'Azerbaijani club Baku FC have appointed Vugar Guloglan oglu Huseynzade, aged just 21, as their new manager in preference to French former European player of the year Jean-Pierre Papin - based on his experience of playing the computer game Football Manager'.

Found this on the BBC website - theres FM's next marketing year sorted!

Maybe next year they'll show the manager's full face on the cover :)

I've always wondered what impact the game has on real life football.

Highly rated young players such as Lucas Piazon seem to have moved to decent clubs, and i always wondered whether it was due to the database that is Football Manager.

Oh you mean soccer.

:P

Not opening that debate up!!

I mean football....;) We invented it, we called it football.

So ner ;)

Weird thing in America is, that you play a game where you carry around an egg in your hands and very rarely kick it with your foot, but still call it football :)

Depending on who you believe, the word "football" was created as a way to differentiate between games the nobles played which were on horses to the games peasants played which was on their feet. If it is true, the use of the term football for American Football is perfectly fine as American Football is, in fact, played on your feet.

P.S. It is used for other sports which you carry an egg around not just in the U.S., but other commonwealth countries such as Canada and Australia.

In Australia they have their own game called Aussie rules football:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zxhqXzVBen4#t=40s

In Ireland they have the Gaelic games football: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Football_League_%28Ireland%29

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=C_I-91-iI3I#t=64s

But they also recognise that english football is football. Their own "football" are spin offs between football and rugby.

I know a similar story about how football developed from rugby. Fine people wanted a cleaner game and forbid to play with hands, it was only allowed to play the ball with the foot. Don't know if that's true, about that topic there are different stories in circulation.

Canadian Football is a spin-off of American Football, Australians and Canadians (at least the ones I've talked to) refer to Association Football as Soccer, and I sincerely hope the vast majority of Americans know that in most countries the term "football" refers to Association Football. Also, I am well aware that their sports are rugby based.

I thought Rugby was developed after Association Football, but I could be wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_Superstar

Hmmm, the Australians I've talked to refer to it as soccer... Could be a regional thing. Still, point taken.

On wiki it says that in 2004 their league folded, and they created a new one, which probably changed it to football league. " it was founded in 2004 following the folding of the National Soccer League"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-League

Or maybe that way ;-) I only remember that there was a split up between the two, because one group wanted to use their hands with a closer and tougher gameplay while the others preferred a cleaner play using only the foot.