League Rules
Introduction to League Rules
One of the best features of Fantasy League Professional is the host of league features
that are completely customisable to suit your own unique style of management.
For the hardened Fantasy League veteran, the options to tweak settings within each
league are almost endless. Set a squad size of up to 18 players per team, or a range
of sealed bid transfer windows throughout the tournament, to keep the competition
and bidding wars intense throughout the entire campaign.
For the more casual fan, there are options available that will produce a quick,
punchy auction, such as 11-men squads with a limited team budget available to each
manager.
Quick Start Suggestions
At Fantasy League, we have developed some default league settings that will help
you set up your league with the minimum fuss.
These parameters have been set up to create a balanced competition for the average
Fantasy League player - the auction will take two to three hours to complete for
average-sized leagues, and each team should be well-balanced - although we cannot
provide a guarantee against your rivals' ridiculous auction bids!
The standard suggested league rules are shown below.
Squad Size:
15 players per team.
Country Quota:
Two players maximum from any real-life country.
Auction Budget:
£100 million.
Tournament Budget:
£25 million, plus any budget left over from the auction.
Bid Increments:
£0.5 million increments for all bids.
Transfers:
Maximum of 20 transfers in the tournament;
Maximum of 10 transfers in Group Stage;
Maximum of 10 transfers in Knockout Stage.
Formations:
All three formations (4-4-2, 4-3-3, 5-3-2) available.
Read through the League Rules section for more inspiration on how to run your league
and read the transfer and scoring sections for information about scoring options
and the online sealed bids engine.
Squads, Country Quota and Formations
As we all know tournament football is no longer an 11-man game. For real-life managers,
the key to success is rotating their players and getting the best out of individual
match-ups. Fantasy League caters for the individual needs of your league members
by giving you flexibility regarding squad composition.
Squad Size
Fantasy League Pro Euro 2012 squad sizes can be between 11 and 18 players.
At the league set up stage, the suggested default squad size is 15 players per squad,
which will ensure that each manager will have a good opportunity to score points
throughout the tournament, while limiting the length of the initial player auction.
As with all the customisable league set-up options, feel free to change this default
limit by editing the input box at the League Rules set-up stage.
Country quotas
When setting up the league, the chairman will set a limit on the number of players
each manager may select from any real-life country, which could be a maximum of
one, two, three or four players from any nation. Managers may not select more players
from each country than the limit allows, and will be restricted from making their
requested transfer if they try to exceed that limit.
The chairman can also increase the quota limits as the tournament progresses. For
example, the quota could be set to a maximum of two players per country at the start
of the tournament, and increased to four per country after the culmination of the
last group stage game.
Formations
Your league's Formations must be selected from the three valid Fantasy League international
formations: being 4-4-2, 4-3-3 or 5-3-2. The 4-4-2 formation is default and must
be available in all leagues, but the league chairman can decide to add one or both
of the other available formations.
Managers can rotate their squads at will to change formation, as long as they are
in keeping with the ones that your local rules allow.
Transfers
Once the auction is all done and dusted and the tournament has kicked-off, the transfer
market can become the life-blood of your league, where crucial decisions can be
made to shape the league table in a clever manager's favour - so it's well worth
considering what kind and the number of transfers you'll allow in your league.
Most transfers are made by picking up free agents from the available players pool,
but there are still plenty of other options and details to consider.
Transfer Limits
Transfer limits add a measure of realism to proceedings and prevent those with more
spare time from dominating your league by making huge amounts of transfers. Transfer
limits are set by the Chairman at the start of the tournament, when they set up
the league rules.
Transfer Windows and Sealed Bids
Transfers can be set so that they available to be made by each individual manager
at any time, or restricted to set transfer window periods through the use of Sealed
Bids.
Transfer Windows can increase the anticipation of making team changes, as managers
must bid on free agents in advance of the Sealed Bids deadline, using the money
they have available for the tournament. When all the Sealed Bids have been submitted,
the Chairman will process those bids through the Chairman' Office screen, and successful
bids will be actioned in advance of the next matches.
