gaming is everywhere you are. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Also, if you’d like to join the Phenixx Gaming team, check out our recruitment article for details on working with us.

Phenixx Gaming is proud to be a Humble Partner! Purchases made through our affiliate links support our writers and charity!