What Is Fantasy Premier League?

Fantasy Premier League (FPL) is the official game of the Premier League. It is a popular free-to-play fantasy football game, where participants, known as fantasy managers, create virtual teams of real players from the Premier League, earning points based on those players’ real-life performances in Premier League matches.

Managers (you and other competitors) have to score as many points as possible in a Premier League season. Managers have to select a 15-man squad of Premier League players consisting of eleven starters and four substitutes to form their FPL team. Selecting the right starting line up from the 15-man squad is crucial as only the starters score points. The starters score a manager points depending on their real-life contributions in the Premier League. Substitutes cannot earn points unless a Bench Boost chip is used by a manager. However, managers can swap their substitutes for their starters if they want to. The better the players perform in real-life, the more points they will score. Managers can create or join private mini-leagues and cups to compete against friends. Managers can also compete in a head-to-head league, participate in public leagues, and check their global ranking for points scored.

Points System

The easiest way for FPL managers to earn points is by players making appearances for their real-life clubs. You will receive two points if one of your players played for more than 60 minutes, and one point if they played for less than 60 minutes. Players can also score points in Fantasy Premier League for their real-life contributions in a game.

The positive contributions include:

• Goals scored

• Assists

• Clean sheets

• Saves

The negative contributions include:

• Yellow cards

• Red cards

• Own goal

• Missed penalties

• Conceding Goals

Players can lose points for these negative contributions, which can impact their overall score.

The amount of points a player gets for a contribution can differ depending on their position. For example, defenders and goalkeepers score four points for clean sheets, while midfielders only score a point and attackers score zero points. FPL managers can double the points from one player’s contributions by making them captain. Captaincy can only be handed to one player every Gameweek. FPL managers can also select a vice-captain, whose points will only be doubled if the captain does not play in that Gameweek in real-life.

The ‘Triple Captain’ chip allows the captain to score double points, tripling the captain’s score for one Gameweek instead of the usual double points.

A player can score FPL managers bonus points if they are named in the top three best performing players of the match on official Fantasy Premier League accounts. The bonus points system works like this:

• Player of the match = three points

• Second best player of the match = two points

• Third best player of the match = one point

The better a player’s stats are in a game, the more likely he will receive bonus points.

Managing your Squad and Transfers

When you begin your Fantasy Premier League season, you will have a £100 Million Fantasy Premier League budget to build a 15-man squad consisting of two goalkeepers, five defenders, five midfielders and three forwards. Eleven of the fifteen players will be your starters while the other four players will be your substitutes. You can only have up to three players who play for the same club in real-life.

You can field your starting eleven in various formations. These include:

• 4-4-2, 4-3-3, 4-5-1

• 5-3-2, 5-4-1, 5-2-3

• 3-4-3, 3-5-2

The FPL transfer system is not like the real-life transfer market. You will be able to make unlimited transfers for your first Gameweek. However, after your first Gameweek, you will only have one free transfer per week.

If you have one transfer for your next Gameweek, you can save that transfer and get an extra transfer for the following Gameweek. However, the maximum number of transfers that FPL managers can have is five. This means that if you save a transfer every Gameweek until you have five transfers, and you don’t use any before your next Gameweek deadline, then you will still have five transfers available in the following Gameweek.

Chips

Chips are special tools that you can use to enhance your score in a Gameweek. There are four chips to use when you play Fantasy Premier League. These are:

Bench Boost

This chip enables your substitutes’ points to count towards your Gameweek tally. Can only be used by FPL managers for one Gameweek in a season.

Free hit

This chip allows managers unlimited transfers for a single Gameweek. After this Gameweek, your free hit team reverts to the team that you had before you played the chip. Can only be used by FPL managers for one Gameweek in a season.

Triple Captain

A triple captain enables the selected captain to score double points, but with the Triple Captain chip, the points are tripled for one Gameweek. Can only be used by FPL managers for one Gameweek in a season.

Wildcard

A wildcard enables limitless transfers like a free hit does. However, your team stays the same after that Gameweek. Can be used by FPL Managers for two Gameweeks in a season. It can be used once in between the start of the season and 30th of December, and once between after the 30th of December and the end of the season.