Sports Interactive and Sega today announced the start of a multi-year, multi-million dollar project to bring women's soccer to the "Football Manager" series. The developer added that this will not be a stand-alone women's soccer simulation, but will be fully integrated into "Football Manager," allowing "managers to control a men's or women's club and seamlessly move back and forth."

The studio said that "the development team is committed to ensuring that women's soccer is represented as faithfully as possible with the level of realism and attention to detail for which the series is famous," and that it will not announce a release date until that standard has been achieved.

Says Miles Jacobson, studio director at Sports Interactive: "We have absolutely no intention of creating a stand-alone women's soccer version of FM. What we are doing is adding women's soccer to FM.

"We know that adding women's soccer to FM would cost millions of dollars and have a negligible short-term return. But that is not the issue. There is no hiding the fact that there is currently a glass ceiling in women's soccer. We believe in equality for all and we want to be part of the solution."

Key figures in the sport have welcomed the news. Emma Hayes, manager of Chelsea FC Women, says, "Women's soccer has captured the imagination of fans around the world and is making great strides in terms of attendance and broadcast deals." But for women's soccer to reach the next level, it needs to be recognized as an integral part of the soccer world, not as a separate entity." We want future generations to grow up in a world where soccer is not divided into "girls" and "boys," but just soccer. "The ambitious plans the Sports Interactive team has for Football Manager will play a major role in helping us get there It will play a big part in helping us get there.

Hayes has a history with the franchise as well, becoming the first British female manager of a women's team added to FM's database in 2018.

Jacobson has written a detailed blog post that talks about the practical aspects of this work. He begins by explaining why the project is much broader than just releasing a women's database that works within the existing football manager. He says, "Because adding women's soccer to FM requires more than simply replacing male players with female players.

"First of all, building a comprehensive global database for women's soccer takes time. Our existing database has taken 28 years to build (so far) and there is a lot of information that needs to be researched when adding just one team, let alone multiple leagues. Attributes such as pace, acceleration, agility, etc. will probably stay in the same range, but some attributes may need to be scaled differently. These attributes will of course be reflected in the match engine. The work done in this area (e.g., looking at player height and how it affects play (e.g., if the goalie is smaller, he will aim his shot higher) will be beneficial to the match engine as a whole"

There are currently fan-based projects, such as the Women's Database, that are trying to incorporate some of the women's game into FM, but as Jacobson points out, it is not just about data.

Among other things, a huge amount of mocap is needed. Currently, Sports Interactive has a wealth of mo-cap data for male players, but if you apply this to a female character, you'll get a "hmmm ...... It kind of makes them move like cowboys. "

"We have already completed our first two motion capture sessions with London-based twin professionals Rosie and Molly Kumita. Given the limitations of motion capture during a pandemic, it was essential to be able to work with two people who share the "bubble" and Rosie and Molly were not only great soccer players, but also provided the perfect solution."

Sports Interactive has also appointed a new head of research for women's soccer. Tina Keech, a qualified coach and former head of research and analysis at Smartodds, has already begun building a database for women's soccer.

The team is currently working on a complete design document; FM is never finished and there is always something that can be added. It's not just about adding and being done with it; it will continue to grow along with the rest of the world we create."

The team is also working on the design for the new project.

Jacobson concluded, "We realistically believe that introducing women's soccer to FM will be a multi-year project. At this stage, we don't know exactly how long this process will take, so we can't say exactly which version of FM will debut women's soccer, but our plan is to make this happen as soon as possible, while adding resources to our existing team, rest assured that we will continue to make available all of the features you have come to expect from the new version of FM"