I joined the platform in May 2018 in the first 6 months I invested £20,000 and turned this into £40,000 I then withdrew my initial stake of £20,000 not to de-risk but because I was unhappy with the direction of the platform (IPD's). Thankfully I was wrong and the management of FI were correct. The platform continued to thrive and I am well on the way to doubling the £20,000 I left in.

I would not say I am cleverer or have any special methods that other traders do not have, I have simply benefited from the growth of a brand new product that is disrupting the existing gambling market. Many other traders will have similar or better returns and will admit that the main driver of there profits is simply the product growing.

Now when Football Index raised funds to develop there product they would have had short,medium and long term objectives and I would imagine all the changes in the platform were part of an original business plan. As they have continued to raise funds and develop the product these changes will be part of a financial plan that was designed a long time ago and is needed to move the product to a profitable sustainable entity.

As each change has come there has always been disgruntled voices on the forum but if you took your bat and ball home at those points you would have missed out on substantial gains and would now be regretting the knee jerk reaction. I personally regret taking the £20,000 out as I would now have nearly £80,000 instead of £60,000!!

The gains we have made have been extraordinary and deep down each of us here for any length of time must be laughing at the fact we stumbled on to this as most will have normally been losing money to the bookies. We now have sums of money that if not life changing that can make our lives substantially better.

However gains and growth like that cannot continue forever and we must understand that the product owners are not here to just gift us money for so little risk. I have posted elsewhere that you must be an idiot if you thought you could continue to make bets where the bookie allows you to keep all the profits but underwrites 95% of your capital by providing the majority of your money back even if your bet is completely useless.

I personally think covid has accelerated the situation and without it we would have seen the introduction of full order books for the start of the 2020/2021 season with plenty of warning. However the suspension of instant sell was needed to protect our portfolios, if they had brought it back at any point the result would have been carnage with so many traders cashing in at instant sell prices, therefore the next best thing was to introduce buy orders as they have provided some liquidity.

Unfortunately without sell orders liquidity will be limited and poor and even when they arrive it will not be the supreme comfort blanket that we have had in the past. I can accept this as I have profited greatly from the platform and if you were to look back at my posts over the last year have been suggesting that order books will move the platform to a more modern transparent future but with more risk and lower profits as in effect FI have been feeding our pockets with cash to get the product to a certain critical mass to move to the next phase of there development.

Now I know there are several vocal disgruntled forum members and I understand you feel let down and are currently financially disadvantaged (I felt the same a while ago). Mostly you all feel that the removal of an instant sell price has changed your bets and yes it has. However we were all playing a rigged game, we put thousands in that could easily double as the house paid us all the gains but we were in effect only gambling with a few hundred quid as we could instant sell and get it nearly all back. When you look at it like that it was not sustainable and maybe you should now be buying premium bonds.

Therefore for those lucky to have been here for a while maybe you should be thanking FI for the free money and accept that the cushy easy days are slowly going and now we all may need to work a little harder for our money. Profits will still be easy to come by but we will now have to accept that for every 10 big winners we may have a few substantial losers.

I am truly sorry for those who cannot sell low/medium priced players at prices that seem acceptable or because there are no bids, especially if you are new and do not have profits to offset this against but the platform is moving and maybe we should be being more vocal about the things that we possibly can get changed through group pressure:

Increased dividends due to increased commission
Improved player bios
Removal of retired players
Better communications

I would really like this thread to be positive about how FI has improved traders finances and lives and the opportunities it affords in the future, we all know the instant sell removal issue but it has happened so lets look forward.

I have now been trading on the index for approaching 3 years in that time I have both supported and been critical of the management of Football Index. I am not an addicted forum poster but have used it on a regular basis and generally my posts have been well received.

So it is sad to see that a vast majority of regular users have taken the decision to remove themselves from this forum. These members have added a vast amount to many new users Football Index journey and new forum joiners will be worse off because of it.

They have not left because they are Adam Cole fan boys or blinkered and only rockets, they have left as just like 99% of any type of regular forum user they wish to discuss the product and how it can benefit them.

