FIFA 19 Challenge League Rules

Teams requested:

Budgets and bonuses

£1m starting budget for every team
£0.2m bonus each week for submitting tactics on time (Friday midnight)
Press Conferences - £100k

Draft

Blind bid for up to 3 players - no nominations in advance. You must bid a minimum of the player’s TM value
£1m budget for each manager specifically for the draft - any of this that isn't used is lost
You can use some of your starting budget towards the draft if you wish
Sealed bids by PM (process to be decided)
If you don't get 3 players in the first round, you may rebid until you get 3 players in the draft
£0 value players on TM have a minimum fee of £200k
Bids in to BamBam by Thursday midnight

League Set up

16 teams, play every team home and away - 30 league fixtures
2 cup competitions - 1st / 2nd halves of the season - straight knockout competition using FIFA 19s "No Rules" mode

Squad Set Up

No youth teams
25 man squads - 3 injuries every week
Squads on FIFA are the starting squad for each team
Once drafts are completed, all teams will need to ensure they are within the 25 man limit, but releasing any players required to get to this point. This needs to be done before first lawyers are drawn
All cards awarded during matches will be tracked. A player will receive an automatic 1 match ban, for the next league match, on the accumulation of 2 yellow cards or 1 red card. All current bans will be listed on the Cards page

Transfers

You will receive the following

110% of frozen TM value for 2 lawyer offers per week
75% of frozen TM value for releases - maximum 2 per week

TM Values frozen as of 28.10.2018

Maximum foreign signings per week - 2
Players with a £0 TM value have a minimum fee to buy of £200k.
A player in your squad with a £0 TM value, will have a £0 frozen value that will be applied to lawyers and releases.

Players need to be within the FIFA Rating Cap at the time of purchase on both the latest version and the version used to play the games. Players brought into the league inside the cap that subsequently go above the cap are okay and do not need to be sold.

There are always 2 versions of FIFA to consider. The latest update available and the version that Hero's game is updated to, and is used in the game. The current game version is 10th Jan. The version being used will always been shown on the homepage.

The current cap maximum FIFA rating (e.g. the cap) is 70

Signing Players not on FIFA

• If a player appears on both versions, they are available for purchase and they must be 70 rated or less on both versions
  
  
• If a player appears on one version, but not both, they are available for purchase and they must be 70 rated or less on that version
  
  
  
• If a player appears on neither version, but are currently at a club who are full licenced on FIFA (i.e. the squad uses the real players) they are available for purchase. However, if they are added to FIFA and their starting rating is greater than 70 (or the current cap at the time), they cannot be played until their rating is within the cap (either through a reduction in rating in a FIFA update, or by an increase in the ratings cap)
  
  
• If a player appears on neither version, and are currently at a club who are not full licenced on FIFA (e.g. Brazilian and Russian teams, which use fake players) they are not available for purchase.
  
  
• You must have a minimum of 21 players who are on Hero's version of FIFA, to be able to field a starting XI, plus 7 subs and cover 3 injuries
  
  
• This would be applied going forward only. Any players already in the league are unaffected
  

Domestic transfers - These are transfers between managers in the league, this means you can make trades for players including cash as well - If there are any deals that are brought into question they will be reviewed by the league runner and cancelled if deemed unfair. The only time that these are frozen is when a player is brought in from foreign's and this freeze will last two weeks to save anyone trying to get around the 2 TP a week rule.

Loans – Half season loans or Full season loans only, these need to be posted on the transfer confirmation page.

All signings must be confirmed on the Transfer Confirmation page within 24 hours. Any foreigns not confirmed in this time become available for other teams to sign

Once a player has left the league, whether released or in a lawyers sale, they are unavailable for resigning until one calendar month from the point they were sold/released. Once a month has passed, they can be signed by anyone, as a normal foreign signing

Weekly Schedule

Tuesday 9am = Start of new gameweek when Lawyers and Injuries are announced
Thursday Midnight = Squad cut off point, anyone brought into your squad after midnight will not be able to play in the current gameweek.
Friday Midnight = Deadline for weekly tactics sent to Hero
Monday = New Press Conference

Whats the rules on card? 2 yellows or 1 red is a 1 match ban?

