(FM22) United Ireland (and Jersey) - RELEASE

[themodelcitizen]

Ceud Mile Failte! This DOWNLOAD (or the alternate version with FANTASY PRIZE MONEY) and GRAPHICS unify the Emerald Isle in a 14-team top division, subsuming all of Northern Ireland into the Republic.

Erstwhile UEFA applicants Jersey take the extra place in international football (load all players with Jerseyman nationality! There aren't many).

Please let me know if you see any issues - I've tested several years and international and club continental comps are working fine.

Screenshots:

Here's the original OP when this was just a work in progress:

Spoiler

This is a work in progress, I don't think it will take too much work (a weekend or so) but wanted to get some basic feedback first, particularly from people who know the area.

First, can we just "scrub" a European nation by removing their FIFA affiliation? Do I need to replace them with Greenland or something to keep the continental qualifying/coefficients/national competitions etc intact?

Obviously with the history of football on the island, the IFA would be the natural candidate to represent the "new" Ireland, but I think the Republic is a better choice given the weird way the game's hard-coding will handle N.I. and Brexit (and Team GB scenarios). Instead, we can imagine the Republic will just "absorb" NI sporting institutions in the event of a unification.

On that note, was there a proposed format for that all-Ireland league that was bandied around in 2008 or so? Do we just take the Irish Prem and add in the top 3 or 4 Norn Irish teams, and spread the rest through the lower divisions (making the third and fourth divs regional tiers)?

The only time-consuming aspect would be if we went through everyone with N. Irish caps and changed them to "caps for other nation" instead of just letting them be Irish with, say, 10 caps or whatever.

Edited November 6, 2022 by themodelcitizen

[rusty217]

You should be able to get rid of a nation, you'd need to remove their continent though, not just their FIFA affiliation. At the very least you'd need to edit the Nations League to remove them and account for having 1 fewer team. I'm not sure if the WC/Euro qualifiers would adjust. I think WC would be ok (although I've never tested it) and maybe the Euros, they're coded for a specific number of teams but that's usually an issue for adding teams. Given it can have co-hosts so 2 teams miss qualifying it should be able to adjust to less teams. There'd be another question about if it would work having 1 less team in the same year that there are co-hosts, so effectively -2 teams, though. Replacing Northern Ireland with another nation, eg. Greenland would likely be easier.

[Jorgen]

Wouldn't it be easier to just add all Northern Ireland teams to the Irish league and replace the Northern Ireland teams by teams/leagues that are from the British Crown Dependencies? OK, you'd have to make 2 (or more) new structures, but it would leave everything else intact and as the Crown Dependencies are not represented yet in the DB but one team from Jersey and Guernsey each are playing in the English pyramid.

[nasaiain]

I have done this in the distant past (FM16 I think) and I moved the entirety of Northern Ireland to the Republic, and replaced Northern Ireland with the Isle of Man. The IoM league structure is currently only 24 teams in 2 leagues with a Reserves, U19, and couple of cups,  

[themodelcitizen]

Great thoughts, this is why I posted this. @Jorgen so you're thinking the Channel Islands would have their own national team and league structure? I really like the idea, I might lean towards using Jersey itself, I believe they applied to UEFA before.

@nasaiain your method sounds similar. With the advanced editor now we can actually replicate Jersey's league, hopefully they have a bunch of teams already in the game (or that someone has already built a Jersey league db). And then just changing Jersey FC's nationality like Cardiff playing in England

[Jorgen]

@themodelcitizen Yes. If you set every Northern Irish player/staff nationality as  irish and after that rename N-I to the new British nation of your liking that could do the trick, I hope. It leaves everything else intact, without the necessity of using an extinct nation or moving a nation like Kazakhstan to Asia. I have almonst no experience in this part of the editor, so I really don't know if this works as easy as it sounds, but to me it sounds logical.

I didn't find a Jersey league, but instead this Isle of Man league 

You could also chose to have somekind of conferenced league like the MLS, where teams from Guernsey and Jersey each play in their own conference and the winners face each other in the Upton Park Trophy.
Each Crown Dependency has its own cup too. Guernsey FA Cup in Guernsey and Le Riche Cup in Jersey.
If I am correct there is only one football club in Alderney (which plays in the Guernsey pyramid) but there is a special tournament for Guernsey + Jersey + Alderney named Muratti Vase

The combined nation could be named Channel Islands and the clubs then participate in the UEFA and FIFA competitons and I hope the UK Olympic team is still working too. If you'd like the Isle of Man league could be incorporated too.

I don't know if both nations can exist at the same time. That players from all islands play in the Channel Islands national team, but that they can have a 2nd nationality that specifies which island they're from. So a player has both Channels Islands en Jersey or Channel Islands and Guernsey as nationalities. (like players from Spain can be Basque too, but there is no Basque national team.)

