Championship Manager

This article is about the video game series. For the first game in the series, see Championship Manager (video game).
Championship Manager
Genre(s)Sport
Creator(s)Collyer brothers
Platform(s)Amiga, Atari ST, DOS, Windows, Mac OS, Xbox, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Xbox 360
First releaseChampionship Manager (1992)
Latest releaseChampionship Manager 17 (2016)

Championship Manager is a series of football-management simulation video games, the first of which was released in 1992.

The Championship Manager brand and game was conceived by brothers Paul and Oliver Collyer. In a scenario typical of many self-made game programming teams in the early days of the industry, the original Championship Manager game was written from their bedroom in Shropshire, England.[1] The brothers subsequently founded a development company to take the game further, Sports Interactive, and moved to Islington, North London. Championship Manager became the most popular football management sim of the later 1990s and early 2000s, regularly setting sales records.[2]

In 2003, Sports Interactive split with Eidos, the publishers of Championship Manager.[3] Sports Interactive retained the game's database and match engine, producing a new game based on these titled Football Manager. Eidos retained the name and interface, with Beautiful Game Studios taking over the development of Championship Manager. Although the two series initially ran alongside one another, the sales of Championship Manager began to fall below those of Football Manager. The most recent full version of Championship Manager was Championship Manager 2010, with an iOS mobile game in 2011 the latest game to date released by Eidos.

Square Enix Europe, owners of the brand after purchasing Eidos, revived Championship Manager under the title of Champ Man in 2013. They have released five games for iOS and Android handheld systems and mobile phones since then.[4]

  1. ^ Hale, Ed. "The Untold History Of The Championship Manager / Football Manager Games". Retro Collect. Archived from the original on 20 July 2018. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
  2. ^ "The Death of Championship Manager – as I saw it". Sportskeda. 19 December 2011. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
  3. ^ "Football Manager boss ends silence on Championship Manager split". CVG. Archived from the original on 8 December 2014. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
  4. ^ "The Official SQUARE ENIX Website".