Football manager will not appeal to a wider audience by scaling back the game. They’ll appeal to a wider audience by 1) improving the graphics and 2) finding a way to make increasingly more in depth games easier to understand and operate. If they can’t do that then they’ll be better off simply continuing what they’re currently doing, which is adding more depth to the game every year.
No idea why you think football manager is trying to be fifa, because they want to make the game look better? If that’s your opinion then you don’t understand what fifa is, what football manager is, or what they both are, one of those three. Improved graphics will pull in new players. I’m sorry that you don’t have the time to put into the game these days, but that doesn’t mean si should scale back the depth and quality of the game. It’s a football management simulation after all, i.e. not fifa.