I do not know of any other product where individuals no longer like or want it but continue to be so emotionally attached that they wish to spend a huge amount of their Valuable free time bashing it to the extent it has taken over their lives.

To be blunt:

Football Index will continue in whatever guise it decides to take no matter what a few bitter individuals believe.
Your actions are hurting you not Football Index - Adam Cole will not be losing sleep over threats to bad mouth him or the product on social media. There advertising budget is huge you are not!
The product is gambling/investing so there will be losers - there is no god given right to make money.

Since order books were introduced and instant sell was changed I have seen a large reduction in portfolio valuation, however I knew the risk when I invested and am now trading my way back. The product is not perfect but it is for me much better than traditional gambling and has added to my enjoyment of football/gambling.

Therefore I cannot understand why anybody would want to be a regular member of a forum if it does not add something to there lives, you should be here because you want any of the following:
Learn about the product
Ask Advice
Give Advice
Match up some sales
Have a joke or some banter with other users
Highlight potential issues/problems
Garner opinion of other users on players
Have the odd whinge or moan

No forum is designed for a handful of bitter and twisted emotionally weak individuals to boost there warped minds or so others can plug alternative products to the new and less experienced.

I have been invited and have joined the leavers but will also be here, I am happy to help and advise any new forum members to ensure there experience of such an innovative and potentially brilliant product is not ruined. For those who would like a little guidance on how to get what is best from what is left of the forum:

Ericali - Personally I like him and we get on, though can rub people up the wrong way (what would you expect of somebody with an Eric Cantona Picture) He comes up with some great strategies and is a nice guy behind the no bullshit call a spade a spade persona. I do think he is harsh on FIG as though neither of us pay for his service at least he try's to add benefit to the product there are so many worse people out there.

Rob E - Just block him he is here solely to promote a Forex scam - do not believe a word he says, go back over all his posts from the day he joined and it is evident what his reason for being here is. In addition when looking at a lot of his posts there are spelling and grammar errors similar to what you receive in lottery email scams so beware.

Baydog - Top bloke who I can only say positive things about, is on the forum for all the right reasons and would not hesitate to recommend him for any advice.

Coriolanus (formally Vespasian) - Starting off as decent forum member then got the bitter pill which turned into the bitter and twisted pill is a big fan of Footstock and unfortunately as when not coming across badly he can have insightful things to add, it is just difficult to trust in someone who can be insightful one minute and downright distasteful the next. He is also linked to Mr White, Westy and Tom7471.

Westy - Has been a long time member and generally is worth listening to, again dabbled with Footstock but has not gone to the extremes of some in using the forum to openly try to damage the product/your investment.

Mr White - Supposed schoolteacher who was for a long while the most obnoxious bitter and nasty individual person on the forum, if he has not called you a c**t you are in the minority. Lately he seems to have mellowed but unfortunately the ship sailed a long time ago on me ever taking anything he says seriously.

Dan the Man - Dan is an acquired taste with many good ideas and well thought out strategies the change to instant sell hurt him more than most and since then his posts are checkered to say the least. Dan I like you and you can add so much you need to move on look for value and accept the changes. You are to intelligent to let the past influence the future.

Tom7471 - Again comes up with good ideas but his association with Westy, Mr White and Coriolanus blurs the lines sometimes. He is one of the few when things went negative managed to articulate his misgivings without resorting to histrionics which was impressive.

Anybody whose title is New User if they have not taken the time to change the username and they offer advice then I would generally ignore it - There are a few whingers and moaners who appear from time to time and again my suggestion is to block them.

That leaves all other regular forum users and I have only positive things to say about them all, this could be a great place but currently has been ruined by the actions of a small minority who are probably rejoicing in there actions - my advice is to block them or not engage as when they are bored and leave this place can return to what it should be.

Have fun

Fletch

I thought it may help new and some existing traders if I documented my journey with FI (although brief as it may help).

