Season 14 UFFA Membership Update

Season 13 UFFA Membership Update

Season 11 UFFA Membership Update

Nerve Palace Look to Make History

Sir Evren's formidable Nerve Palace are on the verge of a historic victory in the UFFA Gold Cup as they look to become the first team to retain the trophy following their narrow victory against Grabimbyda Scrufoviznek last season.

Palace will meet Hristo Krastev's BG United, victors in Season 6, in Thursday's final and whoever emerges victorious will become the first to win the Gold Cup for a second time.

Previous Winners:
Season 8: Nerve Palace beat Grabimbyda Scrufoviznek
Season 7: Erdington Villans beat Little Badgers
Season 6: BG United beat Ely Town
Season 5: Old Avenellonians beat Shaolin Avengers
Season 4: King Krimson FC beat Dragon team
Season 3: Rapid Pitesti beat FC Ulander
Season 2: Katalyst FC beat Dukes Park Dons

State of the Economy: Season 7

UFFA representative Rob Cooper presented his "State of the Economy" report earlier today, this first report for 2 seasons, and it makes good reading for UFFA members, inflation has gone from a record low of -81% to a more manageable +18%.

The amount of money in the economy has almost doubled from £285m to £438m, seeing the average team's bank balance increase from a little under £600k to just under £1m. Finally, the PPI has risen 30% from two seasons ago's figure of £2.2m.

	Season 7	Season 5
Inflation (28 days)	18.09%	-81.86%
Player Price Index	£3,012,740	£2,186,780
Size of Economy	£438,347,441	£285,539,93
Average Balance	£978,454	£578,016

- Source

SFA Headline GWYC Semi's

The draw for the UFFA Game World Youth Cup Semi-Finals was made today.

Fresh from their narrow 1-0 victory over Wandsworth Rovers the the SFA Youth Cup Relegation Fodder will play last years winners, and the #1 ranked youth team in the world at the moment, London Town in the first semi-final.

The second semi-final is an all-SFA affair that sees Donut Town meet twice beaten finalists 4ytry. Their two previous meetings in the SFA U21 League this season resulted in a 1-1 draw and a 2-0 victory for 4ytry in the away fixture at Donut Bridge, Town manager Joe Strummer will be hoping his team can do better in a one-off cup tie.

Getting 3 teams into the semi-finals of the premier U21 competition in the world is a great achievement for a small federation. The SFA will no doubt be hoping that they can take this success at U21 level into the senior UFFA competitions next season; only one team from the SFA made it to the Game World Cup quarter-final stages, and none of their representatives in the Gold and Silver Cups managed to make it beyond the last 16 stage.

UFFA Season 7 Allocation

UFFA allocations for season 7 were detailed yesterday, the big news is that lower reputation federations have lost a qualification spot for the Gold Cup for the following season. In an interesting turn of events the New User Football Association has been granted UFFA qualification rights for the coming season, despite requiring all members to leave the federation after their first season in the union, thus forfeiting their UFFA place under existing rules.

Previously UFFA officials have stated that teams changing federation at the end of the season would sacrifice any UFFA qualification they earned at their old federation because allowing any disparity between the number of teams in UFFA competitions could create a further gap between the top federations and the rest. With this being the case it is not good news for the federations that have seen their UFFA allocation reduced this season.

Federation	Gold	Silver	CWC	Youth	Total
XEFA	4	2	3	3	12
PFA	4	2	3	2	11
NFA	3	3	2	2	10
AEFA	3	3	2	3	11
MLFA	3	3	2	3	11
XFA	3	3	2	3	11
SFA	2	3	3	3	11
EEFA	2	2	3	2	9
CWA	2	3	3	3	11
SEFA	2	3	3	3	11
WCA	2	3	3	3	11
NUFA	2	2	3	2	9

UFFA Representative Shaun Meakin explains how this was decided:

In the Gold Cup, the two 4 rep FA's got the most allocations (4 each) with the other strong FA's getting 3 each. Despite not having many people, both the NFA and the MLFA still got 3 allocations as they have a higher rep FA than compared to, say, the SEFA.

In the Silver Cup, only 2 spots were given to the high rep teams as a result of them having 4 Gold Cup spots. The EEFA and the NUFA both got 2 spots as they are the lowest rep (and members) FA's that are residing in the Clough Game World. The rest of the FA's got 3 allocations.

