The next edition of Football Manager will see the game take its boldest step yet.
Having earned a reputation for its remarkable ability to predict the futures of young players, the game will now pursue the slightly more onerous task of predicting an entire country's future.
Yep, the upcoming version of Football Manager will attempt to predict how Brexit will affect the UK economy, and, more pertinent to those playing the game, how the decision will affect players' work permits.
Miles Jacobsen, the game's creator, spoke to the Telegraph today, and here is how it will work.
Between three and 11 years into the game, players will be alerted that Britain have decided to leave the EU, presumably after someone parked the bus falsely promising a ton of money to the NHS.
Then, players will have to deal with one of three scenarios: either a soft Brexit, a hard Brexit, or the scenario in which footballers are gifted the same special rights as 'entertainers', meaning the worries over work permits won't apply.
A hard Brexit will have the most profound effect in gameplay: it will make it more difficult to obtain work permits for players from the E.U.
Jacobsen explains the potential ramifications to the Telegraph today, and how the entire situation may affect football:
There is also the option that sees us adopt a system like Italy’s, where there is a limit on the number of non-EU players in each squad. The limit of non-UK players that British clubs are allowed could range from anything as high as 17 to as low as four.
“If you only had four non-UK players per squad, that’s going to make things difficult. All of a sudden Championship-quality players are moving into the Premier League to fill up slots. That could mean the overall quality drops, and that means the TV money goes down.
Meanwhile, transfer fees go up: foreign players are worth more to British clubs because you need to make sure you make the most of those four slots, and the best British players become more valuable, and so more expensive, too.
This is a fairly remarkable level of depth added to the game, as it tries to work out and predict something seemingly nobody else can.
The game may also indluge in scenarios in which Scotland and Northern Ireland leave the U.K.
Newsworthy to right-wingers of many kinds.
This also affords us the chance to repeat our favourite Brexit/football joke from the Euros. It came as England defended extremely poorly against Iceland.
At least England are allowing the free travel of foreigners in out penalty area.