I work in the financial sector and started looking at FI this time last year and was not convinced so did not invest any funds until May 2018. I decided to treat it like other financial investments which meant thorough research and a buy/sell plan for each player. Some players were bought as potential 3 year holds for dividends and some for potential short term flipping. I also believe that you have to have a personal growth target that you deem acceptable for the risk taken. Everybody will have a different target in mind as each trader can use different strategy's some are far riskier than others. However it is not for me to say what is right or wrong just that you should have a plan and it should be realistic!

My plan was to buy top players initially and then add lower priced players as I went along. I wanted to achieve a good dividend return and wanted a 25% per year return on capital to justify both the risk and time involved.

My deposits were:
May: £1,550
Jun: £4,450
Jul: £2,000
Aug: £3,000
Sep: £250
Oct: £2,750
Nov: £1,000

Total to date £15,000 - there have been a few £10's from referral's and some 10% deposit bonuses.

Currently my portfolio is worth £19,935.75 and my cash balance is £459.02 so totalling £20,394.79.

Of the £5,394.79 profit just over £1,000 has come from dividends and £1,400 from trading players the rest is growth in the players I hold.

My current portfolio is 41 players and is made up of the following:

900 Futures in 3 young players yet to see growth
100 + Futures in each of Neymar, Salah, Pogba, Hazard, Kimmich, Sancho, Dembele, Mbappe, Sterling and Kane
25 - 100 Futures in a range of other top 100 players

As can be seen I have taken a very cautious approach and have benefitted from the recent increase in the top players prices. However what I can say is that I have seen steady growth month upon month and have never been in the red. My dividends have increased each and every month (Am already over £200 this month).

The lessons I have learnt:

Be realistic - If you target say 20% p/a you will probably earn much more but if you target 100% p/a you may lose money.

Dividends - Only a handful of players actually earn a good dividend return, holding these players allows you to reinvest the dividends in other lower priced players who have the potential to earn dividends in the future and so see capital appreciation.

Rome was not built in a day (be patient) this is not like everyday gambling. Some people are here just to gamble which is fine but if you are treating this like an investment do not let that side-track you into buying and selling to often.

Fundamentals are the key - Cheap players are cheap for a reason and expensive players are expensive for a reason however have a plan for each and every player you purchase. Just like the real stock market you must remove your rose tinted spectacles and get off your soap box - just because you like something it does not mean the wider world does - when buying players think what the world sees not yourself.

Final thoughts

My plan was and still is to make a profit over the medium long term and I think about it like this:

G & A is gambling which is fun or you could say its like buying penny stocks.
Young players are like AIM companies which may make it to the big time but more often do not
£2 -£5 players are smaller FTSE companies that cannot compete with the big boys but some do break out
£5 - £10 players are household names that do what they say on the tin
£10+ well that's Amazon/Apple/Microsoft etc - everybody wants them or there product but sometimes buy cheaper products due to price.

I understand we all win and lose money on here in differing ways but we also all benefit from new traders joining and therefore I thought a real life case study may be of help.

Good luck to all for the rest of 2018 and best wishes for 2019

Well this is not a great evening and feels horrible and although FI is not a stock market I would suggest you try to think like it is.

When markets crash they usually recover quickly and those that sell normally sell lower than the prices recover quickly to. However this feels like it has been coming and today/tonight all the conditions required for panic happened.

Firstly there are 3 conditions that set this up:

1. Global pandemic that makes individuals worry about there finances.
2. Removal of the old overly generous FI backed instant sell
3. New more volatile system that many traders do not understand with ridiculously generous 5x IPD that encourage gambling not trading.

Then there today were triggers that set the ball rolling.

1. Kane looks horrendous so IPD traders sell to get on others.
2. Neymar sent off so misses all 5x IPD matches
3. Sancho transfer to Man U looking unlikely so traders want out as he looked overpriced.

Therefore this starts a mass panic and those that now realise there money/gains are not guaranteed panic and list at lower and lower prices whilst big traders hoover these cheap shares up knowing in a few weeks things will look much better.

