A Beginners Guide to FPL for 2025/26 Season

It is that time of year again, Fantasy Premier League has finally returned and here at BOASTI we have you covered on everything you need to know.

Registering

To start your 2025 Fantasy Premier League experience as a manager, you will need to register on the FPL site: fantasy.premierleague.com - once there click the 'Register Now' button and then the 'No account? Join now' allowing you to complete an easy 3-step registration process.

However, if you already have a FPL account, simply click the 'Login in' button and enter your details.

Once logged in, you will be taken to the home page where you can access the squad selection and help page.

Creating a Squad

Once your registration process is complete, you can begin to choose your squad. A squad consists of 15 players all with their own allocated prices in order to fit the overall budget of £100M and each team must be comprised of 2 goalkeepers, 5 defenders, 5 midfielders and 3 forwards.

Managers are free to choose players from across all 20 Premier League clubs, however managers have a maximum of THREE players from any ONE Premier League club.

You will be given a full list of players across all clubs and positions, which you can alternatively filter to specific clubs and positions helping to easily access your preferences.

In the beginning, you are able to use the 'Auto Pick' button to automatically generate your team, ensuring that you have a team by the first deadline. This creates a base team allowing you to choose your team name and join any leagues without having to accurately allocate your players spots all at once.

When deciding on players it is important that you instil a balance across your squad, which can be seen with having a diverse amount of clubs and a variation in budget across the 4 positions. On top of this, fixtures can play a key role in how likely players are to score points - so pay attention to the Fixture Difficulty Ratings

What's New?

This season, Fantasy Premier League have added a few changes to their game, these updates include updates to the point scoring system, the chips used, transfers for international events and an addition of elite global leagues. So what's what?

Defensive Contributions – As of this season, outfield players will now be awarded points for any of their defensive contributions and will be similar to how goalkeepers score additional points for saves.

2 points will be allocated to a defender who reaches a combined total of 10 clearances, blocks, tackles and interceptions in a single match. However, defensive points will be capped at 2 points so even if a defender was to make 20 contributions they would still only be eligible for an additional 2 points.

In addition to this, midfielders and forwards will also be able to access these extra points when they reach a combined total of 12 clearances, blocks, tackles, ball recoveries and interceptions in a single match.

Bonus Points - The Bonus Point System (BPS) determines the allocation of bonus points in each match, as it stands the player with the highest amount of points according to the BPS is given 3 points, 2 points to second place and 1 point to third.

Bonus point ties are resolved in 1 of 3 ways:

• If there is a tie for 1st place then players 1 and 2 will each receive 3 points whilst player 3 will only receive 1 point

• if there is a tie for 2nd place then player 1 will receive 3 points and players 2 and 3 will each receive 2 points

• if there is a tie for 3rd place then player 1 will receive 3 points, player 2 will receive 2 points and players 3 and 4 will each receive 1 point

This season a few changes have been made to the amount of BPS points a player receives for certain roles on the pitch. These changes are many based on goalkeeper saves, goalline clearances, penalty goals and successful tackles.

Goalkeeper Saves - For the 2025/26 season, the shot location of an attempt on goal will determine the amount of BPS points a keeper will receive. In previous seasons the goalkeeper would earn 2 points in the BPS for any save they made. Whereas this season goalkeepers will receive 3 points if the shot was taken WITHIN the penalty box and 2 points if the shot was from OUTSIDE of the box.

A penalty save will result in a slight reduction from previous seasons and will only earn them 8 points from 9 points in the BPS. These 8 points will then be added to the 3 points for saving a shot within the penalty box and will give a combined total of 11 points for a penalty save.

Goalline Clearances - Goalline clearances points will be increased from 3 points to 9 points to highlight their significance in a matches' outcome.

Penalty Goals - In previous seasons the amount of points in the BPS for scoring a penalty differentiated based on the players position. However, this season all players regardless of position will earn a total of 12 points - this DOESN'T apply to non-penalty goals whose points are still allocated based on positions.

Successful Tackles - In previous seasons BPS points for successful tackles were awarded based on the equation of the total tackles won - tackles lost. However, this season it has been simplified, so for every tackle won in a match 2 points will be rewarded.

Chips - As of this season, Fantasy Premier League have introduced TWO sets of chips (a total of 8 chips), where each manager will have the ability to use a Wildcard, Free Hit, Triple Captain and Bench Boost chip in EACH of the two halves of the season.

