Football Manager 2017 game to feature Brexit scenarios

A range of “Brexit scenarios” will face players of the Football Manager 2017 game when it is released next month.

Gamers will have to manage the transfer of virtual football players in “soft” and “hard” versions of Brexit – affecting whether they are able to move freely between the UK and the EU.

However, in a further scenario, work permits may be made available under special conditions.

Managers will receive an alert informing them of new circumstances.

The decision to include the feature was made immediately after the UK’s vote on EU membership in June, according to Miles Jacobson, the game’s director at UK games firm Sports Interactive.

“I started working on the feature on the Saturday morning after the vote,” he told the BBC. “I was trying to work out how it would affect my business and the sport that I love.

“I sat on the sofa for two days reading as much as I could from the pro- and anti-Brexit camps.”

Miles Jacobson told his team he wanted to include the Brexit feature on the Monday after the UK voted to leave the EU
Mr Jacobson added that he went into the office the following Monday and told his team, despite the game’s features having already been finalised, that he wanted to include the Brexit scenarios in the finished title.

“The fact that this is going to happen in the next few years means that it really has to be in the game,” he explained.