My guess is there will be a big deposit bonus soon - prices rise and all that sold out tonight regret it.

My advice is switch off and go to bed.

2 months into 2021 and 1 month into MDE and the removal of IPD - I Thought it would be worthwhile to post the true position of my portfolio and look at facts whilst removing emotion.

I have £14,500 of my own money invested in the platform having de risked a long time ago when I had significantly more invested.

I am now left with in excess of 25,000 shares in over 70 players. I have circa 500 shares in the big household names and then 300 in many lower priced players. The portfolio at the mid price valuation is valued at circa £38,000 + £2,000 in cash to trade with.

For the purpose of this post I have erased the past from my memory and am looking solely at future returns using the 1st 2 months of the year as a guideline and have not included January's IPD returns.

In January I won the following:

£1,010 in PB/MB
£106 in TOTM

In February:

£1,170 in PB/MB
£75 in TOTM
£33 in MDE

This is a small sample size but through 2 months that is £2,394 so over 12 months the forecast would be £14,364 which is an incredible yield in the region of 100% return on the £14,500 invested per annum.

The last year has proved to me that I am capable of trading throughout the downturn (has been very time consuming) and I must admit still enjoyable. I have taken big hits on players where needed and now finally feel it will need less managing as it was like a 2nd job!

I like you all am very dissatisfied with the management of FI but when you remove the emotion and look at things clearly how can I be unhappy. Now I do need FI to survive and I need the current situation to continue which requires FI to make better decisions.

I understand we all invested at different points and I am fortunate to be in the position I am but we should all calculate our potential yields for the future as it made very interesting reading to me.

Good luck to all

With the seemingly daily fall in player prices which obviously breeds negative sentiment and fear throughout the FI community it is easy to not be objective and act irrationally. I have taken time out this week to take a step back from the endless daily trading of selling and buying back at lower prices to try to stem the losses and to look at things with an open mind.

The product

FI as a concept is brilliant (I think we would all agree) getting it off the ground and running was a great achievement and the owners need to be congratulated on that. They developed the product from being based solely MB to PB and then added IPD and TOTM. However as any start up that try's to disrupt there marketplace (sports betting) there are costs and when IT is involved these costs are huge. At some point they have to move from loss making to profitable and this would never be possible on a large scale whilst in effect underwriting our bets for us by offering instant sell.

Now we all agree that FI have handled things badly and could have communicated so much better and made some decisions differently that would have helped but objectively thinking I do not believe the end result would have been any different. Instant sell was basically a tool to get the product of the ground which looking back was unbelievably generous and I wish I had thrown so much more money at the platform when it existed as it was in effect a no loss bet.

Writing on the Wall

When IPD's were introduced I am kicking myself for not seeing the writing was on the wall as overnight the platform gave us a massive clue that it was transitioning from a medium term capital appreciation model to a short term gambling product. I actually posted about this at the time (to dumb though to follow my convictions as I was still blinded by the easy profits).

Current position

Currently FI is in a position the management I believe are comfortable with and expected to be in. Although on a daily trading basis dividends paid are more than commission earned they are still and have been throughout the collapse of people selling players for way more than they paid FI for them. So basically they have a huge stash of our cash that we bought shares for at much higher prices sat in there bank.

I expect they anticipated a lot of this and are currently waiting for player prices to reach a point where existing traders are unwilling to continue to keep undercutting each other. So presently we are part of the problem as yes we can keep selling and buying cheaper which seems like the right thing to do but I believe it just delays what we all want which is recovery and a stable company that we believe is a safe home for our cash.

The Future

The product will become a more hybrid gambling platform targeting daily/weekly/monthly gamblers which in turn generate much higher turnover which will lead to a profitable company. I expect more IPD/TOTM opportunities, the new later 8pm cut off encourages more day trading which gives us a clue.

There will still be long term trading opportunities but traders that buy, collect dividends and wait for capital appreciation is just not profitable for them and therefore we will have to adapt as the platform will need to be volatile to deter long term holding.

