Do you think you know who will come out on top in American Soccer this year? Or do you just have some favorite team(s)? Then this game is for you.

The focus of this game will be American club soccer, but I will also allow players to expand to other countries.

The inspirations for this game are many: First and foremost is my enthusiasm for "the beautifull game". Second is the rules from Exchange Diplomacy by Bruce Duewer, supplemented by ideas from various other games such as the 18xx series, footiemanager.com (where I am East Fife in the Scottish Third Division in game 10), and others. I would recomend my page on Soccer in America to all player's, and I can recomend additional website's to FO's.

Every player who joins this year (2004) will start off with $100 of game money. Any players who join in subsequent years will begin with an additional $10 per year difference to allow them to start on a more even footing. Players will earn $1 every month (plus they may earn more through good investment's). Players may spend their money to buy & sell shares of Soccer club's. If the club does well in real life, the price will go up. If the club does poorly, the price will go down. I have some formula's devised to handle the details. For Club teams the formula is based loosely on the iffhs system, with some modifications (note that there are occasional panic's built in to the system, these are caused by the details of the formula but work good to simulate real world stock panic's). For national teams the formula is based in part on the official FIFA/Coca-Cola points ranking (time averaged to prevent a jump everytime the rankings are released) and in part on Bob Runy's soccer adaptation for the Elo Ranking system (the Elo ratings is the system used in chess) but modified to run on the FIFA/Coca-Cola points rankings as well as only including match's since the last FIFA rankings release (and all of those match's are applied simultaneously so that it does not matter who they played first and second).

The pace of this game will depend on several factor's, including but not limited to: My time constraint's (this game will be my lowest priority in what is already a full plate), real-world soccer competition rate's (slow weeks may not even warrent a update to the price's), and the amount of help I recieve from FO's (see below).

Each player may have one, and only one, Order in to me at a time via E-Mail at 'G'W'x'u'p'@'e'x'c'i't'e'.'c'o'm' (remove the ' to send to me, I did this to foil spammer bots). Once I reply to and proccess your Order, you may then submit another Order. Thus there are no time limit's to turn's, and I am likewise not under a time limit to process and return the turns. I may get to your Order quickly or not for a week or two. If you suspect that I have not replied to your Order because I did not recieve it due to electronic mal-delivery or whatnot, you may resend a copy of the Order stating in both the subject line and body that it is a resend or duplicate.

An Order may be one of the following:

• Buy one or more shares of a single, Active team from the Bank.
• Sell one or more shares of a single, Active team to the Bank
• Buy one or more shares of one or more Inactive team's from the Bank.
• Transaction with another (or more) player(s), listing all exchange's of stocks and/or cash. Both (or all) player's must send in a Transaction order for it to take place.
• Currency exchange, stating how much of a certain currency to buy (in preperation to buy shares of a foreign team in a later order). I will apply the exchange rate I find on the day and time I proccess the order.
• Issue one or more Dividends (FO's only).
• Call for new stock issue (FO's only).
• Transfer funds from personal treasury to team treasury. (FO's may perform a limited, reversed version of this one, see below).
• Request new FO election for one or more teams you hold stock in.
• Call for team activation.

Player's may own stock in as many or as few team's as they wish (and can afford). Player's may serve as FO for multiple team's. There will also be dummy or 3rd party characters run by me who will occasionally purschase and sell share's, at my whim.

Inactive/Active teams
Team's start out Inactive with a I.O.P. (Initial Offer Price) of one tenth it's price. Team's become Active in one of two way's.

1. If at least two-thirds of the number of it's I.O.P. shares are held by player's, it start's automatically. or
2. If enough Call for team activation Order's come in from a single or aggregate group of player's controlling at least one-third of the number of it's I.O.P. shares.

Any share's price (I.O.P. or otherwise) will always be at least $0.01 (one cent a share) when bought from the bank, even if the stock is listed at $0.00.

FO, Financial Officer
A newly Activatied team automatically has a FO election take place. All share holders in a newly activated team are notified of any other players who hold share's in the team (but not how many they hold) and their email addresses. They have, at most, one week to campaign and vote (based on their number of shares) for the initial FO.
At any time if a player, or group of players, who control at least ten percent of the share's have issued Request new FO election Order's the proccess above is repeated with another week's deadline, unless the current FO is amongst those so requesting the new election in which case he/she can set the deadline. Failure to vote in time for any of these elections will consider you to vote the same way you did in the last election for the particular team, or to vote for yourself if you have never before voted.
A FO has several abilities and responsibilites. The responsibilities may be delegated but the abilities may not be delegated.
FO Responsibilities: The FO will be my monitor on the real life team. They are to inform me of it's non-league match's and of any and all penalties placed on the team or any of it's player's. If it is a team outside of the either the MLS or the USL (though including Super-Y team's) they are also responsible for telling me of the results of the regular, league match's (and playoff's). The FO may optionally, if willing and able, create and maintain a website for the team for this game.
FO Abilities: While all share holders are periodically informed of the team's treasury, the FO has more up to date and detailed record's. While all player's may channel his or her personal funds into a team treasury, The FO may transfer one percent of the team treasury into his or her personal account. A FO may issue a dividend, this a amount from the team treasury, which is a equal multiple of the total number of share's, which is divided amongst the shareholders based on the number of share's they each hold. A FO may call for the issuance of new team stock shares, the FO declare's how many shares (though no more than a third of the teams total shares may be outstanding as a result of this) and sets a date for share holder's to vote by. It takes eighty percent of the share holder's votes (by number of shares) to approve this, and if approved new share's are placed on the market.

