FPL Challenge is returning for the 2025/26 season, and there have been some important changes to the way the game works.
Pick your FPL Challenge team NOW
With the first three challenges of the campaign now LIVE, here’s a reminder of how the game works and a look at what's new for 2025/26, so that you can start picking your Gameweek 1 team NOW!
How to play FPL Challenge
A key principle of FPL Challenge is that managers must choose a new brand-new squad for every Gameweek, with each round of matches following a specific challenge that influences team selection due to how points are scored.
This means that it’s easy to drop in and out throughout a season to complete whichever challenges you fancy. But there are still plenty of incentives to enter a squad each week, as your individual Gameweek scores add up across the entire campaign and can help you win some fantastic prizes and earn prestigious “rank badges” (more on those below!).
Another difference from the traditional FPL mode is that managers can enter a team at any time during an ongoing Gameweek, provided their selected players have not yet kicked off their matches and that it’s still possible for their overall squad to meet the challenge requirements. The eventual cut-off point for a team entry, specific to each round, is known as the final Gameweek deadline.
Managers can also make unlimited changes to their team before and during a Gameweek, although these too must be made before a player’s club starts their first match of the Gameweek; after this point, they will be locked into (or out of) your squad for that round.
All of the challenge rules and requirements for each specific Gameweek will be detailed at the top of the Manage Team page.
Full a full breakdown of the FPL Challenge scoring system and the rules, click here.
What’s new in FPL Challenge?
While 2024/25 - the game mode’s first full season - saw varying weekly budgets and formation restrictions, for 2025/26 we have standardised both of these aspects to make selecting a Challenge line-up quicker and easier.
First, Fantasy managers will be handed an unlimited budget for the majority of this season's challenges. This financial unshackling should allow teams to be crafted with more focus on other strategic parts of the game.
The challenge squad size will also be set at six-a-side for most of the weekly challenges in the upcoming season.
This relative sweet spot in terms of team size still allows for strategic thinking when building your weekly line-up, without being as time-consuming as piecing together a larger 11-a-side or 15-a-side squad might prove to be.
The final core design change for FPL Challenge this season is a standard limit of one player per club in each weekly squad.
This principle will be the most flexible, with some club specific challenges - like derby match-ups - meaning the limit could extend to three players per club at times during the campaign.
But by implementing these three key general tweaks to FPL Challenge, the game should benefit from being easier to follow through better week-to-week consistency and more of a focus on the shifting scoring patterns.
What are rank badges?
The most competitive managers will have the chance to earn and improve a rank badge in FPL Challenge.
Rank badges, which will appear on your manager profile and in your FPL Challenge leagues, are earned through your performances across recent Gameweeks. The more points you score, the higher your rank badge will be!
You’ll have to play in five Gameweeks to be placed at your initial rank, after which point you will move up and down the ranks each week depending on your performance in FPL Challenge.
There are EIGHT rank badges, ranging from “Bronze” at the bottom to “Legend” for those managers in the top one per cent of everyone taking part.
Each rank badge has five stars of progress, to show how close you are to reaching the next rank.