The Good News

Once prices reach rock bottom I expect an absolutely massive marketing push and promotions galore. Because we are driving prices so low and because FI will have a large bank balance (through our original purchases and capital raising through the financial markets) they may well be able to create more liquidity through separate market makers (LP1 may return with several others) and will hoover up lots of shares at low prices and then during the massive marketing push sell them back at increased prices. This will hopefully bring onboard many more traders and as there initial experience will be good should create a client base that moves FI forward into a new era, unfortunately many existing traders will have been collateral damage along the way.

My Actions

Yesterday I added a significant sum and will continue to add in the run up to Christmas where I see players whose value has dropped to levels where I can sit back and harvest dividends and where there price would look attractive to short term traders as well. I personally believe we are really close to a big push and when it happens I do not see player prices falling for several months. Having suffered for months I would hate to be the person who now sells waiting to buy back to find they announce the marketing and then has to pay more to buy back!!

Have a great Christmas everyone and here's to a much more profitable 2021 on FI

I play with figures for a living I know how to use them in an argument and am sick of seeing them to twist and argument and portray fiction and fact.

Mr White and Vespasian I am extremley confident (99.99% certain) that if we go back through you history of posting on here we will find posts condemning pumpers and dumpers especially those that but worthless players pushing there price up and then when they were trending as a top buy selling these shares to newbie traders who unwittingly purchased them and rightly so.

However I now see you quoting and supporting the fact that a high % of players have no instant sell price (38%) but I have looked at this and the vast majority of these players should not even be on the index and the vast majority have probably never had 1 share purchased. Due to world cups they are on the index.

Would you buy or should FI buy any of the following:
Cheshimi R Iran
Colndres D Costa Rica
Aseri M Saudi Arabia
Gomez G Panama

The answer is obviously no and the vast majority of the players with no sell price are similar, now it may be that FI remove all these players from the index and then you have no argument except that you expect FI to buy shit players who have little to no chance of winning anything off you - You made a bad bet and lose end of story - If you read the rules at outset instant sell never had a guarantee to buy at any price! Why not just pucker up and take it :)

As I no longer frequent the forum on a regular basis I did say I would occasionally post my thoughts on the direction of the index and offer some insight into how I am currently trading and why. Unfortunately these posts may be a little long but so have quite a few of my previous posts going back nearly 3 years.

24 hour Market Metrics

This is a welcome addition even if we do not know the full details of how the figures are produced. I am not surprised with the active trader numbers (guessing it is all those who transact business within the 24 hour period) as I have never bought into the figures of 100's of 1,000's of registered users. A product like this does not make its money on random short term users but needs a growing band of regular traders who love the product. It seems like 3,000 to 4,000 people are trading on a day to day basis and this is a sound number for FI to build on. Currently roughly £10 million is trading weekly producing gross weekly income at 2% commission of £200,000. Whilst I very much doubt this covers dividends, promotions, salaries and marketing etc for what is still a fledgling technology based gambling company it is way ahead of the majority of tech start ups and is why FI is both winning awards and able to continue to get funding to accelerate its planned growth.

Avoiding Another Market Crash

We all know the introduction of order books/removal of instant sell could and should have been handled better but it has been and gone and there is no going back. In the long term it may prove a watershed moment in the company's history as it will be seen as the point in which they had to massively improve both there communications and governance (no help to those who suffered) and so far I do think those things are significantly better.

However I do believe for things to get substantially better and for the number of regular traders to grow substantially over the next 6 months they do need a little luck. To avoid another crash when they actually do implement fully functioning order books and Nasdaq style trading conditions could do to look like this:

Wall to Wall Football - Therefore no more covid cancellations
PB - Messi/Neymar/KDB/TAA/Kimmich need to be winning lots and especially gold days
MB - Pogba/Kane/Salah/Ronaldo need to be winning plenty
The hotly tipped cheaper players need to pick up bronze/silver wins
IPD Strikers need to keep finding the net

I believe FI may already be able to launch full order books and Nasdaq but would like everything to be in there favour and the above conditions would have trader confidence at a high as these players have so many shares in circulation that demand would be high rather than traders wanting to rush for the door. FI will also have a good idea if those who wanted/needed to sell up have done.

