Ask most managers what it takes to win Fantasy Premier League outright and you will hear some version of "years of experience and a huge amount of knowledge."
The record says otherwise.
The winners
| Season | Champion | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 2015/16 | Dimitri Nicolaou | 2,458 |
| 2016/17 | Ben Crabtree | 2,564 |
| 2017/18 | Yusuf Sheikh | 2,512 |
| 2018/19 | Adam Levy | 2,659 |
| 2019/20 | Joshua Bull | 2,557 |
| 2020/21 | Michael Coone | 2,680 |
| 2021/22 | Jamie Pigott | 2,844 — the record |
| 2022/23 | Ali Jahangirov | 2,776 |
| 2023/24 | Jonas (ASC_FPL) | — |
| 2024/25 | Lovro Budišin | 2,810 |
| 2025/26 | Erik Ibsen | — |
Finding 1: champions are not veterans
This is the part that surprises people.
Erik Ibsen, the 2025/26 champion, was playing his first ever season. He started because his sister asked for help with her work-league team. He went from roughly eight million overall to first, reaching the top 100 by Gameweek 21.
Lovro Budišin, the 2024/25 champion, had played five seasons. His previous best finish was 508,000th.
Neither was a known name. Neither had a history of top-10k finishes. There is no ladder of steadily improving ranks leading to the title.
Finding 2: the bar rises about 60 points a season
The winning score has climbed from roughly 2,460 in 2015/16 to around 2,800 today.
That is not managers getting cleverer at a measurable rate. It is more entrants — over eleven million now — and better free tools. With a bigger field, the winner is drawn from a more extreme tail, so the winning score rises even if the average manager is unchanged.
Finding 3: winning overall is a lottery. Your mini-league is not.
Put those two findings together and the conclusion is uncomfortable but useful.
You cannot reliably beat eleven million people. The champion each year is an excellent manager who also had an exceptional run of luck. No process guarantees it, which is why no one has ever won twice.
Beating ten friends is a completely different problem. The field is small, mostly casual, and — crucially — emotional. That is a skill problem, and skill problems reward process.
Finding 4: the champion's own strategy was boring
Asked what changed as the season went on, Ibsen described his approach as wanting to beat the average rather than post a huge score every week.
That is the whole thing. Not heroics — consistency, then letting variance do the rest.
He also built his squad on underlying numbers rather than reputation, backing Everton's defence on its defensive statistics and taking Caicedo because he thought the market had him wrong. Expected data over last season's points.
What to take from this
- Set the right target. Aim at your mini-league. The overall title is not a plan, it is a lottery ticket.
- Beat the average, repeatedly. Consistency compounds; heroics mostly cost you hits.
- Trust underlying numbers over reputation. Expected goals and minutes beat "he scored last week."
- Experience is not a prerequisite. Discipline is. A first-season manager won by not making the usual mistakes.
The last one should be encouraging. You are not behind because you started late. You are behind because your mate has better tools — and that is fixable.
Sources: FPL winners list, Erik Ibsen interview, Lovro Budišin interview.