How to spice up your fantasy football team this year

With the premier league due to start in the next month, it’s that time to start thinking about fantasy football. Whether you chose to set one up with one of the many reputable providers who offer a fantasy football team for free, such as Sky Sports, or through a newspaper (old school style), you might fall into the trap that affects so many fantasy football players every year : running out of interest by the end of the season because your team hasn’t done as well as hoped. To stop this from happening this year, there are a few preventatives you can initiate. Starting up a fantasy football syndicate is definitely a good way to begin this new system of playing, but take heed of the below advice.

No one likes an easy winner and losing from the start is depressing. To kick some real competition into your games introduce the idea of fines. Set up a pool of money which at the end of the competition gets granted to the overall winner. Fines can be exacted for, for example, not voting in polls, making subs when injuries occur and not updating score sheets when necessary. This means that if players do not log in to check their team’s performance one week, they will be fined for their lack of interest. A general lack of love will get penalised!

Nothing keeps people interested like the chance of winning prizes. Although there is, of course, a prize at the end of the fantasy football competition itself, it’s a good idea to introduce some weekly prizes. This could be from having the highest scoring individual player to owning a man of the match. This gives those players who may never actually win a match (or anything!) the chance to get some prizes. Prizes could range from small monetary bonuses to shopping vouchers.

A little thinking sometimes goes a long way and these tips will hopefully spice up any fantasy football syndicates, rewarding effort as well as good team choices. See how you fare this season, best of luck!