The VVD Savings Account

With bank accounts paying so little why not treat yourself to the nearest very low risk 6 months savings account. Historically every high profile player to suffer a major injury drops dramatically in price and then slowly bounces back as each month passes by until there return. I honestly believe by next season VVD will have an instant sell price of at least £1.60 and as he can be picked up between £1.21 - £1.26 that is a nice 20% return for what I believe is no risk (plus maybe some MB as well). Not the most exciting trade but no different to investing in keepers and maybe with more upside as he could reach £1.80 - £2.00.

Show Bouna Sarr some love

This guy has just transferred to Bayern Munich the most dominant team in European club football who score goals for fun! He is the back up to Pavard at right back but is far more attack minded. He will see plenty of league action as Pavard will need rest and has had injury problems. Sarr played the full 90 minutes of the last league game with a PB of 190 (1 assist) if he plays 15 games it will be hard for his price to fall as he will get assists and hopefully a goal or 2 if Pavard gets injured he will play so much more. Take a look at the rest of the defence:

Alphonso Davies £3.56
Benjamin Pavard £1.94
Lucas Hernandez £1.26
Nicholas Sule £1.04
David Alaba £1.06
Bouna Sarr £0.53

Obviously all available cheaper through matching - I actually believe he could produce 100% growth by Christmas and if he does not my guess is you will still be able to sell for what you paid.

Little and Often

Finally for those with time there are plenty of players who you can buy around the £1 mark and sell for £1.15 hours/days/weeks later on a regular basis. I have roughly 20 of these where I hold 250 shares and keep adding 50 to sell for profit. This means that I am pocking a few quid each week and always have some of the 250 eligible for IPD's. This does not make me rich but enhances the fun and creates new funds for the VVD savings account.

Have fun, do not gamble to much and remember turnover is vanity profit is sanity :)

It is not much more than a month ago that a posted a thorough update on my first 6 months journey on FI documenting how I had made significant returns whilst drip feeding £15,000 into the index. This seemed to be well received by several of you and so with the share split coming I thought it may be helpful to document how I have reacted to this announcement and made improvements to my portfolio.

Firstly I have added an additional £1,000 so have now invested £16,000 and my portfolio and cash balance now total £23,750 so the last few weeks have been very kind and my dividends continue to flow freely. However a month ago I had 41 players I now have 54 and feel very ready for the share split in fact the sooner the better as there is little I can do until it happens - Why?

I will first explain my beliefs on what I think will happen in the future and then explain what I have done to my portfolio to hopefully benefit from it.

1. I think that the share split will be 4 ways so increasing my shareholding in players by a multiple of 4
2. Dividends will initially fall by a division of 4 but maybe with rounding up to avoid 0.25 or 0.5 of a pence amounts
3. Top 20 Players being perceived as more affordable will rise significantly by the end of 2019
4. Outside of the top 20, players will rise but will be on a player by player basis not automatically like the top names
5. A serious dividend increase will happen but maybe not until August 2019 in readiness for the new season
6. FI will be working hard on a getting an acceptable and future proof website ready for the 2019/2020 season
7. They probably have not decided that in the future when player prices are high whether they use share splits or move us to buying fractional amounts of players. I believe share splits will work much better the buying shares in fractions.
8. I do not believe FI will ever add France, Italy, Germany or Spain to our platform but will look to set up a new platform for European countries dependent on individual country law. Ideally I believe they want a UK version and a Europe version with other countries joining the one which is best suited to them. (see end of post for reasoning) *
9. This may disappoint some who are hoping for this but do not worry I believe we are in for a massive growth spell over the next 18 months as FI is only now getting its message out and new traders are joining in huge numbers so the new lower prices will attract plenty of buyers and a dividend increase in August will further boost the index.
10. I then believe by 2020 things will settle down and earnings may lower from there high level they are now to a lower but still attractive amount.