Can we add the rule to the page above.

I think I will also adopt this as the rules page and transfer it across to the rules section when we start, so if you can think of anything else then please add it on here (to the main topic if you are Bam, or as a post below if you are not Bam!)

Looks good to me - I have a couple of queries/suggestions:

Should be a release/lawyers fee for players with 0 value in your initial squad, say a nominal 25k? Obviously if I sign a player without a value, then they should remain that way.

Can we clarify the different finishing position bonuses/relegation or whatever we do before the season starts?

I've always suggested in the past that injuries should be taken from your previous starting XI, not sure if people would favour that? It's no biggie if not.

How often (roughly) will the squads be updated to the latest FIFA ratings?

In regards to the last query, I'd like to do it more than once a season. It really though comes down to time constraints as it is not a quick task.
Last season it updated once without me initiating it (think my son went on UT) and it was 2-3 nights to fix it. If we were to do it for the league then I'd probably need a week's break from matches as well just due to the time involved (mid season break?).

My thoughts are:

No - zero value for players you already have, so it is zero release and lawyer fee.

Yes, definitely need to do this before we start. I'll have a think, but suggestions welcomed as always

The way we select injuries, I post the squad on the Random list generator website, randomise and take the top 3 in the list. With whole squads it is easy as I copy and paste from the squad page. Making it starting XI means I either need to get all the starting XIs from Hero, or from FIFA. I would prefer to keep it as it is for ease.

FIFA updates will be applied once per season, in the pre-season period

Hero wrote:In regards to the last query, I'd like to do it more than once a season. It really though comes down to time constraints as it is not a quick task.
Last season it updated once without me initiating it (think my son went on UT) and it was 2-3 nights to fix it. If we were to do it for the league then I'd probably need a week's break from matches as well just due to the time involved (mid season break?).

I think it is better to fix it at once a season than to leave to when time allows. If it happens by accident, then we just have to live with that

Fair enough Afro. In the past I've used the random list organiser and made 1-4 injuries and 5-6 lawyers, just for killing two birds with one stone. Could always do that?

Understand it takes quite a bit of time to update the squads, just think we should have a rough idea of what to expect

Trebs wrote:Fair enough Afro. In the past I've used the random list organiser and made 1-4 injuries and 5-6 lawyers, just for killing two birds with one stone. Could always do that?

Understand it takes quite a bit of time to update the squads, just think we should have a rough idea of what to expect

That is kind of what I do. I randomise it once and take the top 3 for injuries, and then hit Go Again and take the top 2 as lawyers. Does save time as you say, but also then allows the same player to be an injury and a lawyer.

Used to take me 10-15 mins tops to do lawyers and injuries in the old league

I agree. I think once a season as it may have impacted on the people you chose for the draft.

100k for Press Conferences?

I think I put £200k in the file, but yeah thats fine

Don't think it should be the same as tactics.
How about 250k for tactics and 150k for press? Amounts to the 400k you'd budgeted but just more emphasis on getting tactics in.

That'd work out as 12m for league games over the course of a season which I reckon is okay.

Makes sense. 400k a week is two 200k forieigns which we said was the average value.

I'm fine with 250k/150k - can go lower if wanted, I'll need to change it anyway

I think that is way too high tbh. £12m over a season when the average cost per player is c£200k is 70 players per year.

I was thinking more like £50k for Press Conferences

Or 60 players even. Good job I’m not in finance

That’s without selling too

£200k + £100k is fine for me.

If we give that much then got to be bit strict on the answers.

£50k a week for PC alongside £200k for bonuses, is £8m a season. If you assume £2m from sales, which is an average of £30 per week per lawyer.

That is £10m a season or 50 players at £200k each. That is changing your whole squad twice. Seems enough to me, if not too high tbh

I guess people will be saving up for higher priced players quicker in this league, there's a lot of dross to get rid of

I'm happy with 200k for tactics and 50k for bonuses

250k a week total is more than enough.