Edited October 28, 2022 by Jorgen

[themodelcitizen]

EDIT: I believe you can use extinct nations that aren't actually set to any cities if you just want a "Basque" style aesthetic nationality (although it might play friendlies with uncapped players, which is cool). I did it with Quebec by using Saint Pierre, who are not extinct but just non-FIFA.

For what you're describing, IIRC you'd make a new region, Channel Islands, and set that under the new nation (also Channel Islands). The cities of Jersey and Guernsey would be set to "nation" England but "region" Channel Islands. Then they'd have that dual nationality (which you could manually add to Le Saux, Le Tiss etc).

However I'm leaning towards swapping N.Ireland wholesale into one of the more distinct FAs (Mann, Jersey etc) just because they do operate so distinctly, and Jersey are a semi-realistic UEFA and FIFA candidate (at least in their own wishful thinking).

The hard-coding for GB Olympic Team and Brexit etc should operate the exact same, I believe footballing-wise there's no distinction between Channel Islanders and Norn Iron in both pre- and post-Brexit worlds?

Edited November 3, 2022 by themodelcitizen

[rusty217]

8 hours ago, themodelcitizen said:

Jersey are a semi-realistic UEFA and FIFA candidate (at least in their own wishful thinking).

They're bigger than Gibraltar, so certainly should be a realistic candidate. I guess the only thing preventing it from actually happening is UEFA's hypocrisy of not allowing federations from existing nations to join, despite a bunch already being in UEFA. Same reason Greenland can't join too.

[themodelcitizen]

This has been released, testers are needed before any FM23 conversion.

To expand on the new OP, I've made a 14-team division like the Kieran Lucid plan in 2019 (alternate download just adds the proposed prize money), playing April to January 1 (Ulster keeps its Boxing Day games). U19s are also now fully integrated.

Jersey look fine (albeit hopelessly outmatched) in international football. There's no league or Muratti Vase (yet) - just the English league team Jersey Bulls.

Let me know if you see anything that needs attention. There looks to be some hard-coding where Jersey (formerly NI) uses some Irish regens who have dual nationality, not sure if we can fix that.

Edited November 3, 2022 by themodelcitizen

[themodelcitizen]

Fixed the First Division scheduling issue that was coming up, and cup seedings actually work better than in the OG game now.

Try playing with Coleraine, they qualified for Europe in their last Northern Irish season, so you can try to earn promotion in the first season while balancing the UEFA Conference League

[Jorgen]

On 31/10/2022 at 20:37, themodelcitizen said:

EDIT: I believe you can use extinct nations that aren't actually set to any cities if you just want a "Basque" style aesthetic nationality (although it might play friendlies with uncapped players, which is cool). I did it with Quebec by using Saint Pierre, who are not extinct but just non-FIFA.

For what you're describing, IIRC you'd make a new region, Channel Islands, and set that under the new nation (also Channel Islands). The cities of Jersey and Guernsey would be set to "nation" England but "region" Channel Islands. Then they'd have that dual nationality (which you could manually add to Le Saux, Le Tiss etc).

However I'm leaning towards swapping N.Ireland wholesale into one of the more distinct FAs (Mann, Jersey etc) just because they do operate so distinctly, and Jersey are a semi-realistic UEFA and FIFA candidate (at least in their own wishful thinking).

The hard-coding for GB Olympic Team and Brexit etc should operate the exact same, I believe footballing-wise there's no distinction between Channel Islanders and Norn Iron in both pre- and post-Brexit worlds?

The reason I thought about moving all N-I (teams, cities, regions, people, etc) to Ireland and then renaming N-I to Jersey (or Guernsey, or Channel Islands) was especially done for keeping all AFC, UEFA and GB things intact. So not really a new nation, just a renamed one. No problems with Kazakhstan (NT and teams) not playing all matches in Asia, no problems with coëfficiënts for UEFA and such, and hopefully a way to use the Jersey (or Guernsey, or Channel Islands people) in the GB teams.

The part of a dual nationality was just an extra train of thought. Could people be Channel Islander and Jerseyan (is that a word?) or not. I have no idea how the Brexit is hardcoded, but with just renaming N-I it should work as it should, as the UID of the nation is still te same, I guess.

This way there is no need for a new/extra nation, just a renamed one, which hopefully prevents most of the problems/workarounds I read about here when people create new ones.

Edited November 4, 2022 by Jorgen

[themodelcitizen]

That's exactly what I've done! It's ready to go, lots of detailed changes reflecting how the Republic might actually absorb N.I. (taking the best of both worlds).