Therefore what have I done:

I have set my portfolio up for the future where dividends are increased and are a much bigger driver of price than they currently are with the hope I will be collecting daily. To do this I have bought shares in the majority of the top players in multiples than when multiplied by 4 are at a level I would like to have them today but cannot afford. This way when dividends are increased in the future I will be ready.

So I now have:

200 Pogba
150 Neymar, Salah, Kimmich
100 Rashford, Dembele, KDB, Havertz, Brandt, Kane, Sancho, Sterling, Griezmann, TAA.
50 Gomez J, Vinicius, Pulisic, Neves, Hazard, Dybala, Eriksen, Jesus, Messi, Martial, Mbappe, Sane, Mendy B
25 Bentancur, Stones, Tielemans, Lenglet, Shaw, Haller, Piatek, VVD, Pepe, Richarlison, Asensio, Sule, Coutinho, Rodrygo, Sarr, Linguard, Rugani, Jovic, Mount, Skriniar

I also have futures in Keita, Markovic, Maxi Gomez, Nandez, Muriel, Vieira R, and Dowell which I am currently short term playing with but once they reach the right price will be disposed and I will move a 25 or 50 share player up to 100.

Once completed I believe I will have to devote less time to the index and can either add to my portfolio with the dividends or withdraw to create some tax free income and reduce my risk.

To summarise do not worry if you have just joined you are not late to the party 2019 should be a fabulous year to be investing it is not until the platform becomes mainstream circa 2020/2021 that % returns will drop from there massive double/treble digit returns to single digit in my opinion.

Cheers

Fletch

• I believe as well as desperately needing a new more reliable and interactive website the meeting with Nasdaq may well have been to discuss the problem of having one website where players are priced in both Euros and GBP as I cannot believe any of the other main football countries would be happy buying in GBP. This is incredibly difficult as currency prices are changing every second. Players would definitely have be fractionalised for it to work and FI would need to hedge currency so further complicating the business. Add in that if you add in European sources for Media you would instantly see mass selling of the UK based media buzz starlets at that point (currently Pogba). Therefore it makes so much more sense to roll out a European version priced in Euros and with Media based on mainly European media. This should not worry any of us as the UK market is huge - Previously millions did the Football Pools, now millions bet on matches via traditional bookmakers, spread betting is growing and hopefully FI is just the next progression of football betting.

Before we start a whole thread bemoaning the PB matrix remember it is clear and available for everyone to see and therefore when buying players we all know what makes a good player and a bad player for betting purposes on this site. Isak may have scored 3 goals and got GWG but obviously did very little else to bolster his score and so unfortunately does not win on another day he may well have.

Regarding Barnes and Sabitzer FI is dammed if they do and dammed if they do not. As they use external independent verification of player scores (OPTA) they have no control over the amendments that are made. We unfortunately can choose to either stick to incorrect 90 minute figures and pay out on the wrong player or wait until 9am tomorrow and pay out on the deserved winner.

These 2 things are the least of the current issues and my opinion is they should get on with sorting the bigger issues out

Just been checking the prices of some of my players and noticed that a few of the relatively big name players now have some offers up to 15p lower than the next price.

Obviously some traders have bought earlier and trying to make a quick small profit, but if sentiment stays strong these lower prices should hopefully not start bidding wars at lower and lower prices.

2 months into 2021 and 1 month into MDE and the removal of IPD - I Thought it would be worthwhile to post the true position of my portfolio and look at facts whilst removing emotion.

I have £14,500 of my own money invested in the platform having de risked a long time ago when I had significantly more invested.

I am now left with in excess of 25,000 shares in over 70 players. I have circa 500 shares in the big household names and then 300 in many lower priced players. The portfolio at the mid price valuation is valued at circa £38,000 + £2,000 in cash to trade with.

For the purpose of this post I have erased the past from my memory and am looking solely at future returns using the 1st 2 months of the year as a guideline and have not included January's IPD returns.