Personally I think it's too low if £0 valued players are now £200k, all okay for teams where most players have a value but think 15 of mine are worth 0 so most lawyers I get will be 110% of zilch and I'll then be unable to replace 2 players each week. But if it's a majority call I'll just have to take it on the chin.

Hero, I think there should be a minimum lawyer's value of 50k - but I was outvoted. Obviously someone like Chong should be 0 lawyer's but your initial players should have a value IMO.

I’m not far off the same position as you.

We will still be able to replace two players a week, but it will just be for £125k each. A £125k player is a step up on a £0 player. It is just the relative improvement for each team, but we knew that when we picked Macclesfield/Morecambe.

Afro wrote:I’m not far off the same position as you.

We will still be able to replace two players a week, but it will just be for £125k each. A £125k player is a step up on a £0 player. It is just the relative improvement for each team, but we knew that when we picked Macclesfield/Morecambe.

Still think that puts us at a massive disadvantage on the freebie players being 200k. A £0 rated player that's an up and comer is much better than a £125k player.
How about now draft is done that £0 value players are 125k and then everyone each week can get 2 if wanted?

I've changed the file so just need to change 2 numbers to set the bonuses - whatever is decided I can amend to that

My personal preference would have been 200k and 100k, but needs decent answers for the 100k bonus - ie not whatever Nando chucked up earlier

I’m happy enough to go with £100k but agree it needs to be proper answers. Who’s going to police it and judge the answers

Afro wrote:I’m happy enough to go with £100k but agree it needs to be proper answers. Who’s going to police it and judge the answers

What if you don't have a press conference bonus and just make the full amount for handing in tactics?

Could do the approach of half the bonus for tactics, half for getting them in by the deadline

Lets go £200k for tactics and £100k for PC, and see how we go

Hero wrote:Personally I think it's too low if £0 valued players are now £200k, all okay for teams where most players have a value but think 15 of mine are worth 0 so most lawyers I get will be 110% of zilch and I'll then be unable to replace 2 players each week. But if it's a majority call I'll just have to take it on the chin.

I agree wholeheartedly with this, by the way. There's a level of catch up that is hard to achieve not only with a poor squad, but not being able to make much money to improve it and the other players being able to improve too. Not only do MK Dons (et al) start with better players and squads, they have more value in their ranks to earn money for transfers, such that actually they can improve at a faster rate than the ones who need to be improving. Not one of the defenders I have in my original squad is better than his worst defender. He got more for Robbie Simpson from lawyers than I could get for any of my original squad, and Robbie Simpson was and always has been sh*t!

I think my whole squad's value was £2.2m before transfers. Olly's strikers were £1.7m. Or could look at my £300k worth of defence and his over a million. 

On top of all of that, Olly is a d*ckhead. It doesn't apply to anything, I just enjoy saying it and I was into a rant anyway.

(But also it's just a bit of fun and isn't worth wasting time over coming up with a "fair for all" system because people have lives and jobs - except Olly, who fingers cats)

Dolphin Ziggler wrote: except Olly, who fingers cats

Never thought I'd see the day when someone was jealous of all the pu$$y Olly gets.

Quick question. I released someone last Tuesday as part of getting my squad down to 25. Was that one of my allowed releases for the week? Or can I still release someone?

I should add I released someone this afternoon, which is either my first or second release of the week depending on the answer to the above. But my squad is at 26 due to signing players today.

If I remember correctly, you were allowed more for this first week

Yep, to get down to 25 doesn't count as one of your two releases for this week so you're fine to release another

BamBam wrote:Weekly Schedule

Tuesday 9am = Start of new gameweek when Lawyers and Injuries are announced
Thursday Midnight = Squad cut off point, anyone brought into your squad after midnight will not be able to play in the current gameweek.
Friday Midnight = Deadline for weekly tactics sent to Hero

I feel like we now need to clarify that all times are UK time

THIS IS AN OUTRAGE