Sports Interactive has turned the Football Manager database into FMDB Pro, a professional scouting platform already used by more than 40 clubs, federations and national teams. The platform holds profiles on over 760,000 players, staff and match officials, with changes flowing in as often as 50,000 times a day. Vancouver Whitecaps, GNK Dinamo Zagreb, Club América and English non-league side Hashtag United are among the names already searching it for their next signing.
The move turns a long-running open secret, that recruitment staff already used the video game to help find players, into a paid product built specifically for professional use. It also arrives in the same year the flagship Football Manager game has drawn its roughest fan reception in years, timing Sports Interactive says is unconnected.
A 760,000-Profile Database Built for Recruiters
FMDB Pro, short for Football Manager Database, sits at the very start of recruitment: the long-list stage, before a club spends analyst hours, video budget or a scout’s plane tickets chasing a target. Every profile carries more than 250 data points per player, covering biographical detail, technical and physical attributes, contract status and injury history.
Those profiles break down like this across the database:
- 500,000+ active men’s players tracked in the system
- 40,000+ active women’s players tracked alongside them
- 210,000+ non-playing staff, from coaches to analysts
- 10,000+ match officials, rounding out the 760,000-profile total
Sports Interactive groups the platform’s calculated outputs into three buckets: ability, eligibility and money. The money layer lets a club search by expected transfer fee or wage demand, alongside physical filters, so a recruiter hunting a fast, left-footed winger can search for exactly that.
Why Sports Interactive Went Public Now
Richard Trafford, Sports Interactive’s business development director, said the company was ready to move the tool into the open. “We’re delighted to publicly launch FMDB Pro after two years of concentrated development effort on what we feel can be an industry-leading product,” he said.
Part of the case is depth the consumer game was never built to carry. Dave Whitby, a senior product owner at Sports Interactive, said the platform reaches down to Spain’s seventh semi-professional tier, far below where players can even start in the game. “That’s one of the key differentiations between us and the game,” Whitby said. “We go much deeper in terms of the number of competitions that we cover, the number of players that we cover.”
| Feature | Football Manager (the game) | FMDB Pro (the platform) |
|---|---|---|
| Database refreshes | Twice a year, after Europe’s transfer windows close | Up to 50,000 changes a day; stats refreshed every Monday |
| Deepest level covered | Limited by what keeps a game playable | Down to Spain’s seventh semi-professional tier |
| Who uses it | Millions of players worldwide | 40+ clubs, federations and national teams |
| How it’s sold | One-off retail purchase | Bespoke subscription priced by access level |
Fans who just want to browse player data can still poke around the game’s own public database hub, which runs on the older, slower update cycle. On July 2, Hudl became Sports Interactive’s exclusive provider of event data and physical metrics for FMDB Pro, tying the platform to Hudl Wyscout’s video library barely two weeks before this story published.
Which Clubs Are Using FMDB Pro?
At least four named organisations confirm regular use: Vancouver Whitecaps in Major League Soccer, Croatian club GNK Dinamo Zagreb, Liga MX’s Club América and English non-league side Hashtag United. Sports Interactive counts more than 40 clubs, federations and football organisations as customers overall, spanning first-team, academy and staff recruitment rather than marquee transfers alone.
- Vancouver Whitecaps – the Major League Soccer club runs first-team and academy searches through the platform
- GNK Dinamo Zagreb – the Croatian top-flight club pairs its searches with Hudl Wyscout footage
- Club América – the Liga MX club based in Mexico City is among the signed-up organisations
- Hashtag United – the English non-league club built from a YouTube channel gets the same access as the rest
That last name matters. It’s the same non-league tier where a Football Manager player’s simulated tactics once translated into a real match-day win for a lower-league side, only now the crossover runs through an official club account instead of a fan’s laptop. Recruitment increasingly runs through a dedicated sporting director too, the kind of role Swansea City filled this year by appointing Ben Stevens to oversee its football operations, exactly the buyer FMDB Pro is built to serve.
The Post-Brexit Eligibility Puzzle
Post-Brexit rules gave England’s Football Association tighter control over which overseas players and staff qualify for a UK work permit. FMDB Pro folds that math into the platform with a built-in eligibility calculator, letting a club estimate a target’s likely score before filing anything official.
