[FM23] (WIP) LIV Football League - Football but Even Louder

[WotinTarnation]

This is a sequel of sorts to my LIV Football Invitational database from FM22, which can be found here.

If you haven't been living under a rock or haven't followed golf for a while, you would certainly have heard about LIV Golf, the controversial Saudi Arabian PIF-backed golf league headed up by Greg Norman that has attracted numerous golf superstars, including Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Cameron Smith and Bryson DeChambeau, away from the more established PGA Tour with untold riches and a shorter schedule, one that involves 3 round, 54 hole tournaments. It's an outsider that is, in the words of Rory McIlroy, "Tearing golf apart". With numerous gimmicks including shotgun starts, teams, and concerts on every day, you would be hard pressed not to think that this is a Chainsmokers tour masked as a golf league. But yet, there is always the chance that the Saudis would pump their money not into disrupting golf, but to disrupting football.

The result? An added level to the complexity of football, whether or not you Liv Laugh Love or not.

Welcome to Football but Even Louder - The LIV Football League.

CATCHING UP

Many things from the FM22 database are carrying over to this new FM23 database. LIV Football will still reside in Europe and take up the place that is currently taken up by Andorra's top flight. As a result, qualification for the UEFA Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League will be given to LIV teams based on how they finished in the season. The League season will still consist of 33 games and offer up £5.4 million total prize money per game and a £54 million top prize for the winners of the League. Helping establish at least some sort of continuity, the team standings for the 2022 season will be put in for the results for the previous season; as a result, 4Aces FC will play in the UEFA Champions League while Crushers FC and Fireballs FC play in the UEFA Europa Conference League for the 2022/23 season. The 12 teams will remain the same as in the FM22 database, although Punch FC, Niblicks FC and maybe a couple others will have their names changed when the database launches. LIV Reserves and Futures will also preserve their league structures.

SOMETHING NEW

Possible name changes for some LIV teams were already mentioned, but numerous other changes are planned. The LIV Football Cup will maintain the same format as the 2022 LIV Golf Team Championship, with knockout Quarterfinals and Semifinals and a group stage Final, being single round-robin. All Cup matches will be held in Miami, Florida at the end of the season, and the top 4 teams in the League get a bye to the Semifinals. Of course, whoever wins the Cup will get an automatic spot in Europe, but will also get a cool £50 million, with 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the group stage Final getting 45, 40 and 30 million quid respectively. Semifinalists will get 20 million and Quarterfinalists will get 10 million.

In the spirit of 54 games (Like 54 holes in LIV Golf) to make the journey to absolute domination, that will only get a team to around 37 games if they already won the League. Putting in the 36 team "Swiss style" formats from the UEFA competitions, only finishing from 9th to 24th in the league stage (If a team started there) and going all the way to the Final gets a team to 54 games.

The Reserves and Futures Cups, however, will get a major change themselves, but not like what the LIV Football Cup is going to be. Instead, they will operate like the Premier League International Cup - All 12 teams from LIV will be joined by 12 selected teams from all over the world for a group stage (Single round-robin) and a knockout stage, with the finals being held in Chicago and London for the Reserves and Futures Cups respectively.

Money will also be decreased, down to £600 million at the start, but all reputations will be at max (In the case of 4Aces, Punch and Hi Flyers) or near max, and the £200 million added on per season will still be added.

Other potential new additions:

• All LIV Golf players to be added and assigned to their LIV teams (Dustin Johnson on 4Aces, Phil Mickelson on Hi Flyers, etc.) for less intensive roster building
• Awards - Best Player, Golden Boot, Team of the Season, Futures (U21) Player of the Year, etc.
• Golf-style Majors (Not 100% on this though due to UEFA competition expansion)
• All remaining Andorran teams put into a "LIV International Series" with completely new international teams to maintain some sort of structure
• LIV teams gaining affiliations with teams close to their home base
• Pro/Rel between League and International Series?
• All-Star game between Premier League and LIV Football All-Stars!?

POTENTIAL RELEASE DATE

Due to a few factors within LIV Golf's control - The schedule, team changes and other information haven't been decided just yet - this database will likely be released near the start of LIV Golf's 2023 season in February. In the meantime, however, I will likely share work in progress screenshots and take feedback from the community to make this new LIV database as good as it can be.

In the meantime, LIV, laugh, love.

[WotinTarnation]

Think of this as a little... I would make an Armistice Day thing but I decided against it. Anyways, yes, there will be a logo pack containing all LIV teams! And yes I got it to work all on my own... Lucky bugger...

