As ever, I'd like to start by thanking @graaa, the mad genius behind this custom USA database from FM15. This edit includes a lot of his work on the Extended Club World Cup that was part of that file alongside the changes I made, and I only posted it because he chose not to continue that mod or update it, but left its details as fair use for others, and I thought the idea was too awesome to let it vanish.
This database edit replaces all club continental competitions and the Club World Cup with three worldwide club tournaments: the FIFA Champions League, World League, and Youth League. All domestic leagues are left untouched and will run alongside the intercontinental tournaments: fancy midweek trips to Argentina to play Boca between your league matches? I BET YOU DO.
The FIFA Champions League and World League are senior-level tournaments that mostly work how you expect: Champions League has better competition and better payouts (though the difference between the two isn't as derisory as in real life), finish high enough in your domestic league or win your major domestic cup and you get a ticket (if your league of choice doesn't use a single table or has some other continental qualification shenanigans, it SHOULD work properly depending on how SI or your database modder of choice coded that specific league, but I can't be certain.
There are qualifiers (the Champions League winner, World League winner, and champions of 30 specified leagues do not have to go through them, and instead get automatic group stage places), and a group stage, and a knockout stage, and Big Fancy Neutral Site Finals. There is now also goal line technology and VAR (in CL/WL group stage games and onward). The qualifying and knockout stages still use away goals as a tiebreaker, and the group stages still use the old format (groups of 4, six matches, top two advance)
The FIFA Youth League uses a similar format and replaces the Viareggio Tournament or whatever it is called for people that aren't using the Susie Real Name fixes. It pits the U19/U18 teams of CL participants (and, where not enough teams are available strictly from the CL clubs, additional elite youth teams from around the world) against each other.
There is also a a FIFA Super Cup between the Champions League and World League winners, scheduled after qualifiers finish (since neither of those teams participate in them) but before the September international break and the start of the group stages.
News:
May 29: bugfix update, probably final for this year unless something else goes wrong.
fixed bug with qualified teams sometimes not being drawn into the competition
fixed occasional crash bug with transition to final phase of World League qualifying for player clubs
fixed bug with the Canada Mega compatibility patch that could prevent the rebuilt Canadian Championship from running (Mini patch has not been changed)
removed Iceland Cup patch since SI appear to have fixed that bug?
April 3: Updated for 23.4. @'appy 'ammer's Iceland Cup patch is included so the file would verify, but will be removed when SI fix the underlying issue.
December 27: A small update to fix (eternally living in hope) teams getting drawn into both group stages.
Release: The FM22 version is unlikely to receive any further updates.
There is one change in functionality from the FM22 version, in the Canadian compatibility patch: the order of qualification for Canadian teams is now the same in both versions, as follows:
The Canadian Championship winner
A Canadian winner of the Leagues Cup, if there is one
The CPL playoff final winner
The CPL regular season table winner
The Canadian Championship runner up
The CPL playoff final runner up
Any remaining vacancies are filled from the CPL regular season table, in order
Downloads:
The FM23 version of this mod is available as an attachment to this post.
Known Issues
Squad registrations may disappear upon loading a save game - this is apparently due to an SI bug, but on a CL/WL matchday you will still be able to select ineligible players even though they have the Unregistered flag, and they appear to remain registered for future matches until the next reload, where they disappear again - so this is annoying but not fatal?
Canadian MLS teams apparently do not have a path to this competition, since Canada's domestic cup is coded as a continental cup rather than as a domestic cup for some reason, and they do not play in the CPL so are not picked for those spots either. To fix this, please use one of the attached compatibility patches that rebuilds the Canadian championship as a domestic cup.
The Mini version is based on SI's vanilla Canada nation rules, the Mega version is based on @yellowsweatygorilla's Canadian megapatch, with his permission and my deep thanks. The files are attached below. Further details in this post.
If you need more details, they're below. Let me know if there are any other bugs or if you have any suggestions, and otherwise have fun!
Qualifiers:
Since FM22, rankings now shift dynamically based on results, but I haven't found where the game actually shows "coefficients" for custom continental competitions, even though I've seen these allocations change in my simulations. I appear to have figured out how to control the distribution of coefficient points, but since the game does not show them we'll all just have to take my word for it. At the very least there seem to be fewer deeply unexpected countries climbing into the top 30 and getting automatic group stage spots than there used to be.
In any case, here is how I expect things to work:
Nation/Association Coefficients, as in reality, are the average of points earned by a nation's clubs per year in both the CL and WL. Nations are ranked based on the sum of these averages over 5 years. Here is how nations earn points:
A win in the CL or WL from the group stage onward is worth 2 points. A draw is worth one.
Wins in the CL qualifiers are worth 1 point. Draws are worth 0.5.
Wins in the WL qualifiers are worth 0.5 points. Draws are worth 0.25.
Bonus points are also awarded for reaching certain stages of the competition as follows:
Reaching the CL group stage is worth 4 points. Reaching the WL group stage is worth 2 points.
