How to Play FPL Draft in 2025-26 Season?

Fantasy Premier League Draft 2025/26 is live now, which gives a unique challenge and experience for the managers. It is free to play and a complimentary game for the FPL managers, who can join in the FPL Draft after creating or joining the existing FPL.

Why is FPL Draft Different and Special?

Let's see the criteria that set the FPL draft apart from regular leagues:

• A different team from the original existing FPL team.
• An FPL manager can join up to 10 private leagues and 3 public leagues in the Draft FPL format. Unlike the regular FPL or mini leagues, the manager must set a team for every draft league he or she participates in.
• Draft leagues have two different types: Private and Public.
• One league can have two (private) to four (public) minimum managers and eight (public) to 16 (private) maximum managers.
• No player value or budget requirement.
• In every FPL Draft league, each player can be selected only once by the managers. Unlike the original FPL system or its mini-league, each manager of the same Draft league can’t have the same player, as the selected player will be blocked for other managers.
• Players can be selected by the “random draft” or the “descending rank.”
• Draft league transfers can follow either “waivers” or “free agents.” There is also a trade option for the “Private League” if it is chosen.
• No captain or vice-captain.
• The points system is exactly the same as the original FPL, including bonus points.
• Draft league scoring can be either a classic or a head-to-head format.

All You Need to Know about FPL Drafts

FPL Drafts are different leagues from the regular Fantasy Premier League. Every manager has to pick their own team, the 15-member squad (and playing XI), in all their Draft leagues. A manager can choose a different team name for an FPL Draft league. A league with only a few managers and challenges with completely different players, players without any values, and managers without any budget, makes the league very interesting.

Different Types of FPL Drafts

There are two types of FPL Drafts, “Private League” and “Public League.” A “Private League” can have two to 16 managers, according to the choice of the league administrator. It has been introduced to challenge friends, colleagues, and other specific communities differently, rather than the regular FPL leagues.

Private League & Public League

While any FPL manager can create a “Private League,” the league code is a must to join any existing league. Meanwhile, a “Public League” can also be joined by anyone, as it is fought by the global managers, and a “Public League” can run with four, six, or eight teams. A manager can join up to 10 private leagues and three public leagues. However, the manager has to set each team differently, while each team can have a different name. From this season, the draft league administrator can renew their leagues and the managers from the previous season.

Players Draft

As there is no budget or player value, the selection happens through the draft process. In the “Private League,” the draft process is either random or descending rank. The random draft focuses on the snake draft system, which looks like the system below.

Round 1: Team A, Team B, Team C, Team D.

Round 2: Team D, Team C, Team B, Team A.

In the descending rank draft process, the manager who finished last in the previous season will get the first opportunity to pick a player, while the champion will have the last opportunity. On the other hand, in the “Public League,” there is only one draft system, which is the random draft.

Importance of Watchlist

For the draft, “Watchlist” plays an important role for the managers. As the draft becomes active in a particular period, if the manager isn’t present, the draft runs automatically according to the “Watchlist.” In the absence of “Watchlist,” the automatic selections follow the FPL draft rankings.

Mock Draft

If a manager doesn’t have much knowledge about the random or snake draft, the manager can join the mock draft to experience it. The mock draft is present below the start tab, under the headline of “New to FPL Draft?” It helps a manager to understand the draft system.

FPL Draft: Transfers

Draft FPL follows two types of transfers, and these are “waivers” and “free agents”.

Waivers

Through the “waivers,” a manager can swap a player in the squad with an available and unselected player in the same position. A manager has to make a waiver request to the other manager, and the player swap can only happen if the other manager accepts the request. It runs similarly to the random draft process when multiple managers focus on the same waiver request. The waiver requests are processed 24 hours before a gameweek deadline.

Free agents

Meanwhile, players who aren’t selected by managers in a draft league are known as free agents. These players can be swapped with another player in the same position. In the case of multiple manager requests for the same player, it follows the process of random or snake draft. It also starts 24 hours before a gameweek deadline.

Trade

There is also a trade option for the managers in the “Private League,” if the league administration chooses it. In this part, the administrator can choose one out of four available options, which are “None,” “All,” “Administrator veto,” or “Manager veto.” In the case of “All,” the trade will happen immediately. Also, the trade settings can be changed only before the beginning of the draft.

FPL Draft Points Scoring

The FPL draft league follows the exact same points scoring system as the latest Fantasy Premier League. While bonus points are also available, managers can’t select the captain or vice-captain in the draft league battle.

League scoring system

Both private and public leagues have the options of either a “classic” or a “head-to-head” league scoring system, as both produce the winner at the end of the season, but with different scoring systems. While the classic scoring system results in the final ranking based on the total FPL team points, the head-to-head system brings the final ranking based on the results of the head-to-head battles. In the head-to-head system, a winning team gets 3 points, a draw results in 1 point for both teams, and a losing team fails to earn any points.