
Later it would turn out to be a misunderstanding. SI feared that they were about to be replaced, so they prepared for a split. Tensions grew between Sports Interactive and their publisher Eidos Interactive during the troubled development of Championship Manager 4. This was the first game from Sports Interactive that was published in North America. The Macintosh version of the game came on the same dual format disk as the Windows version, so its sales were also included. It became the fifth fastest-selling PC game of all time at the time according to Chart-Track as well as the fastest selling game from Sega Europe at the time.

It is the inaugural entry in the new Football Manager series, and was succeeded by Football Manager 2006.Ĭommonly known as FM 2005, it competed directly with Championship Manager 5, the severely delayed and widely slated effort from Eidos-funded Beautiful Game Studios.


This game is primarily a management game. This is therefore the first game in what became the long-running Football Manager series. Eidos retained the rights to the Championship Manager name and Sports Interactive retained the game code and database which they developed into Football Manager 2005. Following a long association with Eidos who published Sports Interactive's Championship Manager games, the two companies parted.
