We ran PRO11, a Pro Clubs league for PC clubs, from January 2017 to February 2019: five seasons on FIFA 17, 18 and 19, two Prestige Cups, 127 clubs signed up and 936 fixtures, every one of them still in our league archive. This guide is what we’d tell anyone starting a league in FC 27: what you need, the rules that stop arguments, how to schedule matches, and what our own data says about why leagues fail.
What you need to run a Pro Clubs league
Before you announce anything, make sure you have these:
| What | Why | What we used |
|---|---|---|
| 2–4 admins | One person can’t chase results, settle disputes and update tables every night | League admins plus a Match Input Administrator we recruited in 2017 |
| A place to talk | Captains need one channel to arrange matches and one for announcements | Our website’s messages, then Discord from 2017 |
| A rulebook | Every dispute you didn’t write a rule for becomes an argument | Our /rules/ page, still online |
| Fixtures and a table | Clubs need to know who they play and where they stand | A WordPress site with the SportsPress plugin |
| A results process | Who reports, how fast, with what proof | Winner reports within 12 hours, with four screenshots |
| Enough clubs | Too few and the season is over in a month; too many and you can’t vet them | 9 to 16 clubs per division |
Before Season 1 we held a captains’ meeting on TeamSpeak to explain how arranging matches and entering results worked, then posted a written summary for anyone who missed it. Do the same on Discord: a short voice call plus a pinned message saves you weeks of repeated questions.
Rules that prevent disputes
Our full rulebook is still online. These are the rules that did the most work, and why:
| Rule | Our version | Why it mattered |
|---|---|---|
| On the pitch | ||
| Minimum humans | At least 5 human players per side | Stops a club turning up with two players and the AI |
| No ANY | The ANY slot was banned | One player controlling every AI is a different game |
| Restart window | Either club may quit within the first 5 in-game minutes, once per fixture; any goal carries over | Covers a disconnect or wrong lineup without a replay argument |
| Fair play | No goalkeeper-blocking glitches, no time wasting in the corner | Lists the exploits by name so nobody can say it wasn’t a rule |
| Cards | A red card bans the player for the next match; 5 yellows = a one-match ban | Gives cards a cost, like real football |
| Before and after the match | ||
| Lateness | 15 minutes’ grace; after that the on-time club may claim a 2-0 win, reviewed by admins | A clear limit ends the ‘we’re nearly ready’ wait |
| Arranging | Agree the time at least 3 days ahead; cancelling with under 3 hours’ notice is a default loss | Late cancellations hurt more than no-shows |
| Invite problems | If the invite fails, reschedule; if it fails again, it’s a 0-0 | Stops the same fixture being rescheduled forever |
| Results | The winning captain reports within 12 hours (the home club on a draw) | The winner is always keen to report |
| Proof | Four screenshots: Match Facts, Match Events, and both clubs’ assists | Assists screens show who actually played |
| Names | Every player’s in-game name must match their registered name | Without it nobody can check for unregistered players |
| Penalty points | 1–3 points per offense; every 10 points costs one league point | Small mistakes get a cost before they become habits |
The two rules we enforced most were names and screenshots. Two weeks into Season 1 our captain notes said “Nearly every team has 50% wrong Known As”, and missing assists screenshots meant we couldn’t prove who had played. The penalty-point system came in less than a month later, because reminders alone didn’t work.
What to add for FC 27
The game has changed since 2019, so your rulebook needs a few lines we never had:
- One league club per player. FC 27 lets everyone be in up to three clubs, so write down that a player may only play for one club in your league, and that they must play from the club they registered. Our rule that a player can play at most two league matches a week (added in 2018) stops ringers moving between clubs mid-matchweek.
- Amps. Amps boost a Pro for six matches and can be bought with Coins or FC Points (see Amps and consumables). Decide whether they’re allowed before the season, not after a complaint.
- Builds. All archetypes are unlocked and resets are free, so you can’t stop a club changing builds between matches. Only add a build rule (a height cap, archetype limits) if your admins can actually check it.
- Platforms. PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC can play each other, Switch 2 can’t. Pick one group, or say crossplay is required.
- ANY. Players still report ANY in FC 27 11v11 (see how to control all players). Keep it banned unless your league is built around it.
Registration and rosters
Our process had three steps, and it still works:
- The captain registers the club: name, abbreviation, logo and which competition it enters. An admin approves it.
- Each player registers a profile under the same name they use in game. Players had to be registered and approved 24 hours before their first match.
- Transfers are limited. New clubs could sign anyone for their first two weeks; after that we allowed 8 transfers in Season 1 and 5 per season later, with a maximum of 23 players per club.
Limited transfers sound bureaucratic, but they stop a club from signing four players from a rival the night before a title decider.