In the Cup Winners Cup, the top Feds got 3 allocations, to make up for not having an extra Silver Cup spot each. The next highest ranked FA's only got 2 allocations as they already had 3 Gold and Silver Cup allocations, and it was felt that it would be unfair on the NUFA and the EEFA if they didn't get 3 allocations in at least one UFFA competition.

UFFA Season 5 Round Up

Our sister publication, UFFA Legends, have completed their roundup of last season's UFFA cup finals, here we bring together their match reviews for the 7 games.

Grass Roots Cup
Winners: Camembert Harriers, managed by Tony McDermot - NFA
Runners-up: Centresbrough, managed by Adrian Harvey - XEFA

Before either team had time to settle, Djibril Cissé converted some good play between him, Ortiz and Delgado to head in the first goal of the game for the Harriers. And since they seemingly controlled proceedings in the first half, it came as a great surprise when Acuna, unmarked in the box, twisted and turned before firing home the equalizer. Even though many chances were created, few were good ones, so that the game went to Extra Time was no surprise.

At the beginning of the last 15 mins though, Camembert Harriers took advantage of some dreadful set piece defending from Centresbrough's side and Rajkovic could fire home the winner - a goal which gave him the Man of the Match award.

Read the full match report at UFFA Legends.


Cup Winners' Cup
Winners: London Town, managed by Mark Lockie - PFA
Runners-up: Sim City, managed by Craig Sim - PFA

In a tight game, Martínez opened the scoring for London Town when he fired in a long shot in the 1st half. Both teams managed to restrict each other from getting Clear Cut Chances, but London Town still had a hefty 9 shots on goal, with Sim City only having 2. This proved to be the difference, and De Luca fired home the winner after Kuzczak couldn't hold a corner.

Another Kuzczak error could have meant 3-0 after another corner, but Lequi's goal was ruled out for offside.

Read the full match report at UFFA Legends.


Silver Cup
Winners: Tycoons Gunners, managed by "Coach" Tycoon - CWA
Runners-up: Nerve Palace, managed by Sir Evren - XFA

In a tight game with no Clear Cut Chances, Coach's Tycoons Gunners held their cool in a tense Penalty Shootout. After Jacques Faty and the Man of the Match, Tuncay, had both missed their penalties for Nerve Palace, Emiliano Moretti didn't slip up and fired home in the decider - after 4 successive penalty goals, having missed none.

Considering that Tycoons Gunners also had a goal controversially ruled out for offside (by Walter), none can disagree with that the win was well deserved.

Read the full match report at UFFA Legends.


Game World Cup
Winners: Harlesden Harriers, managed by Pedro Quieroz - CWA
Runners-up: Camembert Harriers, managed by Tony McDermot - NFA

In a game totally dominated by Harlesden Harriers, it was by no surprise that they brought the Game World Cup trophy home to Scrubs Lane. Mathias Abel, the german DC, scored the only goal of the game off a corner, only challenge being from his own teammate Kjaer.

All in all, a good overall display from Pedro Quieroz' team that never really looked in trouble.

Read the full match report at UFFA Legends.


Gold Cup
Winners: Old Avenellonians, managed by Daniel Smith - PFA
Runners-up: Shaolin Avengers, managed by Matt Booth - MLFA

In a very tight Gold Cup Final, the defensive and offensive capabilities of Old Avenellonians' Household Name DC Federico Fazio turned out to be decisive. After having a few opportunities in the beginning, Fazio gave Daniel Smith's team the leading after converting an Indirect Freekick from Inan. And in the dying seconds of the match, he headed in a Gardner corner to send the PFA team into celebrations.

All in all it was a fair result, but it could have turned out differently if Diakhaté's strike at the end of the first half had ended up in the back of the net.

Read the full match report at UFFA Legends.


Game World Youth Cup
Winners: London Town, managed by Mark Lockie - PFA
Runners-up: The Birmingham Bearded Women, Cat Vegas - XFA

Having taken the lead after just 5 minutes and having been leading for most of the game, London Town must have been in shock when Birmingham's substitute Blauuw took advantage of some poor defending when equalizing the game to 3-3 at the end of the game. But London Town's Gabriele De Luca showed why he's been playing more and more Senior football lately, by cooly firing home the 4-3 goal to give London Town the win.

