How to play YourScore Fantasy Football: the complete guide

New to YourScore Fantasy Football and wondering what "your knowledge is your transfer budget" actually means? Here's everything, in less time than it takes to argue about a captain pick.

The quick version:

• Build your 15-man squad once from the same budget as everyone else. It's your team all season.
• Each week, a football knowledge round earns your transfer credits. Know more, move more.
• Real Premier League performances score your XI all weekend. Captain doubles. Leagues settle the argument.

How does my team work?

You build a 15-man squad (two keepers, five defenders, five midfielders, three forwards, max three from any club) from a fixed budget that's the same for everyone. Knowledge never gates entry, so everyone starts on a level field.

Each gameweek you field eleven of them in any legal shape, with the other four on your bench. If one of your starters doesn't play, your bench covers automatically, in the order you set. Injuries and rotation sting, they don't ruin your weekend.

Here's the trade-off that makes it football: the budget can't buy fifteen superstars. Most of every XI is value picks, which is where the joy lives. The cheap midfielder who outscores someone's £90m signing is the best feeling in fantasy.

And your squad persists. It's your team, week after week, all season. Which is exactly why the next part matters.

How do I earn transfers?

This is the game. Every gameweek opens a knowledge round: position-themed football challenges (transfer-value higher-or-lower, guess the player from the stats, career paths) plus some proper trivia.

Every correct answer earns transfer credits, and harder questions earn more. Great round, several free moves. Shocker of a round, maybe none, and your rivals are moving without you.

No speed bonuses, no tricks. The timer only exists to stop people googling. It's about what you actually know.

What if I need more moves than I've earned?

Two rules that create every argument your league will ever have:

Credits bank up to five, so "spend now or save for a bigger rebuild" is a real weekly decision.

Moves beyond your credits cost points. Pay for it in knowledge, or pay for it in points. Your call, every deadline.

No position locks and no stuck players: any legal swap within your budget until deadline, at live player prices.

How do wildcards work?

A wildcard is one gameweek of unlimited free transfers. Tear the whole XI down and rebuild it. Permanent, no credits spent, no points hit.

Everyone gets one per half-season, use it or lose it at the halfway deadline. And here's the flex: a perfect knowledge round mints a bonus wildcard, one per half, so nobody stockpiles them. "Earned my second wildcard with a perfect round" is the message you want to send your league.

That's also why a dead team is never dead here. Rough patch, injuries everywhere, squad in bits? One big round and you've minted your comeback.

What are chips?

Chips are the loyalty reward: play roughly every four gameweeks (they don't need to be consecutive) and you earn a chip token, spent as whichever you want: Triple Captain for the big swing, Bench Boost so all fifteen score that week, Insight for a hint on a hard challenge, Second Chance to retry your worst one.

Hold up to three, spend one per gameweek. Chips and wildcards can never be bought. Nothing in YourScore Fantasy Football is pay-to-win, ever.

How does scoring work?

Your XI scores off the real matches: goals, assists, clean sheets, minutes, all from what actually happens on the pitch over the weekend, in YourScore points. Captain doubles one player; a vice-captain covers automatically if your captain doesn't play.

Saturday 3pm suddenly matters in about six places at once. You'll see.

How do leagues work?

Friend leagues are the whole point. Monthly tables and gameweek winners mean there's always a fresh race, with the season table running underneath as the prestige prize. Jump in any week, because the monthly races mean a September joiner can still win things immediately.

Ties are settled by that week's knowledge round, because the better football brain should win the argument. And your knowledge itself gets its own rating and leaderboard, so a brilliant round is never wasted even when your striker limps off in the eighth minute.

When can I start?

YourScore Fantasy Football launches mid-August, for gameweek 1 of the 2026/27 season.

Until then, the knowledge that will earn your transfers is exactly what YourScore's daily quizzes already measure. Show up to gameweek 1 sharp, or show up cold. One of those is earning wildcards by September.

So, honestly: how many transfer credits do you reckon your football knowledge is worth a week? Find out today.