When are tournament hosts decided in game?

[CFuller]

I'd be interested to find out - if possible - how far in advance the host nations for major tournaments are decided in-game.

I am into early 2021 in my FM17 save. The hosts for Euro 2028 are announced on 11 March.

I save my game on 10 March - the day before the announcement. I then continue for another day, and Spain are announced as the Euro 2028 hosts. Here's the thing, though: they're hosting the 2030 World Cup as well. I don't think it's realistic that a country can host the Euros and the World Cup consecutively. As I am managing a national team, this is potentially immersion-breaking for me.

I re-load my save and try again. Spain are chosen again. I re-load my save once more, and Spain win the vote once more.

I now go back to an autosave from a fortnight earlier and continue forward. Three times I did that, and guess what happened? Spain always won the vote. 

I'm now prepared to go all the way back to an even earlier save - on New Year's Day - and sim through those two-and-a-bit months again if it means there's any chance of an alternative host being chosen.

Is this a fruitless exercise? Have I gone so far in-game that Spain will always be chosen to host Euro 2028? I'd like to see it awarded to one of the other candidates - England, or Belgium, or Portugal, or even Scotland/Wales. Basically, anyone but Spain!

[CFuller]

Just to add a bit more to this, I went back to an autosave from 12 February - almost exactly a month before the Euro 2028 host announcement. I holidayed until the announcement three times, and Spain always won.

That's when I went to my New Year's Day save. After holidaying for over two months, I checked the news. Surprise, surprise: Spain had been chosen to host Euro 2028.

That's nine times I've tried to get different hosts, without success. I cannot go back much further than New Year's Day without having to replay matches.

I'm now convinced that either it is an incredible coincidence that Spain always win the vote, or that tournament hosts are determined months in advance of announcements. If it's the latter, then I am a very disappointed FMer.

[forameuss]

1 minute ago, CFuller said:

I'm now convinced that either it is an incredible coincidence that Spain always win the vote, or that tournament hosts are determined months in advance of announcements. If it's the latter, then I am a very disappointed FMer.

It may not be either, necessarily.  Sounds like there's three possible outcomes

1) It's chosen way before it is announced, and you've just not gone back far enough
2) It's a weighted "random" choice, and Spain has come out on top every single time you've run a test
3) It's neither, and there's code in there that decides the host on a less random basis, and Spain always comes out on top based on that.

It's not really something you'll get a good idea of without raising a bug.  I know it's not technically a bug, but it's the best chance of getting a devs eye view on things.  

[CFuller]

31 minutes ago, forameuss said:

It may not be either, necessarily.  Sounds like there's three possible outcomes

1) It's chosen way before it is announced, and you've just not gone back far enough
2) It's a weighted "random" choice, and Spain has come out on top every single time you've run a test
3) It's neither, and there's code in there that decides the host on a less random basis, and Spain always comes out on top based on that.

It's not really something you'll get a good idea of without raising a bug.  I know it's not technically a bug, but it's the best chance of getting a devs eye view on things.  

Thanks for your insight.

I am tempted to holiday from February a few more times. I suspect it may be a fruitless exercise, though, because I would surely have expected England or even Portugal to have won the vote at least once in a previous simulation by now. I could even try holidaying again from January.

I don't think there's much point in raising a game bug for FM17, as SI are understandably focussing their efforts on FM18. I would, though, quite like to hear something official from SI about this. It surely isn't right that a country can host the Euros and the World Cup consecutively, and I honestly thought measures had been taken to ensure this could not happen in FM.