Football Manager has been pushed back once again to a mind-blowingly late release date, with its developer admitting that the iconic game has been 'moving slower than we had predicted'.
At the start of September Miles Jacobson, studio director of Sports Interactive who are behind Football Manager, announced that the game would be delayed from its regular early-November release to late-November.
The chief cited problems with moving the whole game to a new system powered by Unity, a cross-platform game engine, and admitted that the process had been 'challenging for the whole team'.
The developer also conceded that this year's edition would not feature the option to manage an international side as this would hold the game up further.
Now Football Manager has faced another severe setback with the popular game not set to come out until March 2025 - just two months before the season ends.
A statement on its website said: 'After careful consideration, Sports Interactive have made the tough decision to further delay the release of Football Manager 25.
'Following discussions with SEGA, our licensors and partners, we have agreed the best course of action is to delay the launch until March 2025. Specific platform release dates will follow once confirmed.
'In our last Development Update in September, we explained that we needed to push FM25's original release back to give ourselves more time to deliver the best possible experience for this first instalment in a new era of Football Manager.
'This additional time has not been sufficient to ensure the game quality and experience meets your expectations and our very high standards.
'In the previous blog we explained that it has been a difficult development cycle for the studio.
'Many things have been moving slower than we had predicted – despite everyone in the team working at an incredible pace to try and get everything done.
'Timelines were already tight and, as rightly pointed out by many of your recent comments, we were simply rushing too much and in danger of compromising our usual standards.
'This has put an enormous amount of pressure on everyone working across the studio, who are all passionately committed to delivering the best game possible.'
Football Manager remains intensely popular among fans of the sport, with last year's edition the most sold of the entire series
At the start of September Miles Jacobson, studio director of Sports Interactive who are behind Football Manager, announced that the game would be delayed
The statement also pointed out that Football Manager 2025 was set to be 'the biggest technical and visual advancement in the series for a generation'.
The game, which remains at least five months from completion, is available for pre-order for £40.99, down from £44.99.
Originally known as Championship Manager between 1992 and 2004, Football Manager remains intensely popular among fans of the sport, with last year's edition the most sold of the entire series.