Ladies and Gentlemen, here are the tournament dates for your diary.
The Champions League will kick off after the first international break, and will be joined by the Intramural League at the Quarter-Final stage. The BFFA Cup will begin early in 2024, using the “winter break” split-week gameweek to kick things off.
The 2023 Champions League
The Season 10 Champions League will of course begin with the draw for the Group Stage. The draw will prospectively take place on Thursday 31st August to co-incide with the UEFA Champions League Draw.
First we will draw the seeded teams into four different groups. The seeded teams, last season’s League Champions, are: AFC Chester, Housewives Favourite, Mighty Fine Feeling and Uncle Monty. The World Number 1’s, Mighty Fine Feeling, will be playing in their sixth Champions League and looking to repeat the glorious wins of 2017 & 2021.
Then we will draw the remaining twelve teams out and sort them into groups. Current holders Gloopy Yarbles will be fiercely defending their crown whilst simultaneously taking on the Premier League for the first time. Fergi Time and CG XI made it to the Group Stage via the playoffs, outscoring two already very high-scoring teams ASG and Peltier.
There will be six gameweeks in the First Round in which each team plays the rest of the group home and away. At the end of the group stage, the top two from each group go through to the Quarter-Finals. The teams that finish third will be entered into the IML (see below) and the fourth-placed teams simply go out.
The Quarter-Finals will match the same format as previous seasons:
QF1) Winner Group A vs. Runner-Up Group B
QF2) Winner Group C vs. Runner-Up Group D
QF3) Winner Group B vs. Runner-Up Group A
QF4) Winner Group D vs. Runner-Up Group C
Two-legged ties (GW’s 11 & 12). The best aggregate score goes to the Semi-Finals.
Semi-Finals:
Winner QF1 vs. Winner QF2
Winner QF3 vs. WInner QF4
Again, two legs (GW’s 13 & 14). Winners meet in the Final.
We skip Gameweek 15 as it’s a midweek fixture (not everybody has time to prepare) and Gameweek 16 for the IML Final. Then the Champions League Final will be played in Gameweek 17, on the weekend of the 16th December. There we will see Bournemouth play Luton (which finished 3-2 last time they met), Burnley v Everton (also 3-2) and Liverpool v Man United (and we remember how that one finished last time…)
The 2023 Intramural League
The BFFA’s secondary inter-league tournament gives the midtable teams an opportunity to play for a minor prize before Christmas.
Fourteen teams were entered into the qualifiers last season and each league put forward one team to represent them in the IML. This season they were – Route 57 FC (from the Premier League), GoFYS FC (Championship), BattleVAR Galatico (League One) and Harambe Hotspur (League Two).
The IML fixtures will be drawn with the Champions League draw, however, we won’t know who each team will face until after Gameweek 10. The four teams that qualified (above) will each be drawn against a Champions League Group. Whoever finishes third in that group will meet the IML qualifiers in GW11.
With eight teams in the IML proper, the tournament opens at the Quarter-Final stage. Two legs in the QF’s and also the Semi’s. The winners of the QF featuring a Group A team will play the winners of the QF featuring a Group B team, and the other two winners go into SF#2.
There will be no midweek CL or IML midweek games again this year, so this year’s IML Final will take place on Gameweek 16. The weekend will feature Luton hosting the treble-winners Man City at Kenilworth Road, Fulham entertaining cross-town Londoners West Ham and Spurs trying to get some revenge on a Newcastle side that obliterated them 6-1 in April.
The 2024 BFFA Cup
It’s the big one. This is where all forty teams come together in a straight knockout for a title.
The First & Second Round Draw will hopefully take place on Sunday 7th January 2024 (or Monday the 8th) to match the FA Cup 4th Round Draw. The First Round will feature the 16 teams with the lowest total scores on New Years Day (i.e. after GW20). They will be drawn into eight games before the Second Round Draw, which will set up the remaining 24 plus the eventual winners of those First Round ties.
The First Round will play out across the elongated Gameweek 21, with any replays taking place in GW23.
The Second Round will play out a week later in Gameweek 24, and if there are any replays necessary there, they will be played the week after.
Before our Third Round, the FA Cup will have its 5th Round matches, which usually feature a lot of Premier League teams, so there will not be any BFFA Cup games that weekend. There will however, be a draw for the rest of the tournament. The BFFA Cup Third Round Draw will place the final sixteen teams into a bracket and guide two sides all the way to the Final.
The Third Round will be in GW 27, the Quarter-Finals in GW 30, the Semi-Finals in GW 33, leaving enough time to have the Final in Gameweek 35, which will include local-ish rivalries such as Bournemouth v Brighton, Man United v Burnley and Spurs v Arsenal. Replays are scheduled if necessary, and gameweeks that have fewer than seven Premier League matches may be postponed, but all managers involved will be consulted.
Tiebreakers
Because it’s good to get these cleared up nice and early.
Champions League & Intramural League:
As in previous years, the Champions League & IML Finals will be decided by Goals Scored. If that doesn’t produce a winner then the Final will be replayed. If that replay is also drawn, then the following method will be used:
Group Stages: If two teams are tied on table points then teams are separated first by total matchpoints scored, then total goals, least red cards, total assists, least yellow cards, most bonus points, most BPS points, least minutes played and finally, if necessary, most recent gameweek scores.
Quarter-Finals & Semi-Finals: If a match is tied after both legs, the match will be decided by total goals in both legs, least red cards, total assists, least yellow cards, most bonus points, most BPS points, least minutes played, then best most-recent score.
The Final: If the match is drawn then the winner will be the team that scored the most goals. If at this point the teams are still tied, we will replay the Final. If for some reason two replays can’t separate the teams then the SF tiebreakers will be used.
BFFA Cup:
Any match that is drawn will be replayed.
If the replay still doesn’t decide a winner, then it wil be decided by: total goals, least red cards, total assists, least yellow cards, most bonus points, most BPS points, least minutes played and finally, if necessary, most recent-gameweek scores.
The League
The regular league season will again run from Gameweek 1 until Gameweek 36. At that point, we will declare the league champions, promotions, relegations and post-season set-up.
The post-season will follow the same format again – Pro/Rel playoffs, CL Qualifiers and IML Qualifiers, plus the Wooden Spoon, Runners-Up Trophy and the Champion-of-Champions tournament. And this season, the fourth-placed teams won’t automatically qualify for the CL if they share a League with the CL or the BFFA Cup winners. This season, those auto-enrol places will be given straight to the next-best highest-scoring yet-to-qualify team in the BFFA. So watch the Best-ish table closely as we draw towards the end of the season. Those big FPt Totals are even more important this year!
Full details of these will become available in the final quarter of the season, but the format is available to see here. Also, feel free to look through the last two/three weeks of last season in the Standings section.
The Best-ish competition will again continue right to the end of the season (Gameweek 38). Game on!
Hope you’re ready for a great season!
Good luck.
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