Yes, I know the team pics are small as hell, I'll make them bigger for the official release.

Spoiler

 

[WotinTarnation]

Another update on this project, this time relating to the teams!

LIV Golf have announced four (!) additions to their 2023 schedule, and since this is mostly a copy of LIV Golf but in the football world, those changes must apply here.

Punch FC (Or whoever they will be renamed to) will move from Bangkok (Where they were for the FM22 version of the save) over to the Adelaide Oval in Adelaide, Australia. Punch in IRL LIV are an Aussie team led by Cam Smith, so this would be the most natural fit.

Iron Heads FC will most likely move from Jeddah to Singapore and occupy the National Stadium (Unless Jeddah stays on the LIV Golf calendar in which case another team, likely Cleeks or Niblicks, will take their place).

Not sure on who will move to Cancun (Which is close to Mayakoba, which will host a LIV event) and play at the Estadio Andrés Quintana Roo. If Jeddah keeps its place, it's likely Cleeks or Niblicks/whoever they get renamed to.

Stinger will absolutely stay in Spain, but won't take up residence at the Wanda Metropolitano again. Since Valderrama is close to Cádiz, they'll play at Estadio Nuevo Mirandilla and share with the LaLiga outfits from the city.

That's it for team news, I'll be back with more updates during the holidays.

[WotinTarnation]

Another update, and another one concerning stadiums.

First of all, it's likely that Crushers will stay in Harrison due to some um... Connections with a former United States president. That isn't confirmed, but it is certain.

As for the newly announced locations - I am 75% sure that Torque will move from Miami to Tucson, Arizona, with Miami becoming solely the Cup final group location.

For Tulsa, Oklahoma - Whoever loses the Cleeks v Niblicks battle for Cancun will move into ONEOK Field.

As for plucky West Virginia - Most likely they, along with Miami, will be the two locations that will miss out on hosting a League team. They might get the Reserves and Futures Cup Finals though.

[WotinTarnation]

With the final schedule confirmed, I am pleased to announce the locations for the 12 teams for this LIV Football database! Those with asterisks (*) have had their locations changed from the previous database.

4Aces Football Club - London, England
Cleeks Football Club* - Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
Crushers Football Club - Newark/Harrison, New Jersey, USA
Fireballs Football Club* - Washington, DC, USA
HyFlyers Football Club - Chicago, Illinois, USA
Iron Heads Football Club* - Singapore
Majesticks Football Club* - Tucson, Arizona, USA
Rangegoats Football Club (Originally Niblicks)* - Cancun, Mexico
Ripper Football Club (Originally Punch)* - Adelaide, Australia
Smash Football Club* - Orlando, Florida, USA
Stinger Football Club* - Cadiz, Spain (Even though they stay in the same country...)
Torque Football Club - Miami, Florida, USA (I did say 75% for a reason...)


The LIV Football Cup (The entire thing) will be held in King Abdullah Sports City Stadium in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It's odd that I predicted the Saudi finals in my first database, not gonna lie.
The LIV Futures and Reserves Cup knockouts will be held in West Virginia, USA.

Expect the database to drop next month!

Edited February 8, 2023 by WotinTarnation
Added new team names

[WotinTarnation]

With the teams fully announced for 2023 (Okay, just the team names, designs and their captains) I realized that I'm gonna have to change a biiit more about this database than I originally thought. Cleeks, Iron Heads and Crushers will be the only ones that will have the same kits and colors. Everyone else will have entirely different looks from this database compared to the FM22 mod.

I mean that Majesticks logo does look sick...

[WotinTarnation]

Hey, sorry about literally not bringing this out like I was supposed to. The combination of the 23.4 update's Iceland bug and school commitments made me honestly reconsider doing this project, and it's safe to say that it's been shelved.

With the recent LIV-PGA Tour "merge" announcement, I'll probably have to shake up the project even more for FM24. As of right now, the plans would call for LIV being formed as a league within CONCACAF (Probably based in like Montserrat since they don't send teams to the Caribbean Club Shield) and for the TGL (Which is its own separate thing) to be based in another Caribbean non-Shield participating nation or as a separate cup competition within the United States with its teams also participating in the US Open Cup. Or some other stuff like that, I dunno. It's gonna be hyper dependent on college and even then I'm not sure if I'm gonna have it out!

So again, sorry for not putting this out. Admins, please lock this thread.