How to run a Premier League draft league

A Premier League draft league is a private fantasy football league where each manager takes turns to pick real Premier League players, and every player belongs to one squad only. To run one, choose your managers, set the squad size, agree the rules, and fix a draft night before the gameweek you want to start from. Draft night decides how the season feels, so spend your effort there.

What is a Premier League draft league?

In a draft league, once a player is picked he belongs to one manager. There is no budget and nobody else in your league can own him. That makes the league about your group rather than about everyone playing the game.

It differs from a salary cap game, where every player has a price, every manager has the same budget and everyone can pick the same star. In a draft, the best players are shared around the group, and the argument over who took whom is half the fun.

The Premier League is 20 clubs and 38 gameweeks, with the 2026-27 season running to Sunday 30 May 2027. That gives a draft league a long season to play out.

How does a snake draft work?

A snake draft reverses the order every round. Whoever picks last in one round picks first in the next, so the manager at the front of round one does not get the best of everything.

Here is an eight-manager draft over three rounds, with the overall pick number in each box.

Manager	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3
1	1	16	17
2	2	15	18
3	3	14	19
4	4	13	20
5	5	12	21
6	6	11	22
7	7	10	23
8	8	9	24

Manager 8 picks twice in a row, at 8 and 9. Manager 1 waits from pick 1 to pick 16. With twelve managers the effect is the same: manager 12 gets picks 12 and 13, and manager 1 waits until pick 24.

An auction works differently: every manager has a budget to bid with. Which of the two a Fanzava league can use will be confirmed when fantasy opens.

Which positions do you need to fill?

Players are goalkeepers (GK), defenders (DEF), midfielders (MID) or forwards (FWD). A squad with no goalkeeper cannot field one, and a squad of five forwards has a thin defence, so most leagues set a shape for the squad.

On Fanzava, the league will set the squad size and the draft will run one round for every place in it. Fanzava has not published a squad formation, so write your own and put it on the rules page: how many players in total, and any minimum in each position.

The Premier League’s own explainer for FPL Draft describes a 15-player squad of two goalkeepers, five defenders, five midfielders and three forwards. That is a sensible starting point if you want one, but check the official explainer for the current rules.

What should you settle before draft night?

• Squad size and shape. A bigger squad means a longer night and more players to follow.
• Who is in the room, and when. A draft only moves when the person on the clock does. Pick an evening that works for everyone and avoid a big match.
• What happens when someone is missing. Agree whether they set a ranking in advance, or someone picks for them.
• The pick clock. Decide how long each pick takes, so one slow manager does not hold up the room.
• Trades. Agree who can propose them and whether they need a vote.
• Free agents. These are players nobody drafted. Decide whether pickup is first come, first served and when it opens each gameweek.
• Captains. On Fanzava, each squad will name one captain from the players its manager drafted.
• Scoring. Agree how your league scores before the first pick. Fanzava has not switched scoring on, so a Fanzava league cannot run scored gameweeks today.

What is the draft night checklist?

1. Send the invite two weeks ahead, with the time and the link.
2. Share the rules page in advance. Nobody should read it for the first time at pick one.
3. Check the squad pool. Players come from club squad lists in the sports data feed, which can run short of a club’s full list.
4. Draw the order. A random draw is the usual way to set who picks first.
5. Test the room a day early, so a connection problem does not eat your evening.
6. Keep a chat beside the board. The talking is half the night.
7. Write down the result. Post the squads somewhere everyone can see them.

When is the official game the better choice?

Fantasy Premier League is the Premier League’s official game, and it has a Draft mode of its own. If all you want is a draft league among mates on the official game, use it and enjoy it. Fanzava is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the Premier League.

A Fanzava league is for hosting. It will run on your hub, under your logo and colours, with your members signed in the way they are for everything else. It suits the workplace, club, pub or supporters’ group that wants fantasy inside the audience it already has.

Can you run it on Fanzava?

Not yet. The Premier League draft fantasy page covers what is planned: a live draft room with a chat beside the board, squads and captains, trades between managers and free agents nobody drafted, all under your brand. The Premier League is not in the first fantasy release, nothing in fantasy is open yet, there is no date to quote and there are no head-to-head matchups, which is why it is a waitlist and not an open signup.

You can run a Premier League prediction league on the same hub today, so your members are in before the draft opens. Each gameweek’s fixtures and results come from the live feed, and the leaderboard updates itself. If your group would rather play an elimination game, read our guide to running a last man standing competition. Anything your league plays for is between you and your members. Read about fantasy on Fanzava, or join the waitlist below.