Issue 02

BY JUSTIN LAWSON
period, we have one extra week for our European knockout games,
like the Champions League Round of 16 etc.
In between and after that, you have all sorts of events, stuff
like the VFL transfer window which allows clubs to use budget
earned through high finishes and cup wins to buy and sell
players to other teams as they please. You also have stuff like
contract renegotiations where managers will try and tie down
their players to another season at the club before they drop into
free agency and have the ability to play elsewhere. There really
is a lot!
How do you differ from other virtual leagues?
The biggest and most obvious difference between VFL and other
leagues out there is the day and time structure. For us, we’ve been
running the Friday-Saturday-Sunday pattern since 2012. People know
us and identify with us for that and we’ve never had a problem, so we
are essentially the heavyweight that anchors those days.
Other leagues, whether that be the big supported ones like VFO,
or the international ones like EGN and FVPAA have structured
themselves to be mid-week to suit their community and their
demographic, which is awesome because all of these leagues offer
something different, and cater to specific needs. I am happy to say I
have a great relationship with all of them.
Other than the different days, times, and community, there really are
very minor differences other than that, one noticeable one being the
custom team name platform, but alas, a lot of leagues like FVPAA
and ourselves tend to do a mixture of both. For example, the FVPAA
will offer the ACL and AVL, the ACL is what they use for their actual
club names, and the AVL is what they use for fantasy. Much the
same where VFL is used for stuff like VFL Arsenal, and VFLC is used
for stuff like Wonderkids, Lucid, et etc.
Do you have any real football clubs entering teams
into your leagues? How close do the real football
clubs work with esports teams?
Obviously due to agreements, I cannot say too much on this. I have
been flown out to countries before to discuss the whole possibility of
this type of thing, I’ve also had meetings with certain football clubs,
including two within the Premier League.
The thing that I will say, and that the community probably won’t like,
is that the talks although interesting never came to fruition either due
to frustration on my end, or demands from the club.
For me, esports is still a relatively new ideology for people within
corporates. I think everyone knows that. For me, I see no real benefit
at all to players and the Pro Clubs community as a whole when the
clubs say that they have no interest to really identify with the players,
and it’s all purely about their brand exposure. I can understand that
from a business perspective if it was Fifa Ultimate Team (FUT), but
Clubs is still so relatively unknown that you can’t honestly look at it
and say “Pro Clubs will expose this brand”.
That idea will only occur when EA seriously get involved with it.
I could talk about this for hours because I feel so strongly about
it. But for me, I want to make decisions for my community that
make sense. Players representing a ‘club’ that does not offer a
lot, and doesn’t want to get to know their players or even have
a detailed system to assist in picking players. This just doesn’t
interest me, nor do I see any benefit for the players, whether that
be financial benefit or the benefit of building a career off of the
back of it through platforms like YouTube. An example of when it’s
done properly could be Optic, all you have to do is look how that
organisation pushed someone like Scumpi to the point where he
has a big YouTube platform. That isn’t what it’s like right now from
the football clubs.
There are some outliers though, for example, what VFO have in place
with clubs in Spain where the players may get a stadium tour of the
club that signs them, or a free shirt/tickets to a game, that is brilliant.
In the UK, the closest we have to that currently is Fleetwood Town,
and the only reason I say that is because a guy like Sam Fielding
actually does care enough to put in a system where he talks to the
players, he doesn’t just brush off the recruitment and whoever joins
joins, he is actually very involved, and he should be proud of himself
for that, a lot of clubs could learn from that.
What cup competitions do you run?
Currently we have the below list as active cup competitions;
• The VFL FA Cup
• The VFL Carabao Cup
• The VFL Checkatrade Trophy
• The VFL DfB Pokal
• The VFL Coppa Italia
• The VFL Copa del Rey
• The VFL Coupe de France
• The VFL Coupe de la Ligue
• The VFL Europa League
• The VFL Champions League
Of course, there are others like the Community Shield etc etc, but
these are the domestic cup competitions which run throughout and
stretch throughout the entire season.
What does the future hold for the VFL?
The future is something that depends upon the direction of FIFA and
EA. It really is that simple, for all we know, EA could introduce a 5v5
FIFA Street mode, if they do, that’d be a great direction to go down on
top of 11v11. But honestly, as gaming communities we take it year by
www.esportsworldfootball.com
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