And considering that Mark Lockie's men had almost twice as many shots overall and on target, it's hard to say anything else than the better team of the day took home the cup.

London Town vs The Birmingham Bearded Women - Overview

Read the full match report in UFFA Legends.


World Youth Cup
Winners: Nags Head Rovers, managed by Rodney 'Dave' Trotter - XFA
Runners-up: Legless End FC, managed by Richard Millar - SFA

In one of the most exciting Youth games of all time, it looked all over when Legless End FC scored 3-2 after Mala's - apperent - hasty through ball ended up at Diallo's feet. But being only 10 men on the pitch after Leandro Silva had to go off injured 7 minutes after he was subbed in, Nags Head Rover could score an equalizer on stoppage time, after Koch found Aleksic with a superb pass, and he converted the 1-on-1 with the keeper.

He followed this up with missing his first Penalty in the Penalty Shootout, but it didn't matter - Richard Millar's men missed 3, Rodney Trotter's converted 3, and was officially the #1 Youth team in Clough in Season 5

Read the full match report in UFFA Legends.

State of the Economy: Season 5

UFFA representative Rob Cooper presented his "State of the Economy" report earlier today, this was the first report of it's kind to go into such depth about the state of the economy so we have little to compare the figures with.

However, we do know that the UFFA reported deflation at 58% as of mid-February, today's numbers show that this figure has risen over 20% in the 2-3 weeks since.

Inflation (28 days)	-81.86%
Player Price Index	£2,186,780
Size of Economy	£285,539,936
Average Balance	£578,016

- Source (The figures above are from March 9^th )

Player Burdon Lifted

Over the past few days young players across the world have come under increased media scrutiny leading to many becoming unhappy at their club's failure to protect them from the media spotlight as they feel the burdon of the expectation surrounding them. UFFA representative Rob Cooper anounced he would be working with the Players' Union to investigate the cause of the recent spate of player unhappiness (source):

The issue is caused by a youngster not being able to handle the pressure of playing in a side which is performing well. Over time the player will adjust and be able to cope better but the only short-term solution is to give them a less important role in the team. This issue does seem to be happening a lot more in the latest release though which is something I am looking into at the moment.

Following this investigation, Players Union representatives have today agreed a deal with the media at large that will see that spotlight reduced drastically, however they stress that this is not a blanket ban and that there will still be some players that this agreement will not be able to protect, in these cases it is the players' manager that must act to protect the player.

The Player's Union has issued these guidelines to assist managers in handling players feeling burdoned by the expectation surrounding them, or feeling the weight of recent media attention (source):

• It is triggered by a low rep player who is also either a very young player, or a young player who can’t handle pressure very well playing an important role in a team that is overachieving.
  
• It is resolved either by the player becoming more famous through playing well for the side, or by the team ceasing to overperform, or by the player being dropped for a while so they are no longer playing such an important role
• If it isn’t resolved then the player’s morale will suffer so they won’t play as well in matches, won’t train as well, and potentially may even refuse to extend their contract.

Deflation at Record High

Rob Cooper announced today the findings of the UFFA's economic review concluding that, as of mid-February, the Player Price Index is facing deflation of 58%.


Transfer Desirability
All players in the game world have a ‘transfer desirability.’ This is a score between 1 and 10 which determines how ‘good’ the player is, based on their ability, perceived potential and their world reputation. Whenever a player is transferred their transfer desirability at the time is stored along with all the other details which include transfer fee, date and the acquisition fee of the player at the time of the transfer.


Market Value
To calculate Market Value (MV) for players we get the details of all the transfers (private deals, auctions and exchanges) that have taken place in the last year (28 days, real time). We then give each of these transfers a weighting based on how recent they are, so more recent transfers will be given higher weighting than older ones. Once we have the list we remove the top and bottom 5% (in terms of fee) to avoid any erroneous transfers upsetting MV. This leaves us with a weighted list of all the transfers that have taken place in the last year.

We are then able to divide up the transfers according to the aforementioned transfer desirability score so we can get at just the transfers amongst players with the same transfer desirability as the player we are calculating MV for. Because we store both the AF of the player and the fee when each player is sold we can calculate the difference, on average, between AF and transfer fee for all transfers that match this player’s transfer desirability. From this we can calculate a basic MV for the player in question e.g. if the average 8/10 player is being sold for 2x his AF then we can simply double this player’s AF to get his MV.


