MATES Leagues is a free service being offered by EA where users can create and manage their own leagues and cups for a variety of game titles. At present this is limited to FIFA 09 and FIFA 10 however will be expanded in the future to cater to other EA titles.

The concept behind MATES Leagues stems from the conversations in the pub with your mates, the matches you all play together at someone’s house and the rivalry forged on a regular basis to determine who is the best.

Now you can do it all; create a league or cup, invite your friends, set fixtures, enter results, chart your progress and claim to be the champion.

If you already have an EA account you can use it to log in to one of your personas. If you haven’t already got an account you will need to create one in order to make the most of MATES Leagues. Click the link in the top right corner of the site and follow the instructions to create an EA account, once this is done you will be able to log in and start creating and competing leagues and cups.

In order to update your profile and make changes to which platform you wish to play on you will need to click the "My Info" option under the main navigation bar once you have logged in.

On this page you will be able to add a photo, write a little about yourself and select which platforms you can play on. You will also be able to go and change your EA Master account details via the button provided or view your profile and all the stats (win, losses, events entered etc) associated with your time on Mates Leagues.

To be able to join events you will need to have selected the appropriate platform in your profile first.

This message relates to your EA account and it means the site is looking for your EA ID persona. If you created your EA account via the process inside an EA game such as FIFA 10 then you won't have an EA ID, you will just have your gamertag or PSN ID linked to it and that will be your persona.

What you need to do is login to your account at EA.com and go to the edit profile page. On here is a box labelled "Personas" and a button with the text "Add Persona". If you click this and add a new persona for an EA ID and then when returning to the edit profile page set this EA ID as your default persona you should then be able to log in to MATES Leagues.

When you have logged in you will notice a second menu area directly under the main light grey menu area and one of the options for this is “My Leagues”. Click this button and it will take you to a page showing you which leagues you have entered, the game title of that league, format, season dates and a host of other information.

At the top of this section are two buttons called “Member” and “Created”. In order to create a league you will need to click the “Created” button. This will then show you a list of the leagues that you have created for other people to join. On the right of this screen is a blue button labelled “Create League” – click this.

On the Create League page there are a number of options so you can fully customise your league from the design and colours, the number of players, how long the season is and the rules. The first thing you need to decide is the name of your league, what game title it is for, the platform and then the minimum and maximum number of players.

After this enter a description and what rules you want people to play by in the two boxes provided. The Display Settings area allows you to add a logo for the league and then change the colours of tables, text, table headers, labels and several other parts of the league page.

You can also set whether the league is public or private, whether it will show up in the search results (don’t tick the box for it being really private) and how you want to display the stats from the league. Remember you can also include yourself in the league if you really want to, or you can just run it for the rest of your friends.

The final settings are the main areas; how many times each player plays everyone else i.e. 2 times for a home and away equivalent, how many points for a win, loss and draw and then the length of the season; is it only happening once, does it repeat or is it once a year at Christmas? You will also need to set the start and end dates.

Once all this information has been entered you can preview the design of your league by clicking the “Preview” button and then go back to edit things if you are not happy. You can only confirm the league once you have previewed it.

The process for creating a Cup is pretty similar to creating a League; click the “My Cups” button and then the “Created” option followed by the “Create Cup” button to get access to the page where you can create your own Cup Competitions.

Like the Leagues options you can set the name, game title, platform, number of players, description, rules, design features and whether it is public or private.

The main difference for a Cup are the Play Settings where you choose how long the cup runs for and how long there is after the end of one round before the next round fixtures are drawn. The main thing to be aware of for Cups at the moment is that they are FA Cup style (random draw each round).

In order to join a League you need to click the “Leagues” button on the main menu which will present you with a list of the available public leagues. You will be able to see what game title the league is for, what platform, how long the league runs for and the number of players involved.

Click on the title of the League to go to the League Page to view the description, rules and League Table. From this page you will also see an option to “Join” the League or “PM Admin” where you can send a private message to the admin of the League. Clicking “Join” will send a notification to the admin of the League that you want to join and once they have approved your application you will be able to play in the League.

This is much the same process as joining a League; click the “Cups” link on the main menu and then select the cup you wish to join my clicking the Cup Title on the left. Then on the dedicated Cup Page click the “Join” button to apply to join the Cup. Once the admin has approved you then you will be listed as participating in the Cup.

If you have created a League or Cup yourself you will automatically be listed as the admin for that event. As the "Owner / Admin" you will be able to accept or deny people wishing to join your event, updates scores, edit the event details and a range of other options.

To access the admin menu for your event click the "My Leagues" or "My Cups" tab and on this page select the "Created" button. On the right hand side of the event will be a drop-down menu with a list of available options as mentioned above. Select which one you want to use and follow the instructions.

If you no longer wish to participate in a League or Cup you have previously entered you can remove yourself. We would however strongly advise you attempt to complete any events you do enter as if you continually remove yourself from events you may miss out on being invited to "special" events that may appear every now and again.

To remove yourself select the "My Leagues" or "My Cups" tab to show the events you are currently entered in. From the drop down menu on the right hand side of the event select the "Leave" option.

1. Click the ‘pause’ button.
2. Give a reason in the box which appears and hit the ‘submit’ button.

Personal background images for Leagues and Cup are reserved for "Partners" of Mates Leagues. To be elligible to become classed as a partner you will need to run regular events with a good number of people entering, operate them in a fair manner and work to promote FIFA to a wider audience.