Uncovering the secrets of Football Manager's leaderboard

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What is the leaderboard?

What gets you points on the leaderboard

What stops you from climbing the leaderboard?

So who’s currently top of the leaderboard?

The Verdict

If there’s one thing in Football Manager that’s wrapped in mystery, it’s the leaderboard. You can pour decades into the game min-maxing the best strikers or midfielders for your team, optimising your tactics, but still be left scratching your head about how it works. Until recently, I was right there with you. How do you get points? What’s the sorcery that’s catapulted the guy in first place to the top? Frankly, it feels like no one has a clue.

The only time Sports Interactive officially explained it was way back in 2013—12 years ago! So, armed with curiosity and the investigative prowess of a lower-league scout, I did some digging. Here’s everything you need to know about Football Manager’s best-kept secret.

What is the leaderboard?

The leaderboard is essentially a ranking system that scores and compares players of Football Manager. There’s an all-time global leaderboard where you can see how you measure up against everyone, but there are also filters. Want to compare yourself against players in your country or those managing in the same league? Easy.

These filters are handy if you’re chasing niche bragging rights. Maybe you can’t crack the global top 10, but are you the best manager of Macclesfield?

.The leaderboard filters in Football Manager 2024

What gets you points on the leaderboard

Thanks to the tireless work of a Football Manager community legend who conducted an experiment, we know there are three key ways to earn points:

Time Served – You earn points simply by being employed. Yep, just keeping your job will slowly rack up those digits. In the experiment, the researcher gained five points per week initially, which bumped up to seven points after a promotion. Not exactly the fast lane to leaderboard glory, but hey, it’s something.

2. Match Results – Unsurprisingly, matches are a huge source of points. Wins yield the highest rewards, with better-quality opponents giving you more points. The top payout for a single win? Around 3,000 points.

Here’s where it gets spicy: scoring goals matters—a lot. A 4-3 loss could net you more points than a boring 0-0 draw. So, if you want to climb the leaderboard, forget defensive pragmatism. Park the bus? No thanks. Go full-on Pep Guardiola in a Cup Final mode instead.

3. Trophies, Trophies, Trophies
This is where the big money (or, rather, big points) lies. Winning a trophy can bag you around 600,000 points, depending on the trophy’s reputation and your team’s stature. To put that into perspective, earning eight points per week for being employed would take 75,000 weeks—or 1,442 years—to match a single trophy’s haul. So yeah, win stuff.

What stops you from climbing the leaderboard?

One key rule can stop your leaderboard journey before it even begins: no cheating.

To qualify, you need to:

Avoid using the in-game editor.
Stick to the original database with no modifications.

The first rule is a no-brainer. Without it, someone could just gift themselves a Ballon d’Or-winning regen squad every year and waltz to the top. The second rule, though, feels harsh. Even a simple real-name fix mod can disqualify you. Apparently, the Football Manager gods take leaderboard sanctity very seriously.

So who’s currently top of the leaderboard?

Spoiler alert: it’s not me. My best save lands me at a humble 322,350th place, with just under three million points. I’ve used modded databases plenty of times, so I wasn’t expecting miracles.

The current leaderboard king? A user named IvoryGoonz with King’s Lynn. They’ve racked up a mind-boggling 2,147,486,643 points—yes, that’s over TWO BILLION.

Let’s break that down. Assuming half of those points are from trophies (600,000 each), they’ve won roughly 1,789 trophies. To put that into context, Sir Alex Ferguson managed just 49 in his entire career. Either IvoryGoonz is a Football Manager savant, or there’s some major tomfoolery afoot.

Their highest single-season score suggests they’d need a minimum of 443 trophies to hit their current total. Impressive? Sure. Plausible? Let’s just say my eyebrows are permanently raised.

The Verdict

So, there you have it—the mysterious Football Manager leaderboard, decoded to the best of my abilities (and the community’s research). It’s a mix of time served, tactical brilliance, and silverware cabinet-stuffing that determines your rank.

Still, with so little official information out there, who knows what other factors might be in play? If you’ve uncovered more secrets or have a theory, drop a comment below—because clearly, this leaderboard has more layers than a tactical briefing from Pep.

About the Author

William is the admin of Out of Context Football Manager, an X account that focuses on FM news. He's worked for LADbible Group and is VG's resident FM expert.