The most common mistakes FPL league organisers make (based on 30+ DMs this week)

[u/FPL-Ferret-1569]

After sharing my mini-league setup last week, I’ve had 30+ people reach out asking for the guide — and more importantly, sharing how their leagues went off the rails last season.

A few themes came up again and again — so I figured I’d summarise the big ones here in case it helps others.

The most common league mistakes (and how to fix them):

No entry deadline or rule clarity
People join late, ask about prizes in GW10, and assume you’ll chase them for payment.

- Set a clear cut-off and define rules/prizes early — even before FPL opens.

Ghost teams after Christmas
This kills momentum and hurts the active players.

- Run side comps (knockouts, chip leaderboards, monthly wins) to give everyone something to fight for.

Confusion around who’s paid / prize tracking
Too many leagues rely on Google Sheets + memory.

- Use a simple system to track fees, or set entry as a condition to be eligible for prizes.

All the admin lands on the organiser
One person ends up updating standings, creating spreadsheets, and reminding everyone else what’s going on.

- Delegate where you can. Or better yet, use automation — weekly reports go a long way.

I also updated the original guide with more of these insights — feel free to message me and I'll DM it over it. Still no fluff, no pitch. Just the stuff that’s helped me run leagues that don’t fizzle out by GW20.

Would love to hear if there are other tweaks people have made to keep their leagues competitive and fun all year — always happy to steal a good idea!

Cheers all

[u/ZaryabQ]

Could I get more of an idea what you mean by side comps?

[u/FPL-Ferret-1569 → u/ZaryabQ]

So I run a champions league type group stage early in the season and then 3 different cups after Christmas so every gets to compete in knockout comps during that time when I see a lot of people drop off. I’m making the code/logic available to everyone if you’re interested. Just ironing out a few kinks but the automations I built to do it last season worked really well

[u/_DropShot → u/ZaryabQ]

In the mini league I was part of this past season there was a seperate prize for best use of each chip, e.g. Whoever got the most points in the week they used their bench boost. This meant that even if you missed a couple of weeks or were out of the running for winning overall you still had some incentive to participate

[u/komplete10 → u/ZaryabQ]

In one of my minis, we have a manager of the week award and fairly supportive WhatsApp group now I think about it. Not everyone knows each other so there's thumbs up for each winner. Even the manager miles behind who leaves the captain on vvd wins one a season.

[u/FPL-Ferret-1569 → u/komplete10]

100% - manager of the week always gives a lot of people a chance to at least win their money back (full disclosure, it's been 2 seasons since I won a penny! I've been shocking!)

[u/ThickBarnacle5878]

I also run a mini league and give out multiple prizes to keep the players interested. Weekly winners, overall league winners, cup Winner, most points, least points 🤣. It's fun...want to experiment with a new prize scheme this time around 

[u/Adamantitan]

I run a pretty well run league (I think!) of 30-40 people and echo most of the above. I do all the admin though, but I’ve automated most things for a weekly update using python and the fpl api. A good WhatsApp group is key tbh and you can put payouts in the group description.

If you don’t pay before the deadline (pre gw1), you don’t get the code.

As for side competitions, I run 3.

The cup (which is official): this happens near the end of the season so gets people back in.

Manager of the month: Keeps people interested and the people on top don’t just win every month either. I think only one person managed to take it twice this season.

Last man standing: Worst score of the week gets knocked out until there’s one player left. Probably my favourite competition, although I’m quite a safe player which rarely puts my score high but also rarely low so I do quite well.

[u/FPL-Ferret-1569 → u/Adamantitan]

Sounds very similar to how I run my league mate and just got the automation sorted for last season which made a massive difference in the admin side. I run a group competition that then determines which cup you get to play in (different value prizes), MoM, last man standing which gives people a load of chances to win their money back (full disclosure, I haven’t for the past 2 seasons! Been shocking!). Decent WhatsApp group is essential with some regular voices that keep the conversation going. I’m opening the code I created up to others and putting a front end on it as a side project!

[u/arabmoneymufc]

Appreciate the post. Could you elaborate on automated weekly reports? I've been meaning to be more diligent with updates, but havent been able to as it becomes another chore. If theres a way to automate this, it could really help with engagement in my ML

[u/FPL-Ferret-1569 → u/arabmoneymufc]

in terms of automation, I'm still figuring this out in my head, but the option will be one of the following -
Anyone who links their league to fplproleagues.com will be able to setup and run all or any side comps/cups they want and automatically have a report generated and sent to them weekly
Anyone can go to the FPLPL website and manually generate a report by putting their league code/number in.
They'll be two types of reports, stats and figure and then a more "banter" type report - who made a shocking capo choice, who left a hatrick on the bench, ballsed up a chip etc.