Found your own football club at the bottom of a real European league pyramid and take it all the way to the top flight. Name it, design the crest and kits, sign players in real transfer windows, set the tactics and manage the match live, while the money keeps you honest. 400 real clubs stand in the way.
FC Architect is a football management sim for people who like the detail. Pick one of seven countries and enter at the lowest fully professional division, against the real clubs that play there in 2026-27. Every country's promotion and relegation rules are reproduced as published: England's four-team play-offs, Germany's 16th-versus-3rd play-off, France's barrage and Italy's 28-club Serie C bracket.
The match engine is calibrated on seven seasons of real results, and every league scores like itself. The money is real too. In the lower leagues wages eat most of the turnover, and losses come out of your own fortune until it runs dry, so every promotion matters.
The pyramids
Choose England, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Portugal or the Netherlands, and start in League Two, the 3. Liga, Serie C, Ligue 2, the Segunda División, Liga Portugal 2 or the Eerste Divisie. Real promotion, relegation, play-offs and tiebreakers apply in every country, and reserve sides can never go up. A League Two season runs 46 matchdays.
Tactics
Choose from 8 formations, 5 mentalities and 3 tackling styles. Tap a player to swap him out, and the pitch view follows your eleven. A projected scoreline responds to every change before you commit.
Matchday
Watch all 22 players on a 2D pitch with the momentum bar and the match feed. Make up to 5 substitutions and change the speed from a quarter to 10×. Time spent in the menus is added on as stoppage time. Or take an instant result, simulate the matchday, or simulate the entire season.
Transfers
During a transfer window, tap a club in the league table to see its whole squad, then offer a player his value, +25% or +50%. The club accepts, names its price or refuses for the rest of the window. A player will drop one division to join you, but not two. Sign one of a club's starters and it is weaker until it replaces him.
Your club
Name the club and its ground, design a crest and home, away and third kits, then choose a starting situation: a classic start, a fallen giant with an ageing squad, a debt-ridden club that has to survive first, or a rich project with money to spend.
Finance
Ticket sales, broadcast, commercial and prize money come in. Wages, travel, matchday and admin costs go out. Lower-league clubs lose money by design, and the losses come out of your personal net worth. When it runs out, the club is insolvent and your career is over.
Each season the board sets two or three goals across the league, the cup and the money, with a bonus for every goal you meet.
Capacity sets your gate, and promotion doesn't add seats. Build new stands that take one to three seasons to open, add hospitality, sell the naming rights, and upgrade the training ground to cut injuries.
Pick one of 20 starter crests or build your own from 4 shapes and 14 icons. Then design home, away and third kits in 5 patterns and your own colours.
Players age, grow toward their potential and decline. Contracts run down, and injuries, form and morale swing week to week. Bigger clubs bid for your best players, and you decide whether to sell.
Each cup is played to its real format, with real prize money per round. Play your tie live or simulate it while the rest of the draw plays out around you.
Sign from a market of 24 players each window, or pick up free agents at any time of year. The market follows the real registration windows.
Play without a scout, or hire a part-time scout, a full-time scout or a scouting network. The better he is, the more exactly you see other clubs' players and the longer his shortlist on the Club screen. Only the network shows a player's price before you bid.
Open any club in your country's leagues to see its 20 players, rated as well as your scout can tell. The striker who scores against you is on his club's page.
Your career runs on your iPhone or iPad with no account or server, and a save always replays the same way.
34 achievements, plus leaderboards for the fewest seasons to the top flight and the most points in a debut season.
FC Architect is built natively for iPhone and iPad. On iPad the club opens in a sidebar layout with room for the whole picture, in any orientation.
A selection of 4- and 5-star reviews from the App Store. See all ratings and reviews on the App Store (US)
I travel a lot and have had fun building my club on long flights. Enough detail to make seasons interesting without so many levers to make it tedious, like some FB simulators. Appreciate the number of leagues, tactics, play options. Just the right amount of complexity.
This is such a great simulation and I’ve really been enjoying playing it. The economic pressures and details associated with each of the five big leagues available on this game make it uniquely fun and challenging to build a successful club in each. I was able to advance in the english leagues, but when I tried the Italian league, holy cow! A whole new set of challenges. Really great game!
FC Architect is free to download, and your whole first season is free with every feature: matches, cups, transfers, the stadium and the finances, right through the end-of-season recap. A single one-time purchase keeps your career going, season after season.
Yes. FC Architect is free to download, and your whole first season is free with every feature. A one-time purchase unlocks every season after that, for as long as your career lasts. There is no subscription and there are no ads.
Yes. You play against 400 real clubs from the 2026-27 league pyramids of seven countries, in their real colours. Club crests and players are generated, and the game isn't affiliated with or licensed by any league or club.
England, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Portugal and the Netherlands, with 18 divisions in all. You start in the lowest fully professional division and climb toward the top flight.
Yes. Play live with a real-time clock, a speed bar from a quarter speed to 10× and up to 5 substitutions, or take an instant result. You can also simulate a whole matchday or the entire season.
Yes. During a transfer window, open any club in your country's league pyramid from the league table and bid for one of its players at his value, +25% or +50%. The club accepts, names its price or refuses for that window. A player will drop one division to join you, but not two. You can also sign from the transfer market and pick up free agents at any time.
Not at the moment. FC Architect is made for iPhone and iPad and requires iOS or iPadOS 18 or later.
No. Your career runs entirely on your iPhone or iPad, with no account or server. A connection is used for Game Center and the one-time purchase, but you don't need one to play.
Saves stay on the device you play on, with three save slots. The one-time unlock restores on any iPhone or iPad signed in to the same Apple Account.
Losses come out of your personal net worth. When it runs out, the club is insolvent and the career ends, so watch the wage bill. You can found a new club in another save slot.
FC Architect is single-player and starts you with a brand-new club at the bottom of a real pyramid. There are no energy timers, no ads and no pay-to-win. The climb comes from your signings, your tactics and how you manage the money.
English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch.
Download FC Architect free on the App Store and start the climb.
