MFL (official site) has opened Arena, a free-to-play mode for its football management game on the Flow blockchain. Managers coach every match in real time and climb the divisions toward Legend status. Arena opened to all players on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, at 2 PM CET, after an invite-only beta. You don’t need an invite code, a waitlist spot or a Discord invite to join, and you don’t have to set up a wallet.
Setting up a club takes a few minutes, and the first match starts straight after. The team’s pitch in its announcement was short: “Think you can compete with the best? Prove it.”
How Arena plays
Arena matches last 90 minutes and play out in real time. While a game is running, managers can change their formation, switch their pressing style and make substitutions.
New managers found their club by picking three young players and a captain. They then build the squad through packs and the marketplace. Arena runs alongside Pro Manager, MFL’s original mode, and has its own clubs and its own rankings.
The ladder has eight tiers with three levels each: Amateur, Prospect, Semi-Pro, Pro, Elite, Champion, World-Class and Master. Legend sits above them and has room for only 20 managers. Every club starts in Amateur III. The weekly cycle closes every Monday at 11 PM CET, and rewards are paid out after that.
What changed since the beta
The invite-only beta ran for around two to three weeks. Testers’ biggest complaint was that new managers got stuck early, because the lower divisions paid only small rewards. MFL made several changes for the public launch.
The biggest is a new currency called Gems. Gems can only be earned and spent in Arena, which lets the team hand out more of them early. Players spend them in the Store on Arena packs and OVR boosts. According to MFL, an Amateur III manager who plays 10 matches, logs in daily and wins once a day can earn more than 350 Gems in the first week. That buys seven 30+ packs. The same week in the beta paid for one.
- Packs are larger, with players from 30+ to 80+ OVR.
- Boosts add one point to all attributes for 15 Arena matches, and up to three can be active at once.
- For the first 30 matches of each season, matchmaking looks at the strength of a club’s starting XI as well as its rank. Amateur opponents can be at most 5 OVR stronger, and the limit in Prospect is 10.
- The wait between matches has dropped from five minutes to one.
“Your club should get better on every day you play,” the MFL team said.
Gems, missions and streaks
Weekly Gem rewards range from 115 Gems in Amateur III to 3,000 Gems in Legend. Managers also get a one-time bonus for each new level reached in a season, 20 Gems for their first ranked win each day, and extra Gems from daily and weekly missions. A daily login streak pays 5 Gems on day one and up to 30 Gems from day seven. Missing a day resets it. Gems from logins, first wins and missions are capped at 780 per week.
Season 1 and the reset
The launch also starts Arena Season 1, called First Night, which comes with a free Season Pass and a Premium Season Pass.
Everyone starts fresh. Beta clubs, Arena players and rankings were reset. Cosmetics, earned $MFL and purchased pro players carry over. Each pro player can play in only one mode per season, Arena or Pro Manager, and the first match decides which. Players pulled from Arena packs are tied to Arena and can’t be traded.
$MFL prizes at the top
$MFL is still the top prize, and the pool is shared with Pro Manager. Weekly $MFL rewards start at Elite. Master managers get 10,000 $MFL per week. In Legend, payouts run from 20,000 $MFL for 20th place to 50,000 $MFL for first. MFL said launch rewards are 20 times higher than in the beta, when first place in Legend paid 2,500 $MFL.
To qualify for the weekly payout, a manager needs at least 10 matches in the week. From Pro level up, at least 5 of those must be wins. $MFL can be converted into Gems at 10 $MFL per Gem, up to 25,000 $MFL per week. Gems can’t be converted back.
According to the MFL guide, $MFL is an in-game currency with no external market value. It can’t be sent to other managers or traded outside the game. Pro players bought with $MFL on the marketplace stay fully owned and tradeable.
About MFL
MFL was founded in Paris in 2021. It tries to recreate how real football works, with clubs, transfers, contracts and competitions run by the players. In Pro Manager, managers own their clubs and players as NFTs. Those assets sit in the owner’s account and can be traded on several marketplaces. Transfers and match results run through Cadence smart contracts on Flow. Account abstraction means players don’t install a wallet or pay gas fees. Pro Manager seasons last about six weeks.
Flow, citing MFL figures, reports more than 5,000 active managers and over 3 million USD in cumulative secondary market volume. In June, MFL launched its Nations Cup 2026 with 48 nations and a 25,000 USD prize pool.
