Football Manager will no longer use the Manchester United name following a trademark dispute

Future games in the Football Manager series will not refer to Manchester United by its actual name, following a trademark dispute.

In a tweet posted today, the official Football Manager accounted stated: “Manchester United and Sega have agreed a settlement to amicably resolve their trade mark dispute relating to Football Manager. Both parties are pleased to resolve this matter to their mutual satisfaction.”

When asked by a follower what this would mean going forwards, the account replied that from Football Manager 22 the team will instead be called Manchester UFC or Man UFC.

According to Sega, the name changes were only made to settle the dispute on a “no admissions basis”. This means even though Sega will stop using the Manchester United name, this doesn’t mean it’s admitting it was in the wrong to do so.

“Sega and Sports Interactive maintain that they do not need a licence to use the Manchester United name but have made the change as a gesture of goodwill so that both parties can move on,” it tweeted.

Football Manager games feature real team and player names for the most part, but some teams have fake names and players due to licensing issues. In Football Manager 20, Juventus was renamed Zebre, while the German and Japanese national teams have fake player names.

The PC version of the name has an active modding community on Steam, where players upload unofficial updates which replace the fake team, player and competition names with real ones.