Why Andros Townsend's wife thought he was fined once - It involves Football Manager game | OneFootball

The hotly-anticipated new FM game has arrived after two long years, but an old version nearly saw Townsend losing his relationship!

After two years of waiting, avid fans of the Football Manager game have finally gotten their hands on the latest edition of the series.

The last time Sports Interactive released an edition was all the way back in 2023, which fully released on November 6 of that year in what would be the last of its engine, before a move to the new Unity engine for the 2025 version of the game.

However, in what was a very controversial move, Football Manager 2025 was eventually cancelled - due for release in November 2024, it was postponed until March 2025 due to many complications with the move to Unity, but then was cancelled entirely a month prior to that date in order to focus on the 2026 installment.

Months and weeks have passed by, and on October 23, the BETA version of the game finally dropped for the excited fanbase, with players around the world set to get stuck into SEGA's latest production - but it's caused some nervous moments for one real-life footballer in particular in the past.

Football Manager game almost got ex-England winger Andros Townsend in big trouble

There are a plethora of players and managers who have publicly professed to playing Football Manager, but one player whose relationship nearly ended due to the game is Andros Townsend - and not because he was an FM Addict.

The former England international winger - now at Thai top flight outfit Kanchanaburi Power - posted on Twitter in 2015 with a screenshot from his wife, Hazel, that she had seen on the social media website that Townsend had been fined for turning up late to training - only for that image to be from someone's Football Manager save!

Mrs Townsend seemed none the wiser, and six years after it happened, Townsend went on to tell talkSPORT how he got in trouble with Hazel for something that happened in an alternate universe!

"I get a text from her one day and I receive a screenshot from Twitter. As you do, she was searching my name on Twitter and a fine came up – Andros Townsend accepts his fine for reporting late to training," Townsend said.

"So her mind is going off; if he wasn't at training and he wasn't at home then where was he? It could have been a real sticky one!

"But she's messaged me and it turns out the screen grab is from the popular video game Football Manager. Someone's obviously posted in on Twitter having a laugh on Football Manager and she's thought it was real!"

Football Manager has popular professional player base - including Ousmane Dembele

Townsend's story got a funny reaction from former professional turned radio presenter Alan Brazil, and it won't be the first time a footballer's in-game career has crossed over into the real world.

Current Ballon d'Or holder Ousmane Dembele was captured on the game as fictional club Winchester FC a few years ago, and his international team-mate Antoine Griezmann is also an avid player.

Former Man United striker and manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer revealed in 2013 that he also used to partake in the popular game back in his playing days at Old Trafford, and he isn't the only well-know manager to do so.

Perhaps quite well publicly known, current Southampton boss Will Still was a self-confessed FM addict back in his youth, which led him on his coaching journey and into the world of management, with another former player of the game being Ange Postecoglou.

The Aussie, who has just departed Nottingham Forest - revealed in the past he used to play the game a lot before he stepped into management, and given his new-found job status, he will have plenty of time to play the new release if he wishes!