The Football Game

About this board game

The Football Game is a football club management board game for 2–4 players, with games lasting about 90 minutes. Across six rounds, each representing roughly six weeks of a season, you guide a club through transfers, match days, tactics, events and the changing fortunes of your footballers.

At setup, choose a club and receive a random squad of Footballers and a Manager. Your squad’s strength determines your Club Class and its expectations. The aim is not simply to finish highest: victory goes to the club that most exceeds what its fans expected.

Use the transfer market to buy and sell Footballers, building strength and depth while keeping cover for players who may become unavailable. When selecting your match day team, weigh each Footballer’s Ability, Colour and Position, including how players may affect one another.

Every turn ends with a Match Day Roll using coloured dice. Even the strongest Footballers may not perform every week, and each Match Day affects the league position of every club. Tactics cards can be played before or after the roll, giving you opportunities to improve your score with moments such as elegant interceptions, lucky deflections and wonder goals.

• Manage a squad through six rounds of a football season.
• Buy and sell Footballers in the transfer market.
• Use Tactics cards to influence Match Days.
• Face injuries, knocks and more than 50 events.
• Score victory points according to league position and Club Class.

Two twelve-sided dice bring the possibilities of injuries, social media mishaps, nightclub nightmares, Academy Stars, Billionaire Buyouts, Sell-On Fees and other events. With rivalries, headlines, emotion, humour and occasional insanity, The Football Game combines football management decisions with an unpredictable seasonal narrative.