Team Income and Expenses
Teams will earn and loose money from their team treasuries based on real life events. For Game ticket and concession sale's I will use a simplified formula of $1 per spectator is earned, half of the total goes to the home team, a small levy may go to other organizations (0-6 percent), with the rest being split half and half between the visiting team and the league. Team's can also earn money for winning tournaments, ie the US Open cup will award $100,000 to the winner, $50,000 to the runner-up, and $10,000 to the top placed Amateaur (PDL or USASA), PSL, and A-League team's each. Other tournament prize's (as well as any playoff tournament prize's) will not be recognized unless the respective FO can inform me of a relevant URL detailing the size of the prize pot. Team's may also earn a levy if their stadium or field is used by the National Team for an A match.
All actual fees imposed on the real life team will be applied on the in gaem team, plus in cases where the fee's are not detailed, I have a default chart I will use. Any Real life fee's imposed only on a player will in the game have a small percentage applied on the team. Team's must also pay all registration and entry fee's, and annual fee's to the league, national association, and/or tournament organizer. Team's must also pay a Referee fee for each game, $95 unless the FO can show me what the actual fee is for the league.
If a team goes bankrupt for any reason, the stock price will suffer.

Periodic ratings will be released for the player's, which take into account their market share. Personnal treasuries do not effect the rating. This ratings will have no game effect other than to allow you to compare how you are doing.

Foreign Team's
I will allow the inclusion of foreign teams (both National & club) as players request. Here is the procedure:

1. Submit an Order to convert some of your cash to the currency of the country in question, if the country does not use the United States Dollar. I will look up the exchange rate at the time that I process your order and use that.
2. In the same order inform me of what team you are interested in so I can do the initial evaluation. If you can not supply me with the information I need for the initial price calculations I can look it up but I will charge you twice as much. What I need for the calculation's is the following:
   • For National Teams- The name of the country, and whether you are refering to the Men's or the Women's team. It would be helpful, though not required if you can supply the website URL of the National Association at this time.
   • For National Teams- A listing and results for all full "A" and Olympic match's since the last release of the FIFA rankings (or the last deadline for Women's National team's), including the opponent, the resulting score, date, and what the event was (ie Friendly, Continental zone qualifications for something, etc.). For the Men's this could mean up to the last month & for the Women it could mean up to the last 13 week's. If you are unsure if a specific game was before or since the last rating release, go ahead and include it.
   • For National Teams- a listing of all known upcoming match's scheduled before the next release of the FIFA rankings including opponent, date, and event (ie Friendly, Olympic match, World Cup game, etc.). Again for the Men this could include through the next month and for the Women it possibly could include through the next 13 week's. If they are scheduled to partake in a tournament during that time but the deatail's are net yet finalised (ie the Draw has not been made yet or they have not finished qualifying) mention this as well.
   • For Club team's- the name of the team, The name of the division/league they play in, and what Division level that is (many country's have a name for their division's that do not match the actual division level, ie the First division is often the Div. II while the Div I is called something else such as Premiership or whatnot).
   • For Club team's- The results for the last season (or the last two season's for those countries that have two season's a year). You do not need to list every match, just of the total Number of match's played and the Number of wins, losses, and ties. Also include any point penalties be them for rules violation's or match forfeiture's.
   • For Club team's- The results, if any, for the team in the last season's (or last two season's if that applies) playoff's consisting of match score's in each round of the playoff's (ie they won #-# in the Quarter finals, and lost #-# in the Semifinals, and the result of the 3rd place match was #-#.) and the date's of each round. Same goes for any continental competition's (ie UEFA cup, Champions League, Copa Americana, etc.) in the last year or any currently under way. This also goes for any national cup competition as above, but only for eigth-final's and above.
   • For Club team's- Their current status in this season- # of match's played so far, total # of match's in a full season, Number of win's-losses-ties, and their current standings in any playoff's underway (in the case of playoff's include date's of the match's).
   • For Club team's- their results in any significant international tournament, either currently underway or within the last year, and date's of each match.
   • Presumably as a fan of the team in question you will already know or have access to this information, or know of where to look it up. If not I recomend the Website of the RSSSF.
3. The price's will then not be updated unless some ask's me to do so (and provide's me with the appropriate updates as per above) or until the team become's active.
4. If any of the price's have not been updated within 6 month's, no more shares of that team may be purchased until someone supplies me with the information to so update it.

Dispute's
This is the Dispute process if you think I have made a misteak or a FO has misled me, be it on purpose or by accident/incompetence/whatever, and be it concerining a team you have shares in or not. Send me one message, as a Order explaining the situation and including the URL's of any reference source's, and I will spent however much effort I think is or is not worth spending on the issue. This is Free. If I do not find anything or dismiss the claim outright, you have one further Dispute avenue. It requires you to either have $500 in your personal treasury OR to have sufficient shares in the team(s) in question such that your percentage of of the shares when multiplied by the team(s) treasury equals $500 OR a combination of the two equaling $500. The $500 will be withdrawn as a deposit while I investigate, and I will investigate at this point irregardless of my opinion on the matter. Feel free to include any additional source URL's at this point. If I then find nothing or Find evidence contradicting your position, the $500 are lost and the issue is closed. If I find you are correct, the $500 or portion thereoff that came from your personal treasury will be returned though not any parts (or the whole) whice came from the team(s) treasury. Further, If I find a FO is at fault, they and/or the team(s) in question will be Fined for some or all of that $500.