Transfer windows are set up using the Sealed Bids Engine, which is available to
all Euro 2012 leagues. The timing of transfer windows is fully flexible depending
on the type of league you wish to run. You may decide to have a transfer window
every three or four days (perhaps after each set of Group Stage matches and also
between the Quarter Finals and Semi Final) or just go for one, crucial, transfer
window just before the Knock Out stage begins.
To facilitate transfers during the tournament, a tournament budget is given to each
team, which can be spent during the transfer windows to bring in new players. When
the transfer budget runs out, then that manager can make no more transfers involving
money, but can still make bids for free in the hope that they pick up a player that
nobody else has bid upon.
For more details on the using the Sealed Bids Engine to set up transfer windows
and specify tie preferences, please see the main Team Changes section.
Swap Deals
Your league could decide that, as well as the standard transfer system that allows
player purchases from the free agent pool, managers should be allowed to do deals
between themselves by swapping players. The Swap Deal facility gives the Chairman
an easy and hassle free method of swapping players between teams. The facility is
only available to the league Chairman to prevent any mischievous underhand dealings
by managers, so the two managers involved should contact their League Chairman when
they want to make the swap.
Team Budgets
Money dominates football, and it’s no different with Fantasy League Professional.
The Team Budget set up at the start of the tournament is the currency that each
manager will use to pick their team during the auction, and also to make transfers
via the Sealed Bids tool during the tournament itself.
As with most Fantasy League Pro Euro 2012 league settings, the Auction Budget is
customisable, as is the Tournament Budget that will be given to managers after the
auction to complete their Sealed Bids.
We suggest, as a default, £100m budget for the auction and £25m (plus
any budget left over from the auction) for the tournament itself.
Its also important a set figure for Bid Increments, being the minimum amount that
a players value can be raised during an auction, and also what roundings the Fantasy
League Pro system applies to bids made during the Online Auction and Sealed Bid
windows.
We suggest, as a default, bid increments of £0.5m, which works well with
an initial auction budget of £100m.
What's Customisable?
The Beauty of Fantasy League Professional is that you are the chairman. You can set the league rules and run the league however you want to, we just update the scores. So, exactly what can you customise in Fantasy League Pro Euro 2012?
Squad Sizes:
Select anywhere between 11 and 18 players per team.
Country Quota:
Select anywhere between one and four as the maximum from any one country (This number can be increased, but not decreased, at any stage via the tournament if you decide to allow more players from a single country in the latter stages). Remember though, there are only 16 teams in the tournament, so if you select squad sizes of 17 or 18 and only one player per country, you won't be able to complete your teams.
Bid Increments:
This is where you choose what increments your managers can bid in. Again, this may have an impact on the length of your auction. For example, a £150 million budget with £0.25m bid increments will lead to a long, nervous auction, while £1m bid increments and a £40m budget will lead to a short, sharp affair.
Rollover Budget:
Do you want any left-over auction budget added to your tournament budget, or should any unspent funds be lost?
Tournament Budget:
Select anything from £0m - £999 million for managers to have to spend on freshening their squad during the tournament.
Transfers:
Most leagues used the Sealed Bids functionality during the tournament in order to make transfers. This effectively means the chairman will set Sealed Bid, or transfer, windows during the tournament and managers will login before the deadline and use their Tournament Budget to bid on players in the Free Agents Pool to replace current members of their squad.
If you are going to use this functionality, you should select that 'Only Chairman' are allowed to make transfers, this will stop managers making changes outside the allotted Sealed Bid window. If you want your managers to make transfers whenever they like, select that 'Any Manager' can make changes.
You can also chose how many transfers are available during the tournament, and can set separate quota's for the Group Stage and the Knockout Stage.
Some leagues also allow 'free' transfers between the auction and the start of the tournament, where as some choose to have transfers count towards the quota right away. You can select which option you want on the league set-up page.
Formations:
Select one, two or all three of the available formations (4-4-2, 4-3-3, 5-3-2).