However, the 2025/26 season will not see the return of the Assistant Manager chip.

Assist Rules - The 2025/26 season has simplified the assist rule to ensure that it is easier to understand when an assist has been made. These changes to the rules should allow players to score more assist points that would not have been classified as such in previous seasons.

An assist WILL be counted if either 'the goalscorer receives the ball inside the penalty box' or 'if there is only one defensive touch before the ball reaches the goalscorer' but there will be NO assist awarded if the defensive touch is a pass or if a goalscorer loses and then regains possession.

Elite Global Leagues - This season Fantasy Premier League have introduced TWO new global leagues which are only accessible through elite qualifying from the previous fantasy season.

The first league is for managers who finished in the top 1% in the world ranking last season. Those who finished in the top 114,319 places will have already qualified for the Top 1% 24/25 League.

The second league is for managers who finished in the top 10% in the world ranking last season. Those who finished in the top 1,143,193 places will have already qualified for the Top 10% 24/25 League.

Transfers - This season all managers will receive extra transfers in order to cover absences due to the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) which involves 24 African countries and will span over Gameweeks 17 to 22.

The tournament starts on Sunday 21st December 2025 and ends on Sunday 18th January 2026, some players may leave earlier ahead of the tournament and may leave some managers teams more vulnerable with less players. As a result of this, for Gameweek 16 your total number of free transfers will be topped to the maximum of 5 to allow managers to react to early departures of players participating in the tournament.

Team Badges – This season Premier League have partnered with Adobe, allowing managers to now create their own badges for their team using Adobe Express and Firefly generative AI tool.

Transfers

An unlimited amount of transfers can be made before the season starts, once the season begins (so after the first Gameweek deadline) all managers will then be given ONE transfer for EACH Gameweek.

These free transfers enable you to ensure that you have a strong starting 11 squad who are likely to play and are injury or ban free. Every time a transfer is used to buy a player, a player from your squad must be sold. This transaction of players MUST fit within the allocated £100M budget - be wary that player's prices are subject to change once the season begins based on their popularity.

If you choose not to use your transfer one week, you can roll it over to the following deadline allowing you to make 2 free transfers that week. This can be continued up to FIVE free transfers.

However, whilst there is a limit in place on the amount of free transfers you can have, additional transfers can be made but will cost FOUR of your team's fantasy points.

Chips

As of this season, Fantasy Premier League have introduced TWO sets of chips (a total of 8 chips), where each manager will have the ability to use a Wildcard, Free Hit, Triple Captain and Bench Boost chip in EACH of the two halves of the season.

However, the 2025/26 season will not see the return of the Assistant Manager chip.

Each set of chips has a deadline similar to the wildcard chips in previous seasons. The first set of chips needs to be used before Gameweek 19's deadline, which is Tuesday 30th December. Any remaining chips CANNOT roll over into the second half of the season.

Wildcard Chip - The Wildcard allows all transfers in a single gameweek to be made free of charge and helps to set up squads for the following weeks.

It is normally played when confirming transfers that would cost points - typically when multiple squad members are injured or in the later stages of the season when clubs have double gameweeks.

Once confirmed, the chip CANNOT be cancelled but any banked free transfers will be kept until the following week.

Free Hit Chip - The Free Hit chip allows unlimited transfers to be made in a gameweek and by the next gameweek deadline the squad will return to its previous state before any transfers were made.

This chip CANNOT be played in Gameweek 1 as it will have nothing to revert back to in Gameweek 2. Similarly, the Free Hit CANNOT be played back to back in Gameweek 19 and 20.

Once confirmed, the chip CANNOT be cancelled but any banked free transfers will be kept until the following week.

Bench Boost Chip - The Bench Boost chip means that any points scored by benched players will be added to the team's overall total.

This season's addition of defensive contributions could make benched defenders more impactful under this chip.

It CAN be cancelled at any time before the Gameweek deadline

Triple Captain Chip - The Triple Captain chip means that the points that your captained player scores will be tripled instead of its normal doubled.

It CAN be cancelled at any time before the Gameweek deadline.

Leagues and Cups

Leagues are an important yet enjoyable way of immersing yourself into Fantasy Premier League, once your squad is created you will automatically join an allocated global league but will have the option to join other public leagues or create your own private leagues, where you can compete against family and friends.

