Is AI ruining fantasy soccer?

For years, fantasy soccer has given each armchair supervisor the house to again up claims they “could do a better job” than the true factor.

Whether you are competing towards workmates, members of the family or strangers, the power to drag collectively your individual dream staff is irresistible to thousands and thousands of soccer followers.

The aggressive pastime has spawned an entire business of content material creators providing weekly suggestions for anybody seeking to achieve an edge as they sift by way of stats and handle transfers.

Recently, extra gamers have been turning to Artificial Intelligence (AI) instruments for recommendation – however not everybody agrees they’ve a spot within the digital dugout.

Fantasy Premier League (FPL) is the UK’s hottest fantasy league, and claims to have greater than 11 million gamers collaborating.

Users choose squads of 15 footballers, who every earn factors based mostly on their weekly on-pitch efficiency.

The catch? A £100m finances, fixed value adjustments, and a strict restrict on what number of gamers you are allowed from both sides.

Content creator Ryan Jordan, who posts fantasy soccer suggestions and recommendation to his 15,000 followers on TikTok, says FPL makes the real-life sport “more engaging to watch”.

The Bristol City fan says it encourages him to concentrate to groups he won’t normally observe, and makes “every match really matter”.

“So even a team lower in the table that you might not want to watch on TV each week, you’ll watch it because you’ve a player from their team in your FPL team,” he says.

“It brings the community together to watch a lot more.”

Ryan tells BBC Newsbeat he makes use of Fantasy Football Hub, an app which provides AI instruments, together with one which charges a supervisor’s squad.

He says it provides recommendation on transfers, predicts what number of factors a sure participant will obtain every week, and when it is best to play or bench them.

Fantasy Football Hub’s founder Will Thomas instructed Newsbeat the app has attracted about 793,000 members because it launched in 2019, with about 59,000 of these paying a subscription to entry AI options.

Of these paid members, he mentioned, about 28,000 signed up in 2025, with about 381,000 becoming a member of as free members.

Fantasy Football Fix, one other widespread app, instructed Newsbeat it had additionally seen person numbers climb.

It now has 690,000 members total, up from about half one million in 2022.

The firm believes one in every of its key options, an AI-powered chatbot the corporate says is skilled on “FPL-specific” information, has contributed to the rise.

Newsbeat understands the Premier League is ready so as to add options to its official Companion app, which makes use of Microsoft’s Copilot, to assist customers choose fantasy groups and techniques later within the season.

But do AI instruments really do what they declare?

Ryan says he principally finds Fantasy Football Hub dependable.

“A lot of the time, some of the players they put in there are spot-on,” he says.

“I’m not going to lie, there are some times I see a player and I think: ‘What’s he doing in there?'”

In teams devoted to fantasy soccer on Reddit and different platforms, some customers argue that the subscription apps do not present insights or information which gamers cannot get elsewhere.

And one of many greatest complaints is that they take away the weather of intestine intuition and luck that hold individuals hooked on fantasy leagues.

Ryan says he understands why some individuals are towards AI use, however he sees it as much like getting recommendation from YouTube or podcasts.

“At the end of the day, I think people should play FPL in whatever way they enjoy most,” he says.

“AI tools don’t replace skill, they just support decision-making.”

Two-thirds of FPL gamers who replied to a survey from Virgin Media O2 published in August mentioned they had been planning to make use of AI this season.

However, many respondents instructed the corporate it “takes the fun out of the game” and others felt it was “outright cheating”.

It’s a view that Newsbeat encountered amongst followers travelling for the Aston Villa v Manchester United match in Birmingham final month.

Supporters instructed us they felt puzzled by others utilizing AI to assist them choose their squads.

When we spoke to Jake Thomas O’Donnell, a long-time FPL participant, in Birmingham metropolis centre, he was additionally unimpressed.

“I think AI ruins the banter a little bit,” the Aston Villa fan mentioned.

“People that use AI have no clue what they’re doing and automatically become these great people.

“It needs to be achieved by the individual.”

Other players we spoke to say they weren’t too fussed about it – and some didn’t even know AI was used by others.

Dani Gonçalves is a co-creator of Aerial Fantasy, one of several unofficial fantasy games developed for the Women’s Super League after England’s Lionesses won the 2022 Euros.

It opened the 2025-26 season with more than 30,000 users.

Dani argues there is little difference between following advice from an AI chatbot and a fantasy football “professional”, such as a podcaster.

“People have at all times been attempting to sport the system and determine a option to get the sting,” she tells Newsbeat.

“I do not actually see it spoiling the sport.”

Dani admits there is a risk that widespread AI use could lead to lots of similar-looking teams as “everybody’s utilizing the identical information”.

But she says those running fantasy leagues can use incentives to encourage players away from obvious or popular picks.

Aerial Fantasy, for example, offers “visionary factors”, or bonuses, boosting rewards for those who choose lesser-picked squad members.

Dani says there can also be a benefit for players who do enjoy the old-fashioned method of trawling stats and spreadsheets to optimise their teams.

“Some gamers actually get pleasure from digging by way of all the information and discovering that gem, and clearly utilizing AI does make that quicker,” she says.

“They’re nearly extra engaged than the one that is rolling the cube and simply choosing a random individual.”

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