Online football manager: run a real club, against real people

What is a football manager game?

A football manager game puts you in the manager's office and on the touchline instead of on the pitch: you do not kick the ball, you decide. You pick the formation and the eleven, choose what the squad trains, buy and sell players, set ticket prices and balance the books. The match is then simulated from the decisions you made, so the result is the sum of your week's work, not of your reflexes. The genre goes back to the 1980s on home computers; the online version adds the one thing a single-player game cannot: other people in your league doing exactly the same thing.

ELDT is that kind of game, with three choices that define it. Human rivals: every club in your division is run by another manager, and where a seat is still empty the game runs the club under the same rules until someone takes it. In the browser: nothing to install, the same club on your laptop and your phone, matches played on the server at fixed times whether you are online or not. Free, with [no pay-to-win](/en/football-manager-without-pay-to-win): real money buys club identity and conveniences, never players, budget or results.

What you actually manage

The squad. Twenty-odd players with attributes, form, age, contracts and specialities. No cards, no star ratings bought in packs: people who get better with training and worse with age.

Tactics. Formation, mentality, captain, set-piece takers and saved line-ups for different opponents. If you forget to pick a team, the game fields your best available eleven.

Transfers. An auction market where every sale lasts three days and the other bidders are real managers and computer clubs. Loans between clubs too.

Training and the academy. Choose what the team works on each week; scouts bring youngsters through an academy with its own youth tournament.

Money and the ground. Gate receipts, sponsors, wages, loans and stadium works. Spend it badly and it runs out.

A league with a real calendar

England in ELDT is a pyramid of 341 leagues and 5,456 clubs across five levels: First Division, Second Division, Third Division, Fourth Division, Fifth Division. Every league has 16 clubs and a 30-matchday season. League matches are played twice a week, on Thursdays and Saturdays from 19:00 UK time, kicking off in waves every 15 minutes so you can follow more than one.

Champions go up. Runners-up play a one-off play-off against a side that finished 9th to 12th in the league above. The bottom four go down. New managers start in the Fifth Division and need four promotions to reach the First Division.

On Tuesdays there is the ELDT Cup, a knockout competition for clubs at your level, and on Wednesdays the European cups, where the best clubs of each country meet. Friendlies fill the other days.

Live matches, with commentary

Every match is simulated minute by minute on the server at its scheduled time and commentated live in nine languages. Watch it as it happens on your phone, or read the report the next morning. Results, line-ups and scorers stay on public pages you can share.

Free means free

There is no trial, no card and no energy bar. The optional Supporter membership pays for club identity and conveniences; it never buys a sporting advantage. A free manager and a Supporter with the same squad have the same chances.

England opens on 7 January 2027 together with six other European countries. Everyone starts on the same day, at the bottom, with the same rules. Until then you can leave your email on the English home page and we will tell you when the doors open.