The World Menu gives you access to all the information surrounding the wider footballing world in your saved game. If you wish to find out what’s going on somewhere, you can do it from the options found within, which are explained in this section.

View an overview page for each continent which contains key information regarding football in that part of the world as well as a geographic breakdown of other items within this section and local media sources.

The top section of the Competitions menu contains direct links to all competitions which are active in your saved game. Moving the mouse pointer over a main competition ‘header’ will pop out the sub-menu from which you can select the direct competition link and view the information for the chosen competition.

The second section of the Competitions menu acts as a directory of all the teams in your saved game, allowing the user to browse through them however they wish. They are divided into three sections; Nations, Major Clubs, and National Clubs. In the same manner as described in section 7.1, holding the mouse pointer over one of these headers will pop out a sub menu from which you may then select a choice. This choice will then present all relevant teams in a list in the main screen area – click on a team to view their squad and other pertinent information.

Should you wish to keep abreast of all transfer activity in your game world, the Transfers menu is where you will find all the information you’ll need. By default, the screen lists the most recent transfers, sorted by fee paid. Each column header is sortable, and the ‘Views’ Menu to the top right of the main screen area allows for the information presented to be changed to see ‘Future Transfers’, ‘Loans’, or ‘Staff’ as well as the default ‘Players’ list. The ‘Filters’ menu adjacent to this allows the user to filter the list by nation as well as the entire footballing world.

The Awards menu is where you will find the worldwide player awards, such as World Player of the Year. The screen details the 1-2-3 placing of the most recent award as well as historical information for past winners.

The Finances Menu holds key financial ranking information from both the country you are currently managing in as well as the wider game world. The worldwide ‘Richest Clubs’ option simply ranks clubs by their overall valuation.

Whereas the national Finances screen sorts clubs by a number of financial markers. From the ‘Views’ Menu located towards the top right of the main screen area, teams may be sorted by their Estimated Value, Wage Budget, Wage Bill, Bank Balance, Turnover, Profit, and loss. The screen is a useful tool for you to keep up to date on the financial status of your rivals – you never know, a situation may arise where it is in your interests to exploit it.

A directory of all managers currently working in football.

Football Manager™ 2012 introduces a means of maintaining a snapshot of the football world as it once was. When a player retires from playing (and doesn’t move into a staff role), he now can be ‘preserved’ in the FM Archive. By selecting ‘Keep History After Retirement’ from the ‘Interaction’ section of  a player’s ‘Actions’ menu, the individual will be kept around with a retired profile page summing up the very best of their career.

The list of players who are retained can be found on this Retirements screen. Higher profile players will be retained automatically, and players can be ‘released’ from retention before their retirement by repeating the process but de-selecting the ‘Keep History After Retirement’ option.