Reaching the CL knockouts is worth 6 points. Reaching the WL knockouts (not including the playoff - so you have to win your WL group or the playoff between a second-place WL group finish and a third-place CL group finish) is worth 3 points.
Reaching each subsequent round in either competition is worth 1 point.
Nations are ranked based on the sum of these average points over the past 5 years (as far as I can tell this starts at 0 so there may be some dramatic shifts in the first 5 years from my initially set list to what results create), and the number of spots is laid out as follows:
CL and WL holders: automatically qualify to the group stage and instead play a Super Cup. There is no limit on the number of qualifiers for each country, so it is possible for up to 8 teams from a country to qualify, if the CL and WL are won by teams from the same top 9 country.
Leagues ranked 1-9: 6 spots (champion gets an automatic CL group stage spot, cup winner and 2 more spots in Q5, 2 spots in Q4. )
Leagues ranked 10-30: 5 spots (champion to group stage, cup winner and 1 to Q5, 2 to Q4.)
Leagues ranked 31-57: 4 spots (champion to Q5, cup winner to Q4, 2 Q3.)
Leagues ranked 58-89: 3 spots
(For 58-66: champion to Q4, cup winner and 1 to Q3.
For 67, champion and cup winner to Q3, 1 to Q2.
For 68-89: champion to Q3, cup winner and 1 to Q2.)
Leagues ranked 90 and below: 2 spots
(For 90-115, champion and cup winner start in Q2.
For 116 and below, champion and cup winner start in Q1)
The initially set ranking shakes out as follows:
5+1 (1 automatic CL group stage place, 2 places and the cup winner in Q5, 2 places in Q4):
Spain, Germany, England, Italy, France, Brazil, Russia, Portugal, Argentina,
4+1 (1 automatic CL group stage place, 1 place and the cup winner in Q5, 2 place in Q4):
Ukraine, Mexico, Belgium, Turkey, Czechia, Switzerland, Netherlands, Greece, USA, Austria, Croatia, Chile, Denmark, Colombia, Paraguay, Poland, Sweden, Israel, South Korea, Japan, China.
3+1 (1 place in Q5, cup winner in Q4, 2 places in Q3):
Uruguay, Scotland, Romania, Ecuador, Cyprus, Norway, Bulgaria, Peru, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Costa Rica, South Africa, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, Tunisia, Slovakia, Australia, Hungary, Nigeria, DR Congo, Morocco, Qatar, UAE, Belarus, Canada
Countries that are playable in the base game that start with 3 spots include:
Iceland, Finland, Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland
Countries that are playable in the base game that start with 2 spots include:
India, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore
Format Details:
Note: all knockout stages, both before and after the group stage, use away goals as a tiebreaker, as well as extra time (including away goals) followed by an ABBA penalty shootout.
The Champions League has five qualifying rounds, with two-legged fixtures starting in June. All CL qualifiers are seeded into these rounds depending on how high they finished and which league they qualified from or won the domestic cup in, as above. The 96 winners in the final qualifying round (August) go to the CL group stage along with the 32 automatic qualifiers, the losers go to the WL group stage along with the 32 teams that survive the WL qualifiers, below.
The World League has four qualifying rounds, beginning in July after the first two CL qualifying rounds are complete.
Teams that lose in the first 2 CL rounds start in WL Q1.
Teams that lose in CL Q3 are drawn into WL Q2.
Teams that lose in CL Q4 are drawn into WL Q3.
The winners in WL Q3 advance to WL Q4. The 48 winners of WL Q4 and the 16 "best losers" (not sure how this is calculated honestly) play a one-off WL Q5 game for the 32 final spots in the WL group stage.
Each group stage features 32 groups of 4 (so six games each). CL plays on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, WL on Thursdays, from September through December.
CL: The top 2 in each group qualify for the knockout rounds. Third place teams fall into the World League knockouts.
WL: The top 2 in each group qualify for the knockout rounds. The 32 second place teams will be drawn against the 32 3rd place teams from the Champions League groups - World League group winners will receive a bye to face the winner of those ties.
Everything goes as you'd expect from there.
Prize Money (all amounts in Euros)
Qualifying Phase:
1st round: 75k for CL, 35k for WL
2nd round: 75k for CL, 35k for WL
3rd round: 150k for CL, 150k for WL
4th round: 250k for CL, 150k for WL
5th round: 400k for CL, 300k for WL
CL Group Stage (WL pays about half these amounts)
20M for all Group Stage participants, 1.5M per victory, 750k per draw
CL Knockout Rounds (WL pays about half these amounts, Super Cup final pays approximately half of World League final):
7M for all knockout round participants, + 4M for reaching second knockout round + 6M for reaching QF + 10M for reaching SF + 20M for winning final or 15M for losing final
WCL Canada Compatibility Mini.fmf
WCL Canada Compatibility Mega.fmf Worldwide Champions League.fmf