- Governing Body Endorsement (GBE) – the points-based test the Football Association applies before a non-British player or staff member can get a UK work permit to join English football
The same data helps clubs outside England too. “If you’re a foreign-based club and you want to see whether your players are eligible to sell into England, this kind of data is invaluable there as well,” Trafford said. Smaller national federations use the eligibility layer differently, tracing dual-nationality players scattered abroad who could qualify to represent them.
It was quite a small nation. We found an extra 5,000 for them that they didn’t know about.
Trafford recounted that request from a federation with a limited pool of homegrown talent to draw from, the kind of country FMDB Pro’s eligibility search was built to help most.
Two Teenage Coders, One Industry Standard
Football Manager traces back more than 30 years, to two teenage brothers coding a football simulation in their bedroom. What grew from that is now a research operation with 1,600 evaluators worldwide, the same people who supply the video game’s twice-yearly updates.
FMDB Pro’s link to Hudl Wyscout lets those evaluators watch matches remotely instead of always traveling. “We will still encourage our scouts, or evaluators as we’re now calling them, to go to as many live games as possible, but you know you can save a lot of time by video scouting,” Trafford said.
The arrangement feeds back into the game too. Data gathered through the platform’s professional-side sources will flow into future Football Manager releases, Trafford said, calling it “a big part of what we include in the whole creation of the title” going forward.
Football Manager’s Roughest Season Hasn’t Slowed the Spinoff
Football Manager 2026’s beta opened to pre-order customers last October and immediately ran into trouble. Testers complained about a cluttered interface, the removal of numerical stats for staff and persistent bugs, and some said information about women’s football made menus harder to navigate, with a number requesting refunds within days of testing, gaming outlet Eneba reported.
The new engine behind that redesign has occupied Sports Interactive for what Trafford called a couple of hard years. He was quick to separate that struggle from FMDB Pro’s rollout. “It’s really important to note that the team is not the same team that works on the game,” Trafford said. “We’ve had a couple of years with the game where we’ve had to work very, very hard to move to a new engine, and this hasn’t been a distraction because they work in a completely different area.”
Wonderkid presets built into FMDB Pro exist for exactly the kind of discovery that turned Spain’s teenage breakout star from academy prospect into a household name. Sports Interactive isn’t claiming credit for that particular rise, but it’s the outcome the search tool is built to chase.
Sports Interactive’s Unsized Opportunity
Sports Interactive posted roughly £72 million ($96 million) in turnover in 2024, the last year with a full Football Manager release. How much of the company’s future business FMDB Pro represents is still an open question, even internally.
“To be completely honest, it’s a little bit unknown,” Trafford said. He described the platform as already profitable, with roughly 40 clubs signed up and pricing set case by case.
“We think that this is going to fill a really interesting gap in the market,” Trafford said. “Nobody actually does this on this scale.” For now, the platform’s growth runs on word of mouth among recruitment departments, the same channel that built the underlying database’s reputation inside the game industry three decades ago.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is FMDB Pro Part of the Football Manager Video Game?
No. FMDB Pro is a separate, subscription-based platform built for professional clubs, federations and national teams, distinct from the Football Manager game sold to the public. It draws on the same evaluator network and underlying research but updates far more often, with changes arriving daily instead of twice a year.
Which Clubs and Federations Use FMDB Pro?
More than 40 organisations use it today, including Vancouver Whitecaps and Club América among others across multiple confederations. Access isn’t sold through a storefront the way the video game is; clubs and federations apply directly with Sports Interactive, which vets each account before granting login credentials.
What Is the Governing Body Endorsement Calculator?
The Governing Body Endorsement, or GBE, is the points-based test England’s Football Association uses to decide whether a non-British player or staff member qualifies for a UK work permit. Sports Interactive is careful to call FMDB Pro’s version a decision-support indicator rather than a ruling, since the final word still rests with the FA and the evidence a club actually submits.
How Much Does FMDB Pro Cost?
Sports Interactive hasn’t published a price list. Trafford has said pricing is relatively bespoke and depends on which access level a club buys, whether that covers Europe, England, the world, women’s football or a single national team setup.
Can the Public Access FMDB Pro?
No. FMDB Pro is sold only to vetted clubs, federations and football organisations, not individual fans. Supporters who want to browse player data themselves still use the standard Football Manager game or its free companion database, refreshed on the slower cycle tied to Europe’s transfer windows.