In January I won the following:

£1,010 in PB/MB
£106 in TOTM

In February:

£1,170 in PB/MB
£75 in TOTM
£33 in MDE

This is a small sample size but through 2 months that is £2,394 so over 12 months the forecast would be £14,364 which is an incredible yield in the region of 100% return on the £14,500 invested per annum.

The last year has proved to me that I am capable of trading throughout the downturn (has been very time consuming) and I must admit still enjoyable. I have taken big hits on players where needed and now finally feel it will need less managing as it was like a 2nd job!

I like you all am very dissatisfied with the management of FI but when you remove the emotion and look at things clearly how can I be unhappy. Now I do need FI to survive and I need the current situation to continue which requires FI to make better decisions.

I understand we all invested at different points and I am fortunate to be in the position I am but we should all calculate our potential yields for the future as it made very interesting reading to me.

Good luck to all

@NewUser628679

I do not disagree with you, but on that evening no midfielder of any note performed well so whoever won made little difference.

Bronze, Silver and Europa League nights will always throw up weird winners due to the lack of fixtures, standard of opposition and the resting/substituting of top players.

Which is why I hope at the end of the season the scoring matrix is reviewed based mainly on how gold days have worked out as that is the best way of judging the matrix.

@NewUser628679

Trust me within 6 months glitches would be highlighted a some average players would suddenly be £5+ because they win more than they should - every system will have that no matter how hard to try to avoid it

@Baydog

You are on the money with that.

Currently we have:

PB the main dividend instrument that needs tweaking but is fit for purpose with good payments
MB Provides 365 days of payments even on non match days - needs tweaking but is fine
TOTM Good addition but the prizes for all but winners needs increasing
MDE Good idea rewards players regardless of time held but payments need to increase.

What we need is the thrill factor which for some was IPD's this is what the IPD savings need spending on but FI have to get it right and it absolutely must not have negative consequences hence they may need a little time to work out what it is!

If we got that alongside improved communications and they started to tidy up the platform we would all get back to loving the product.

A final warning is that whatever they do some people will need to lose money and there is the problem as for the 1st 3 years nobody lost we all won and now we do not - could that actually be the biggest problem!

@NewUser628679

I really think whatever system you use people will complain as if one player strings a run of wins together everybody who does not hold him start to complain its just human nature.

After a while if we used who scored we would spot trends buy those players and when they win too often or it produces results people do not like we would be back to square one. It really is a no win situation.

I just get on with it and work with what we have

@NewUser628679

Honestly he hardly won a penny, the matrix has not changed much I just think it depends a lot on luck - only last year TAA was posting massive scores and everybody was complaining about him. This year a lot of centre backs have performed well because they have scored goals Keane/Stones but I really think there will always be a handful of players who will be dominant whatever the matrix - Neymar/Messi/Ronaldo/Kimmich/Ramos then there will be players who are flying for a month or two but generally all other players need luck on there side to win

@NewUser628679

I wish I could transport you back to when Kante was being voted player of the year - there were threads like this saying the matrix was fooked because players like him were unfairly treated by the index :)

@Baydog

That is where any enhancement comes in - However this product is still and will be for a long time to come a UK Premier league centric product (even though some of us would prefer it not to be) lets compare Haaland to Harry Kane both will never be PB mega winners the difference is that Kane being English wins lots of MB so although us FI devotees think its wrong your average punter user will not be that bothered.

Mbappe should flourish in the future and will win more PB/MB but imagine how much they would win if they signed for United/City or Liverpool!

The matrix is not perfect but it is not the problem - Liquidity and shit management has been the problem - sort those 2 things out and the matrix will not then be such an issue.

With a disenfranchised user group like FI has now every little thing will always be looked at negatively but we need the bigger issues sorting

@NewUser628679

Look at the prices of all the players at the top of the PB points this evening - europa league nights 2nd legs with half the teams resting players are not a night to make a judgement on - yes I would prefer he did not win and it does not seem right but the 1.25 multiplier has the unintended consequence of unfairly favouring this type of player.

It was introduced to ensure that if normal league fixtures took place on european nights that they should not have an equal chance.