The president's handbook

🌍 The job

You are the president of world football. Not a club, not a country — the whole game. The World Cup is yours to award, the laws are yours to change, the money is yours to spend, and every scandal in the sport eventually lands on your desk.

Two ways in: take the chair mid-tournament during World Cup 2026, with the real groups as they were drawn, or the quiet start in August 2027 with a clear desk and four years to the next ballot. Time moves a month per turn, seasons run August to July, and the job is played one ruling at a time.

🗂️ The desk

Each month an issue arrives — a club scandal, a federation demand, a tournament crisis, a quiet news cycle. You rule on it in your own words. Write whatever you like: the wording genuinely matters, because the council judges the ruling you actually wrote, not a menu option. The suggestion chips are starting points to edit, not the only answers.

• The impact assessment prices every ruling — revenue, fans, goals per game, player workload. What it says is what happens (for a tabled proposal, once congress passes it).
• The council — 22 named figures across fans, players, chairs and media — reacts in character, and their scores move your standing with each bloc.
• The map shows how every federation took it. That map is your electorate.
• The press writes it up either way — a tabloid, a broadsheet, and your own media office's spin.

📊 The four blocs

Four constituencies decide whether you keep the job: fans, players, chairs and media. Every ruling nudges each bloc — satisfaction is a rolling average, so one bad month dents it and a run of bad months buries it. The chairs matter double: they control congress votes, and they alone can end you.

The blocs want different things. Players hate workload; fans hate greed; chairs love money and hate being overruled; the media love a story either way. Almost every big call splits them — the craft is choosing which bloc pays.

🚪 Losing the job

Three ways out, none of them subtle:

• The confidence motion. If the chairs collapse below 28, or two of the other three blocs do, congress drafts a motion against you — and you go on formal notice. You then have three months to pull the blocs back above the line. Recover and the motion is shelved; fail and it passes. The dashboard shows the countdown the whole time.
• The election. Every four years, all 197 federations vote. Their favour is built ruling by ruling — and by meetings, grants and hosting decisions. Keep the average federation warm and re-election is comfortable; govern for the big nations alone and the minnows will vote you out, one flag at a time.
• The money. Run the reserves deep enough into the red and congress holds a confidence vote on the books alone.

📜 Big reforms

You can't decree a revolution. Anything the strategy office reads as a rule change or a radical move doesn't apply on the spot — it's tabled as a formal proposal, and the confederations vote on it three months later (50% weighted approval, chairs counting double). Support drifts with your standing in between, so table big things from strength.

• One major reform per six months. Congress fatigue is real — a second big swing in the window lands watered down at ~30% effect.
• Effects apply on passage, and the vote screen shows you exactly what just changed — revenue, fans, the lot.
• Try the Sandbox first: it runs the full council against any policy without touching your game.

⚖️ The governance levers

• 🏆 Tournament reform — reshape the World Cup or Club World Cup: teams, frequency, qualification slots, hosts, sponsors. All stakeholder-approved via the proposal stream.
• ⚖️ The laws of the game — change how football is played, in a World Cup off-year. The world spends the next year reacting.
• 🧾 Wage regulation — impose a global cap on club wages: a gentle squad-cost ratio, a luxury tax that pays your treasury, or a hard cap and open war with the players. The squeeze shows in next season's tables.
• 🤝 Meetings — a private hour with any FA president or confederation chief. This is the campaigning tool: federations remember being listened to, and their favour is what elects presidents.
• 💰 Development — fund federations and whole confederations. See below.
• 🧪 The sandbox — rehearse any policy against the full council, consequence-free.

💷 The money

Two numbers matter and they are not the same. Annual revenue is the flow — what the federation earns in a year. Reserves are the stock it piles up into — and only the reserves can run out.

• Income is lumpy by design. A World Cup year refills the treasury; the years between run at a loss. Committing money in a tournament year feels free — the bill lands in year three.
• The Finances tab leads on the trough, not the final balance. A healthy year-seven forecast routinely hides a hole in year three. Judge every commitment by the trough.
• Overdrawn forces emergency measures — cutting grants, a cheap rights fire-sale, or the bank facility at 9% forever. Deep enough and congress votes on your future.
• Difficulty is yours to choose at career creation — Comfortable, Balanced or Unforgiving books. Balanced is the recommended experience; a hands-off presidency stays solvent there.

🌱 Development

The Development tab hands out grants per federation — and the strategy you write matters. Grassroots pitches and coaching programmes multiply the money; vanity stadiums waste it; anything that smells of corruption actively hurts. Money lands as real rating growth at each season's end, and it compounds with consecutive years of funding.

• Small packages are yours to sign off; big ones go through the proposal stream.
• Confederation programmes fund a whole continent at once, weighted toward its weakest members — the fastest way to warm fifty federations before an election.
• Cutting a long-funded nation to zero hurts them — and they remember.

🗳️ Hosting World Cups

Awarding the World Cup is the most valuable thing you control. Bidding opens eight years out and a decision becomes compulsory at four; the field of bidders refreshes every year, so waiting genuinely changes your options.

• Continental rotation applies, as in real life: a confederation that staged either of the previous two tournaments can't host the next one.
• Any of the 197 federations can host — and you can personally invite one to bid. Courting an outsider is how a thin field gets interesting.
• Four years out you pick the host cities — spread the tournament around the country or concentrate it, and choose how much gets built from nothing. Your venue choices write the next four years of headlines.
• The winning region loves you for a decade. The losers do not forget either.

🏆 Tournaments

Every World Cup is played, never skipped. When June arrives the tournament takes over the desk: the clock freezes, tournament crises replace routine business, and each round's results are revealed as you deal with them. Congress is not in session mid-tournament — big reforms wait for the final whistle.

The Club World Cup runs on its own cycle, staged by the next World Cup host as a dress rehearsal — unless you override it.

⚽ The season

The club season unfolds matchday by matchday on the dashboard — 24 leagues, live tables, a league picker. At each season's end you walk the review: tournaments, league tables, cups, international football, development results, and the books last. Your rule changes (goals, workload) shape next season's football, not the one in flight.

🏛️ Congress & elections

Every May the full membership assembles and you must bring one announcement: award hosting rights, change the laws, launch a flagship investment initiative, or deliver a routine address (safe, and read as exactly that). Congress votes on the floor immediately — no three-month wait.

Every four years, election night: 197 federations vote one by one, live on the map. Their favour was built by everything above — the rulings, the grants, the meetings, the hosting calls. Govern the whole world, not just Europe, and the night is a coronation.

💡 Ten tips

• 1. The chairs come first. They count double in every vote and only they can end you outright. Never let them slide while pleasing the fans.
• 2. Write real rulings. A specific, politically clever answer scores better than a bland one — the council judges your actual words.
• 3. Read the impact memo before you commit. Revenue percentages compound; workload points enrage the players.
• 4. Sandbox the radical stuff. A rejected proposal is a public humiliation; a sandboxed one is free.
• 5. Save your reform window. One major move per six months — spend it on the thing that matters, not the first shiny idea.
• 6. Judge money by the trough. The forecast's lowest point is the real number. World Cup years make everything feel affordable; year three sends the bill.
• 7. Fund the minnows. San Marino's vote weighs the same as Brazil's — in congress and on election night. Confederation programmes buy fifty friends at once.
• 8. Meetings are campaigning. An hour with a neglected federation moves its favour — and favour is votes.
• 9. Hosting is a decade of politics. Award it where the story (and the votes) help you most; the rotation rule already narrows the field.
• 10. On formal notice? Go popular. You have three months. Crowd-pleasing rulings, a meeting or two and a quiet month pull the blocs back above the line.