Keep a waiting list. Our “how to join” post told new clubs exactly that: sign up, and if a club drops out, you take its place and play its remaining fixtures. We needed it. The Season 1 table has 20 clubs for 16 places, and the Season 4 Second Division 14 clubs for 12 places, because clubs folded mid-season and replacements took over.
Scheduling and arranging matches
How we did it:
- Matchweeks with two matches each. Every club plays every other club home and away. Clubs could play their two matchweek games in either order.
- The home captain makes first contact. If they don’t, the away captain contacts them. If the two can’t agree a time, the admins pick one.
- Arrange at least 3 days ahead, and no more than 3 weeks. Anything further out tends to get forgotten.
- A two-week break between seasons and a one-week break at mid-season gave clubs time to catch up on postponed games.
Our archive shows when Pro Clubs players can actually play. Of the 473 played matches with a real kick-off time on record, 86% started between 8 pm and 11 pm UK time, and only 8 were played on a Saturday. Monday, Thursday and Tuesday were the busiest nights. If your league spans time zones, set one league time zone in the rules and list kick-off windows in it.
How to play a league match in FC 27
Leagues play their matches as Club Friendlies. When we checked in game in October 2026, the club match types in the Play settings were League Match, Club Friendly and Practice Match, and each club can turn on My Club → Other → Settings → Available for Friendlies so other clubs can challenge it. Tell every captain to switch that on when they register.
On match night:
- Both clubs gather at the Clubhouse. Players who are in more than one club switch to the right one first (My Club → Other → Switch Club).
- The home club starts a Club Friendly against the away club. In our day the instruction was simply to “search for the club you’ll be playing against and send them request for a friendly”, and the principle hasn’t changed.
- Agree kit colors before kick-off (our rule: the home club has priority).
- Take the result screenshots before anyone leaves the post-match screens.
New to the FC 27 menus? Our guide on how to play Pro Clubs shows where everything is.
Results, tables and stats
The rule that worked: the winning captain reports the result, the home captain does it after a draw, and the other captain checks it. Winners report quickly. We asked for results within 12 hours and, in our captain notes, said we really expected them within two.
Ask for proof every time. Our four-screenshot rule (Match Facts, Match Events, home assists, away assists) covered the score, the scorers, cards and who played. Ask the losing club to take screenshots too, because the winner will one day forget. Recording the post-match screens on video and taking stills from it was the trick we recommended to captains.
Be realistic about stats. We tracked goals, assists, cards, Man of the Match and clean sheets, but our season summaries called clean sheets “inconclusive” twice because captains forgot to enter them. Track what decides the table first (results), then goals and assists, and treat everything else as a bonus. For reference, real PRO11 matches averaged 3.7 goals, and 20% ended in a draw. You can browse every final league table in the archive.
Tools for running a Pro Clubs league
| Tool | Use it for | Our take |
|---|---|---|
| Discord | Announcements, a captains-only channel for arranging matches, results, free agents | Essential. Our 2017 guide already called the captains’ chat on Discord “the best way” to arrange a match |
| Google Sheets or Excel | Fixtures, results and a table with formulas | Fine for one division and a season or two |
| A league website | Club and player pages, stats, history | We used WordPress with SportsPress, a free plugin (10,000+ active installs, updated July 2026) |
| A bracket site such as start.gg | Cups and knockout tournaments | Easier than drawing brackets in a spreadsheet |
| A form | Club sign-ups, admin applications | We used Google Forms for admin applications |
Set up Discord with as few channels as possible: announcements, rules, a captains-only match-arranging channel, results, and a free-agents channel where players without a club can post. Our Discord guide covers how to write a free-agent post and which servers to advertise your league in.
A website is worth it only if you’ll keep it updated. Ours is the reason every PRO11 result still exists, but it took real admin time every week.
Using FC 27 features in your league
- Club Friendly is your league match, as above. Turn on Available for Friendlies for every club.
- Up to three clubs per player makes recruiting easier, because players can join your league club without leaving their friends’ club. It also makes ringers easier, hence the one-league-club rule.
- Club Tournaments and House Rules are EA’s own limited-time 11v11 events with rewards, entered from the Clubhouse. You can’t set them up yourself, but they’re a good activity for a league break week. Our guide to Club Tournaments and House Rules explains each rule.
- Drop-In, Rush and small-sided games are free trials. Clubs can test new signings there before registering them with your league.
- Tactics are shareable. Each Clubs tactic has a share code, so a captain can send the squad the tactic for the next match before kick-off. Our tactics board helps plan one.
What we learned from running PRO11
Our archive is more honest than our memories, so we went back through all 936 fixtures.