Jersey has a coefficient, they just don't send any teams to Europe because there's no league (yet). European competitions run fine without them.

By dual nationality I just meant "England" and "Jersey", right now the city "Jersey" is in the nation of Jersey and the English region South East (I know we usually do the opposite, but this seems to be working even better). Really I should test with an English lower league DB (or just put Jersey Bulls in League 2 for a test) and confirm that Jersey Bulls' regens every year are dual.

There would be advantages to making the nation something like the wider "Crown Dependencies" or "Channel Islands," but the national team wouldn't make any sense.

As for Brexit, Jersey (on N.I.'s unique ID now) will be treated how N.I. was - i.e., brought along for the ride. I know there was early coding done in like 2017 that had the random option of Scotland or Northern Ireland leaving the Union but I don't think they ever went through with that.

Edited November 5, 2022 by themodelcitizen

[Jorgen]

Sounds very good @themodelcitizen 😊😊👍👍

Hope the way everything feels when playing, is exactly as you hoped for

 

Edit: yes a NT with Man and Guernsey and Jersey sounds strange, but when you call it Crown Dependencies or Channel Islands it seems a bit better 

Edited November 5, 2022 by Jorgen

[themodelcitizen]

Well, you know the feeling when a DB works the way you want, can't beat it!

You're right that a wider Crown Dependencies might have been a better option, certainly for league structures if we expand this further. Alderney is technically a part of Guernsey so its a way to get past that while still having the Muratti Vase (maybe we can figure out All-Star teams on FM23 and do it that way).

Ultimately they might function better as a new country replacing an extinct one, though. For the placeholder we need to replace NI, you want it to be someone who doesn't look jarring when they appear in WCQ and Euro qualifying. Bonus if they have links to the UK in case we can't remove ALL of the England/UK links that are hard-coded.

EDIT: tested with @lionel messi's brilliant level 10 database and they look compatible, I used a small database and ticked "add players to playable teams" and Jersey Bulls are full of dual national Jerseyman/English players with Jerseyman as their primary nationality. Also works with Quebec if you want to spice up the international scene even more!

Edited November 6, 2022 by themodelcitizen

[Jorgen]

@themodelcitizen Great to hear that it worked out just fine! Glad to be of help.

I don't understand exactly what you mean why an extinct one would work better. (might be a language thing as I am no native speaker)

[themodelcitizen]

11 minutes ago, Jorgen said:

@themodelcitizen Great to hear that it worked out just fine! Glad to be of help.

I don't understand exactly what you mean why an extinct one would work better. (might be a language thing as I am no native speaker)

Just thinking that if we were to prioritize the creation of a nation like "Crown Dependencies", it might be better to use an extinct nation like Ireland pre-1922, or C.I.S., or something like that. That way, there no competitive fixtures but still room to do everything else we want with a new nation, like create a league structure

[Jorgen]

But can't that happen right now then?

Or do you want an extra nation level? Now we have UK → Jersey, but instead then creating UK → Crown Dependencies → Jersey with one of those levels being purely esthetic?

Would it work for you to have 3 or 4 conferences, like in American sports? So at level one there are leagues for each of the nations Guernsey, Jersey, Man (and/or Alderney, Sark for example). The winner of the Murati Vase qualifies for continental football.

[themodelcitizen]

Yeah it can happen, just thinking out loud. For now, I prioritized this Irish project, and the Crown Deps. are more of an afterthought - maybe for FM23.

I was thinking the same, that the top division would be something like "Regional Level 1" with child competitions like the Priaulx League in Guernsey. Domestic cups can include the Upton Park Trophy and each island's own cups. Could even include other overseas territories that aren't in the OG game like Saint Helena

[Jorgen]

OK, Jersey can be just 1 league atm and you can always flesh it out if you have more ideas.

It would be nice to have such competitions. I read on RSSSF.com that Orkney, Shetland and Scilly have their own leagues too, but I don't know if they're just part of the English and Scottish pyramids, or if they are like jersey.

[themodelcitizen]

Oh God, don't Scilly have that league where it's only 2 teams?

Just checked, yep, they play each other 18 times. Lol, I always wanted to make it in FM for this reason, maybe now's the perfect time to make an alternate version with Scilly instead of Jersey.

Would just need a working All-Star team for the yearly visits of Truro and Newlyn Non Athletico...

[Jorgen]

Hahaha, yeah, and they try to get into the Guinness World Record Book.
You could do a 2nd level / youth league with the Trailblazers and Falcons though 😅😎

[themodelcitizen]

A Scilly "nation" could play the annual friendlies against mainland teams (pretty sure nations can play clubs in tournaments as long as the date's free). I think it could also play against its own U21 team for the annual old men vs. youngsters game