Team with biggest starting budget in Football Manager 2024 aren't playable on the game

Four out of the top five teams with the highest transfer budgets in Football Manager 2024 are not playable on the new game, it has emerged.

Much to our delight, the early access switch for FM24 was activated on Thursday last week.

A host of brand new features, including match engine upgrades, major set piece changes and a history-making ability to play previous save games, have been welcomed by the community.

And on this year's release, there are more than 120 playable leagues in the base game, with the landmark arrival of the J.League being a much-anticipated addition.

For the first time ever, the new licensing agreement also introduces the J.2 League and J.3 Leagues, meaning you can play with teams like Tokyo Verdy and Yokohama Sports & Culture Club.

But it appears the Saudi Pro League will continue to be an unplayable league in the franchise, although the majority of players are still available to buy.

The guys over at FMinside have compiled a list of clubs with the highest budgets in Football Manager 2024, and four SPL teams feature in the top five.

Al Ittihad and Al Hilal have both been handed a transfer kitty of €105 million [£91m], according to the website, while Al Nassr [€87 million/£75m] and Al Ahli [€82 million/£71.5m] are in fourth and fifth.

Premier League side Brighton are sandwiched between the above teams with a budget of €93 million [£81m] following the summer departures of Alexis Mac Allister, Moises Caicedo and Robert Sanchez.

Liverpool and Manchester City also feature in the top 10 alongside Celta Vigo, Napoli and Ajax.

Here is the list in full:

Speaking to FourFourTwo ahead of this month's early access release, Sports Interactive studio director Miles Jacobson explained how clubs in the Saudi Pro League can play a pivotal role in your save.

"It wasn’t a spanner in the works – the Saudi Pro League’s summer of business came early enough for us to replicate it this year," he said.

"If you’re playing the game, you’ll see: all of a sudden, the Saudi clubs are looking to buy your players. So we’ve tried to replicate the league both how it is now and how we believe it will be in the future, as well.

"The league isn’t in the game – it’s not playable – we’ll look at lots of leagues in the future to see if we can add them. We want every league in the world eventually.

"But yeah, it was extra work but it came in at an early enough time to be a part of a game, rather than the Saudi Pro League suddenly developing in October and the FM team having to blind panic and get everything in, in time for the release."

The saudi clubs are so hilariously broken in the new fm, please explain to me why al hilal are paying joachim andersen 900k a week and al ittihad are paying ricardo horta 750k a week pic.twitter.com/71fTFILlm6

— bhav 🇵🇸 (@mahtani30) October 21, 2023

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