Age and Position
That is nice to know, but we aren’t done yet. In order to get more reliable MV information we go back to our weighted transfers and divide them up by age and by the best position of the player. Once we know what the typical difference is between AF and transfer fee for a player of his transfer desirability rating, age and best position we have a final inflation score for this type of player. We then take this and multiple the AF by this score to come up with MV.


The Player Price Index
Ok, and relax! We now know pretty much how MV is calculated and so, we are now ready to look into how we calculate player value inflation. As discussed above we calculate inflation values based on transfer desirability, age and best position – there are of course only so many combinations of these and every player must fit into one of these combinations. Using this we create a ‘Player Price Index’ which is similar to the Retail Price Index used by the government in the UK to measure inflation.

The way we construct this price index is to come up with an average FML team and give each of the aforementioned combinations of transfer desirability, age, and position a weighting based on how likely a player of that type is to appear in the squad. Once we have this we simply look at the inflation value for each type of player, multiply it by the weighting and add all the scores together. This will give us the current cost, in the market, to buy an ‘average’ FML team. By comparing the Player Price Index (PPI) at different points over time we are able to calculate inflation or deflation in player prices over that period. Typically, the period we look at is 28 days, which corresponds to a year in game time and so gives us an annual inflation rate.

King Krimson To Defend Title

XEFA Organisers have decided to allow current UFFA Gold Cup holders King Krimson to defend their trophy despite Rafael Popovic's decision to move to the AEFA this season, it had looked likely that Rafa's team would not be present in the competition to defend their title.

The decision means that King Krimson will take one of the XEFA's three allocated Gold Cup places in the coming season, leaving only two current XEFA members taking part in the competition -- whilst Krimson's new federation, the AEFA, will be represented by four teams.

UFFA competition places are allocated to federations to award to teams how they see fit -- usually if a team were to leave a federation they would face sacrificing any UFFA competition qualification place they earned in the previous season as federation organisers have proved unwilling to provide one of their UFFA allocation to a team that has left their federation; an approach seen by some as an attempt to dissuade the top teams from moving to rival federations.

After initially informing Rafa that his place in next season's Gold Cup would be forfeited if he moved to the AEFA, XEFA chiefs have now distanced themselves from that position stating 'Common-sense prevailed' after including King Krimson their UFFA allocation for the season.

XEFA Gold Cup Qualifiers:

1. Duelling Dragons FC
   
2. King Krimson
3. ZenEagles

Game World Cup Semi-Final draw made

The draw for the semi-finals of the Game World cup has been made, the first tie will see CWA Premiership title challengers Marsh Factor play EEFA strugglers Throw in the Howell.

Two own goals were enough to secure progress to the semi-finals for Throw in the Howell as they beat Fennia JK 2-1 after extra time in their quarter-final match. It was a cruel defeat for Fennia JK, with defender Bongani Khumalo putting the ball into his own net in the final minute of extra-time as a penalty shootout looked inevitable. Reflecting on being drawn against Marsh Factor George Howell admitted that his team will be underdogs:

I think that Marsh Factor are strong favourites to go through to the final, with quality and pace throughout their team that I think my young side will find difficult to deal with. The T.I.T. Howell players have already exceeded my expectations by getting this far, and it's a real achievement in of itself.

We're still building for the future here at Tar Valon, and the aim for the season was (and still is) to consolidate our Premiership status whilst bringing through quality youngsters to the first team.

Marsh Factor's quarter final with Osgodby Rovers was the tie of the round, and one of the most exciting games of the season so far in any competition. Marsh Factor 'keeper Khune saved a Miguel Amado penalty in the first half before seeing his team go 1-0 down on the hour. Within minutes the scores were level again when Matin Lanig scored his first goal of the match, and that's how it remained at full time.

Extra-time was even more action packed; it took Marsh Factor only 2 minutes to take the lead when Martin Lanig scored his second of the game, but 2 minutes later the scores were once again level when Dominic Adiyiah latched onto a quickly taken freekick. The fans did not have to wait long for the third goal of extra-time either, Adiyiah grabbing his second of the game in the 98th minute to give Rovers' a 3-2 lead.

