Most of us know the latest advertisement of the world's most famous fast food restaurant. An inseparable feature of all meals are unique and one of their kind chips – served by young and ambitious students. What does it have to do with Football Managers? As far as I'm concerned the chances of seeing more leagues in FM 2009 are very slim. For the first time in history we'll see 3D view, new options and functions, but we won't get the opportunity to play in additional leagues – the standard set of new features got changed. But what would a Happy Meal be without chips? That's why, despite the dust after sumptuous announcement of the latest SI child hasn't settled yet, I'll allow myself to fantasise a bit.

Some time ago, in one of the Stops, I mentioned that the creators don't splash their arduously earned money on licences allowing the use of competitions' names, club logos, or players' pictures. However, they make it easy for us to add such features, for example with the help of easy to create fake files. Everyone benefits from it - SI, as they don't have to spend a penny; the users who can make use of their skills and establish themselves on the Scene. Graphics on CM Rev, Forum CM, Susie – all these places offer loads of graphic packs, with the most popular ones being downloaded tens of thousand times, thus making the images on our screens more or less colourful – everything's up to our creativity and will. My dream, however, is to add to the File Planet section the possibility of downloading additional leagues. Not taking into account programmers' protests, for whom such a venture won't be possible for the next two decades, let's try to imagine what would happen if the creators took out the league and cup competitions from the game engine, thus enabling us to add and modify them. It could be really great...

The economic factor can be easily omitted – the cost of adding a league would be the same as that of changing a skin – close to nothing. It's just a simple copy/paste thing, and in today's world several dozen MB of disk space is not much. In the new game menu, after selecting the size of the database, we could chose leagues: the basic – in the number, let's say, as it is now, and the additional, created by users. Obviously, for Polish FMmaniacs the priority would be Polish leagues, and it's very likely that in just a few days after the game's release we would be showered with additions of varied quality. I can see already Fudi&Messinho Lower League Revolution Pack! In their Manifestos many revolutionists would publish their own creations, co-operation offers, or simply comments to existing additions. The patient and hard-working would surely be rewarded with a place on File Planet or editorial staff, and their names and nicks would be immediately recognisable around the scene. The game wouldn't change much, for it doesn't matter for the game engine whether it simulates Polish or English sixth division. I would give much myself to be able to lead Stal Mielec to the first division again, and for many of us this sort of opportunity would mean hours spent in front of a computer.

What effect would it have on speed of game and system requirements? Well, since we're still in the realm of imagination I dare to say the effect would be very little. The term of a choice features CM and FM series since the very beginning, and surely it was more crucial a few years ago than it is now. I just cannot imagine even starting a game with a dozen of leagues on in the old good CM, of course on the computer I had at that time. Football Manager 2008 and the solutions applied in it, the choice of level of details for simulation or the database size, made it possible to run even 30 leagues. So if I decided to play in A-class level in Poland [sixth or seventh tier of the league system, a set of parallel regional leagues], it wouldn't be at the expense of other countries – so the football world would be even more beautiful.

As far as realism goes I'm quite confident. I would rely on proven solutions only. The users themselves and their approach towards creating additional stuff vary. Even today there are still a number of people willing to meddle with CA and PA whilst making updates, on the basis of only one extremely good or poor performance. I know for sure that Fudi&Mesinnho brand of updates would be reliable and the data would accurately reflect reality. So, if any of you haven't downloaded the latest FM 2008 update signed by the most famous revolutionary team – I invite you to File Planet.

The recent release of an editor that lets us edit the league table reinforces my belief that the vision of editing the leagues is not merely an effect of my autumn depression, or too strong coffee served at the office. Will enabling such crucial element for editing result in only positive outcome? A positive answer brings forth another question: why don't the creators give us such possibility? I haven't got the faintest idea. Maybe it's due to some programming intricacy, maybe something else, but it's highly probable that we'll find a number of possible answer in the comments. So, I invite you to discuss and fantasise a bit. Then, even a nasty weather seems finer.