So, even though its a game, just think of the power that it has for real life clubs to do scouting.
For those that don't remember, this is what happened a few years ago.
FM2009
"Everton is delighted to announce a partnership with Sports Interactive's Football Manager.
As part of the arrangement with Sega, Everton's first team management
will have exclusive access to the computer game's full database.
The partnership enables the Club to use the extensive player and
football staff database giving information pertaining to over 350,000
players and staff, from 20,000 active teams from 50 countries worldwide.
Football Manager relies on its own network of 1000 scouts in 50 countries monitoring 20,000 teams.
David Moyes said: "I am happy to support this season's Football Manager.
"The 2009 edition gives a real insight to what life is like as a
Premier League manager from buying players to playing matches and I am
sure, as in previous years, it will provide hours and hours of
entertainment for fans whatever their team."
Not as though it seems to have done them any good though as they didn't get an actual FM manager to run the team.
With that said, what do you think would the percentage of real life scouts/managers etc using the database ?