One in three fixtures never happened
323 of the 936 fixtures (35%) ended as a default win, a default draw or a forfeit. Most of them were decided at the matchweek deadline because one club didn’t arrange the match, didn’t show up or had folded.
| Season | Game | Format | League fixtures | Decided by default |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (Jan–May 2017) | FIFA 17 | 16 places, 30 matches each | 240 | 89 (37%) |
| 2 (May–Aug 2017) | FIFA 17 | 12 clubs, 22 matches each | 132 | 69 (52%) |
| 3 (Dec 2017–Mar 2018) | FIFA 18 | Two divisions of 9, 16 matches each | 144 | 27 (19%) |
| 4 (Apr–Aug 2018) | FIFA 18 | Two divisions of 12, 22 matches each | 277 | 125 (45%) |
| 5 (Jan–Feb 2019) | FIFA 19 | 25 clubs in five groups of five | 101 | 10 (10%) |
A few clubs cause most of the trouble
The default losses weren’t spread evenly. Ten clubs account for 54% of them (155 of 285). After Season 2, the worst for defaults at 52%, we announced that PRO11 would return for FIFA 18 “with carefully selected teams”. Season 3’s default rate fell to 19%. Vetting works: ask new clubs how many players they have, when they play and who their backup captain is, and give priority to clubs that finished their last season.
Short seasons beat long ones
Our longest season (16 clubs, 30 matches each, January to May) needed four replacement clubs. Our shortest, Season 5’s groups of five clubs, ran for six weeks and had the fewest defaults (10 of 101, although another 10 fixtures were never played). People’s availability changes over four months; over six weeks it mostly doesn’t. For FC 27 we’d run 8–10 club divisions and seasons of 6–10 weeks, with a cup in between.
Clubs come and go
127 clubs signed up across three years, but only 78 played at least one fixture, and 55 of those 78 played in only one season. Plan for turnover: keep a waiting list, make joining mid-season possible, and don’t build a format that collapses when one club leaves.
Plan for fewer seasons than you hope
Our rules said “We aim for 3 seasons a year”. We managed two in 2017 and two in 2018. New game releases, summer holidays and admin time all get in the way. Promise less and finish every season you start.
Paperwork causes more disputes than football
Almost none of our arguments were about what happened on the pitch. They were about unregistered players, wrong names, missing screenshots and late results. That’s why the types of players you deal with as a Pro Clubs manager matter for league admins too: a captain who doesn’t do the admin will cost his club more points than his striker wins.
- 01Write the no-show rule first. It will be the rule you use most. Ours: absent = default loss plus penalty points.
- 02Make one person per club responsible. A captain plus an optional fixture coordinator. Admins chase one name, not a squad.
- 03Publish a deadline for every matchweek. Unarranged matches get an admin-picked time or a default at the deadline, not a third week of messages.
- 04Reward finishing. Give returning clubs that played all their fixtures first pick of divisions and cup places.
- 05Keep the archive. Tables, results and season summaries are why players come back, and why we could write this guide.
Running a Pro Clubs league is mostly admin, not football. Write short, strict rules for attendance, proof and reporting, vet clubs before the season, keep divisions small and seasons short, and use Discord and Club Friendlies to do the rest. FC 27 makes the matchday easier than FIFA 17 ever did; the hard part is still getting twenty clubs to turn up.
- Fixtures in our archive
- 936
- Decided by default
- 323 (35%)
- Kick-offs 8–11 pm UK
- 86%
FAQ
How many clubs do you need for a Pro Clubs league?
Eight to twelve clubs per division is a good size. A double round robin with 10 clubs is 18 matches per club, which at two matches a week fits in about nine weeks. Our divisions ran from 9 to 16 clubs, and the 16-club season was the hardest to finish.
Can you run a Pro Clubs league inside FC 27?
Not fully. FC 27 has EA’s own League, Playoffs and Club Tournaments, but EA hasn’t announced any tool to create a private league with your own fixtures and table. Community leagues play their matches as Club Friendlies and track results on Discord, a spreadsheet or a website.
How do you stop teams not showing up?
Make a no-show cost something: a default loss plus penalty points, and a 15-minute grace period after which the waiting club can claim the win. Then vet clubs before the season. In our league, a few clubs caused most of the no-shows.
What’s the best software to run a Pro Clubs league?
Discord for communication plus a spreadsheet is enough for one division. If you want club and player pages and a lasting archive, a WordPress site with SportsPress does the job, as it did for us. Use a bracket site for cups.
What rules should a Pro Clubs league have?
At minimum: humans per side, no ANY, a lateness limit, who reports the result and with what proof, what happens after a disconnect, card bans, transfer limits, and one league club per player. Our PRO11 rules are a good template.
Sources
Checked on 9 October 2026:
- PRO11 league archive: archive home, league rules, final tables, and our 2017 posts How to arrange a match? and How to join the league?; fixture counts, defaults, kick-off times and club numbers computed from the archived SportsPress data
- In-game check by the site owner, October 2026: club match types, Available for Friendlies, Switch Club and the three-club limit
- EA SPORTS: The Grounds Deep Dive (Club Tournaments and House Rules)
- WordPress.org: SportsPress plugin (active installs, last update) and start.gg