Unbelievably this lead only lasted 2 minutes before Adrian Colunga scored to bring the scores to 3-3 and complete the most action packed 8 minutes of football you could ever wish to witness. 3-3 it finished and the drama continued into the penalty shootout -- at 2-2, with each side having missed their 3rd spot kick, Marsh Factor 'keeper Khune stood his ground to save Leumi's poor penalty. Martin Lanig converted for Marsh Factor to make the score 3-2 and leaving Rovers' two-goal hero Dominic Adiyiah needing to score to avoid defeat only to see his penalty brilliantly saved by Khune to send Marsh Factor through to their first GWC semi-final to the delight of their manager Adam Marshall:

In the last 3 seasons we haven't made it beyond the 3rd round so we are delighted to be so close to glory. We won the CWA Cup a while back but it looks a bit lonely in the trophy cabinet. Our semi-final opponents won't be a pushover, they've got a very creative midfield, but our lads are buzzing at the moment after scraping through an epic quarter final on penalties. It's going to be a great game.

In the second semi EEFA Permiership favourites FC Koselsk will play MFA Premiership leaders Shaolin Avengers.

Koselsk fought back from conceding an early goal in their quarter-final match against The Moles to win through to the semi-final stage for the second time in their history. Progress was not so simple for Matt Booth's Avengers' though, their game against PFA Division 1 side Mutantes Raivosos went to penalties following a 1-1 draw. Matias Sanchez scoring the final spot kick to take Shaolin Avengers through to their first ever GWC semi-final:

We are estatic to have made it to the semi-finals of the Game World Cup. FC Koselsk away is a very tough draw: Andrew has a great team, and I don't have the best record against him, but as every game, we'll go out on the pitch with an attacking mentality and fight for every ball, and see if we just can't scatch out a result

Top players sacrificed as Clough Credit Crunch takes hold

Eto'o, Tosic, Moutinho and Arshavin. All top players that would no doubt be an asset to any club currently fighting for glory in their respective leagues in the UFFA. Yet the managers that currently look after these stars aren't trying to hold on to them. They're trying to get RID of them (or already have) as they battle against crippling wage bills and stadium costs.

Erdington Villans manager Richard Birchall is keen to offload Samuel Eto'o, despite the striker grabbing a hat-trick in a high profile match against Chester Rats in a high profile Gold Cup match a few days ago. But with the Cameroonian star's 65k pay packet accounting for a substantial chunk of the club's 240k wage bill, it's clear Birchall needs to streamline:

I have so much debt I will probably go bust so I have no choice to be honest. I need to find £5 million from somewhere in next 3 weeks to pay my debt before I go bankrupt.

When the Cloughite asked Birchall how he had such a high debt he replied:

I had a £4 million pound debt but needed a £9 million stadium.

So are these managers simply paying the price for their own financial stupidity, or are they genuinely victims of so-called 'Clough Credit Crunch'? There is no doubt the dramatic slow-down in the transfer market has hit clubs hard. But it can also be argued that managers had ample time to account for the financial impact of the stadiums.

Manager of DeeJayOne FC James Hargreaves says he hasn't been irresponsible:

My problem is that I didn't play the markets beforehand - I got a squad and stuck with it. That coupled with the uncertainty over actual costs for stadiums led me to believe I was being responsible. I knew the stadiums were coming, but there was constant uncertainty in the forums as to costs (which were changed several times) - by the time I realised there would be an issue, the markets had frozen. I was a day or two late on capitalising on the increased market before 'the big crash'.

A quick glance at DeeJayOne's finances reveals a reasonable wage bill with a sensibly planned stadium that matches the club's ambitions, so Hargreaves may indeed have a point.

One thing is for sure - the transfer market needs to get moving again for UFFA managers to have any chance of managing the financial crisis and to avoid being forced to let their top players go for relatively low acquisition fees.

However, manager of the Moles Shaun Meakin remains a voice of optimism:

I feel that, with this current fiscal situation, the market will make a steady rise within the next couple of seasons. It will never reach the dizzy heights it once was but it will return to a sensible level where players will sell for around their Market Value.

If Meakin's prediction does come true, then maybe one day we'll return to an era where top players (on reasonable wages) will continue to ply their trade in a fitting stadium for those loving managers who have the financial means in place to keep them there for many seasons.