FANTASY PREMIER LEAGUE will return for the new season with a feature which fans have been crying out for since its inception: the option to use an NFL-style draft format.
For years, the Premier League’s official fantasy football game has allowed users to select a squad with no boundaries as to which players could be included except for price and a three-player limit from each club. As such, a common gripe amongst fantasy managers was that their squad would often feature a number of the same players as that of a friend or colleague, and therefore leagues could often stagnate long before the season reached its conclusion.
With a draft, managers within a league take turns to select players, and each player selected is then exclusive to that individual manager. For instance, if you were to select Arsenal’s Alexandre Lacazette in the first round, no other manager in your league will be able to include Lacazette in their squad. Therefore, within a draft league, every single squad is completely unique.
The draft format will use the traditional FPL scoring system but will not include a £100m budget. Fantasy managers will once more be tasked with selecting a 15-man squad.
The FPL draft concept will launch on 17 July on Fantasy Premier League’s official website, and the date for your league draft must be set before 11 August.
The one hitch is that the FPL draft will allow only for leagues of between 2 and 16 teams, meaning fantasy enthusiasts in larger leagues with friends or work colleagues will be required to downsize if they wish to start a draft league.
Fantasy Premier League have confirmed that the game will be free to enter, the same as its conventional format, which will remain available to all users.
It will be FREE to play #FPLDraft.
— FPL (@OfficialFPL) July 5, 2017
More details coming soon… https://t.co/ZeHGEHfs9f
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