MFL (official site) has launched Arena, a free-to-play mode for its Flow blockchain football management game. In Arena, managers coach each match live and work their way up the divisions toward Legend status. After an invite-only beta, the mode opened to all players on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, at 2 PM CET. There’s no invite code, waitlist spot or Discord invite required, and players don’t have to set up a wallet.
Creating a club takes a few minutes, and the first match follows right away. The team kept its announcement pitch brief: “Think you can compete with the best? Prove it.”
How Arena plays
Every Arena match runs for 90 minutes in real time. During play, managers can adjust their formation, change how their team presses and bring on substitutes.
To found a club, a new manager picks three young players and a captain, then fills out the squad using packs and the marketplace. Arena sits next to Pro Manager, the game’s original mode, with separate clubs and separate rankings.
There are eight tiers on the ladder, each split into three levels: Amateur, Prospect, Semi-Pro, Pro, Elite, Champion, World-Class and Master. Above them is Legend, which holds just 20 managers. All clubs begin in Amateur III. Each weekly cycle ends on Monday at 11 PM CET, with rewards paid out afterward.
What changed since the beta
The invite-only beta lasted roughly two to three weeks. The main complaint from testers was that new managers stalled early on, since the lower divisions handed out only small rewards. MFL responded with several changes for the public launch.
The largest change is Gems, a new currency that can only be earned and spent inside Arena, so the team can give out more of it early on. Gems are spent in the Store on Arena packs and OVR boosts. MFL says an Amateur III manager who plays 10 matches, logs in every day and wins once a day can collect more than 350 Gems in the first week, enough for seven 30+ packs. In the beta, the same week paid for one.
- Packs are bigger now, with players ranging from 30+ to 80+ OVR.
- A boost adds one point to every attribute for 15 Arena matches, and managers can run up to three at the same time.
- During the first 30 matches of each season, matchmaking considers the strength of a club’s starting XI along with its rank. In Amateur, opponents can be no more than 5 OVR stronger. In Prospect, the cap is 10.
- The cooldown between matches is down to one minute from five.
“Your club should get better on every day you play,” the MFL team said.
Gems, missions and streaks
Weekly Gem payouts go from 115 Gems in Amateur III up to 3,000 Gems in Legend. On top of that, managers earn a one-time bonus for every new level they reach in a season, 20 Gems for the day’s first ranked win, and more Gems from daily and weekly missions. The daily login streak starts at 5 Gems on day one and climbs to as much as 30 Gems from day seven onward. Skip a day and it resets. Gems from logins, first wins and missions are limited to 780 a week.
Season 1 and the reset
Launch day also kicks off Arena Season 1, named First Night, with a free Season Pass and a Premium Season Pass.
All managers begin from scratch. Beta clubs, Arena players and rankings have been wiped. Cosmetics, earned $MFL and bought pro players are kept. A pro player can only appear in one mode per season, either Arena or Pro Manager, and whichever mode they play their first match in is the one they’re locked to. Players pulled from Arena packs belong to Arena and can’t be traded.
$MFL prizes at the top
The biggest reward is still $MFL, drawn from a pool shared with Pro Manager. Weekly $MFL payouts begin at Elite. Managers in Master receive 10,000 $MFL a week. Legend pays between 20,000 $MFL for 20th place and 50,000 $MFL for first. According to MFL, launch rewards are 20 times what the beta paid, when first place in Legend earned 2,500 $MFL.
Managers need to play at least 10 matches in a week to qualify for the weekly payout. From Pro level upward, at least 5 of those matches have to be wins. $MFL converts into Gems at a rate of 10 $MFL per Gem, capped at 25,000 $MFL a week. The conversion only goes one way: Gems can’t be turned back into $MFL.
The MFL guide describes $MFL as an in-game currency with no external market value. It can’t be sent to other managers or traded outside the game. Pro players purchased with $MFL on the marketplace remain fully owned and tradeable.
About MFL
MFL started in Paris in 2021. The game aims to mirror how real football operates, with clubs, transfers, contracts and competitions all run by players. In Pro Manager, managers own their clubs and players as NFTs, which are held in the owner’s account and can be traded across several marketplaces. Transfers and match results are handled by Cadence smart contracts on Flow. Thanks to account abstraction, players don’t need to install a wallet or pay gas fees. A Pro Manager season runs for about six weeks.
Citing MFL’s figures, Flow reports over 5,000 active managers and more than 3 million USD in cumulative secondary market volume. In June, MFL launched its Nations Cup 2026, featuring 48 nations and a 25,000 USD prize pool.