Global Leagues and Cups - Upon entry you will automatically have joined 5 global leagues and cups. These are as followed:

• Overall League (all managers who are participating)

• Your Country League (all managers who are from the same country as you)

• Your Premier League Club League (all managers who are supporters of the same club as you)

• Your Gameweek League (all managers who started in the same Gameweek as you)

• The Second Chance League (all managers and begins in Gameweek 21)

As of this season, some managers will be entered into two new elite global leagues:

• Top 1% League (all managers who finished in the top 1% of managers in the 24/25 season - so within the top 114,319 places)

• Top 10% League (all managers who finished in the top 10% of managers in the 24/25 season - so within the top 1,143,193 places)

You will be able to qualify for these leagues next season if you finish within the top 10% this season.

Private Leagues - Private leagues are those used to compete against friends, family and colleagues, you can either join a friend's league that has already been set up or create your own league and send out a unique code for your friends to join.

You can join up to 30 private leagues and there is NO limit to how many teams can compete in a single league.

Public Leagues - Public leagues are leagues where a random 20 teams are assigned to compete against each other, you can ONLY compete in up to 5 public leagues.

Head-to-Head Leagues - In head-to-head leagues managers play directly against one another in each Gameweek. Each week the match result between two managers is based on the score from each manager's Gameweek score minus any transfer points.

A team will receive 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw which are then ranked.

Cups - Cups start later on within the season, with managers being entered into a cup for every league they have. Each team will randomly draw another team and the team with the highest Gameweek score will progress to the next round.

It will continue until the final Gameweek where the last two teams will contest for the victory.

Scoring and Points

Points are earned from players for various actions such as appearances, goals, assists, clean sheets, defensive contributions and saves. However, they can also earn additional points if they are among the top performing players in the Bonus Point System (BPS).

• 1 point for playing up to 60 minutes

• 2 points for playing 60+ minutes (stoppage time not included)

• 10 points for a goal scored by a goalkeeper

• 6 points for a goal scored by a defender

• 5 points for a goal scored by a midfielder

• 4 points for a goal scored by a forward

• 3 points for every assist

• 4 points for a clean sheet by a goalkeeper or defender

• 1 point for a clean sheet by a midfielder

• 1 point for every 3 shots saved by a goalkeeper

• 5 points for each penalty save

• 2 points for a total of 10 defensive contributions made by a defender

• 2 points for a total of 12 defensive contributions made by a midfielder or forward

• 1-3 points for the highest scoring players in each match

• -1 point for every 2 goals conceded by a goalkeeper or defender

• -2 points for each penalty miss

• -1 point for each yellow card

• -3 points for each red card

• -2 points for every own goal

Clean Sheets - In order for players to receive clean sheet points they must not concede any goal and must've played 60 minutes or more. If a player has played 60 minutes but substituted before a goal was conceded, it will NOT affect their points.

Assists - Assists will be awarded to players who make the final touch or pass before a goal is scored - in order for this to count the ball must ONLY receive 1 defensive touch and the goalscorer must receive the ball within the penalty box.

If the ball is received outside the penalty box, there must be NO significant hindrance to the ball's intended path.

If a goalscorer loses and regains possession the assist will NOT be awarded.

Rebounds - An assist WILL be given if a shot on goal is blocked, saved or hit the woodwork and then the rebound IS scored.

Own Goals - If a player shoots or passes the ball in a way that forces an opposing player to put the ball into their own net then an assist WILL be awarded.

Penalties and Free Kicks - The player earning a foul that leads to the penalty or the free kick WILL be given an assist if the goal is directly scored. However, if the taker is the one that earned the foul then no assist will be given.

Bonus Points - The Bonus Point System (BPS) determines the allocation of bonus points in each match, as it stands the player with the highest amount of points according to the BPS is given 3 points, 2 points to second place and 1 point to third.

Bonus point ties are resolved in 1 of 3 ways:

• If there is a tie for 1st place then players 1 and 2 will each receive 3 points whilst player 3 will only receive 1 point

• if there is a tie for 2nd place then player 1 will receive 3 points and players 2 and 3 will each receive 2 points

• if there is a tie for 3rd place then player 1 will receive 3 points, player 2 will receive 2 points and players 3 and 4 will each receive 1 point

Join BOASTI's League: https://fantasy.premierleague.com/leagues/auto-join/8kys77