How to Create an FPL Mini-League for Your Office or WhatsApp Group

The private league is what makes FPL worth playing. Your global rank against millions of managers is an abstract number that means nothing to anyone in your life. Finishing above the colleague who sits across from you means something.

Creating a mini-league takes about two minutes. You need a squad first — if you have not built one yet, start at fantasy.premierleague.com. Once your team exists, here is how to get the league running.

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The click path

Sign in to the FPL website or app.
Select Leagues & Cups from the main menu.
Tap Create & Join New Leagues & Cups.
Tap Create a League & Cup.
Choose Classic or Head-to-Head — see the next section.
Name the league.
Tap Create League.

After creation, the invite code and a shareable link appear on the confirmation screen. You can find them again later: Leagues & Cups → the league name → Admin → Invite Code.

Classic or Head-to-Head?

Classic ranks managers by total accumulated Gameweek points across the season. Highest total at the end of GW38 wins.

Head-to-Head gives each manager a weekly fixture against one other manager: 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss. The league table ranks on H2H points, not overall FPL points.

Quick rule: even-numbered group of up to 20, with everyone planning to play every week → Head-to-Head. Anything larger, odd-numbered, or with mixed commitment → Classic. For the full breakdown, see Classic vs Head-to-Head: Which Format to Run?.

Name it clearly

The league name appears in everyone's Leagues list. If your group are in multiple leagues — which they will be by mid-season — a name like "Office FPL 2026/27" is easier to find than "The League". A clear name also avoids confusion when you re-share the code and people need to confirm they are looking at the right one.

Getting and sharing the code

Both the invite code and the shareable link do the same thing. The link opens the join screen automatically; the code is entered manually. Most admins send both — the link for convenience, the code as a fallback for anyone the link does not open for.

Ready-to-paste WhatsApp invite

Most admins write this from scratch every year. Here is one you can copy, fill in the two blanks, and send:

[LEAGUE NAME] — FPL 2026/27

Free to join. No payment required.

How to join:
1. Sign up at fantasy.premierleague.com and build your 15-player squad (free).
2. Leagues & Cups → Create & Join → Join Invitational League & Cup.
3. Enter code: [YOUR CODE HERE]

GW1 deadline: Friday 21 August 2026, 18:30 WAT. Do not miss it.

Keep it to this length. Longer messages in group chats do not get read.

Starting from a later Gameweek

When creating the league, you can choose which Gameweek the table starts counting from. Points before that Gameweek do not appear in the standings.

If you are setting up in October, choose the next upcoming Gameweek so that everyone starts on equal footing. The league can still be joined at any time — the start Gameweek only controls what the table counts, not who is allowed to join.

For the WAT equivalent of any upcoming Gameweek deadline you need to include in your group message, see FPL Deadline Time in Nigeria.

What an admin actually has to do

Before GW1: send the invite and follow up once. People mean to join and forget. One reminder the day before the GW1 deadline closes gets the stragglers in.
After each Gameweek: re-sharing the league standings in the group chat after results is the most effective way to keep engagement across the season. Real conversations happen when the table is in front of people.
When disputes arise: have a written rules document ready before the argument starts, not during it. See An FPL Mini-League Rules Template for a copy-paste block you can pin in the chat before GW1.

Mini-leagues are free to play. No payment is required at any point on the FPL platform. Prizes between friends should be non-cash: a trophy, a certificate on the office wall, the loser buys suya at the end of the season, the winner picks the next group outing. An arrangement where players contribute money is a different kind of thing with different rules — rules nobody in the group chat has thought through. Keep it free.