How to Download Championship Manager 01/02 Legally

Championship Manager 01/02 is an iconic game in the “football manager” canon. While Football Manager as a series is now the king of that genre, Championship Manager holds a special place in the hearts of many.

With the game becoming free for anyone to play back in 2009, Championship Manager 01/02 is now free to play for anyone. While you will have a few hoops to jump through, and some unofficial patches to install, it’s well worth the effort.

In this article we’ll look at the two main steps to get the game loaded, and also how you can update the game to the latest unofficial update.

How to download
Originally you could download the file from the official Eidos website. Sadly, that option is not available but we have other ways to pick it up.

Head to Champman0102.net and make an account on the forums
From there, head to this link to download the files
The file here can either be burnt to a disk, or more likely now hosted on a virtual drive

Mounting the disk
First, you need to download software that will let you mount a .ISO file as a virtual drive. WinCDEmu is one such bit of software but many are available.

Once you download the file from the above link. Extract the “CM0102.zip“
From here, right-click the .ISO file and “mount” it
Do not delete this file. It is now acting as if you have a disk in your PC/Laptop
Now, click the setup.exe to install the game
Once you get to the “install DirectX” just dismiss it as we no longer need it
Now, find the launcher within the install patch and run it as an admin. Below are options for each Windows: (info taken from Champman0102)

. Windows 10/11 users: suggested to set the compatibility mode as Windows XP (Service Pack 3).

. Windows Vista/7/8 users: suggested to set the compatibility mode as Windows 98 / ME.

. Windows XP users: suggested to set the compatibility mode as Windows 98 / ME

Burning to a disk
A less popular option now, but still fairly easy to do.

Once you download the file from the above link. Extract the “CM0102.zip“
From here, right-click the .ISO file and “burn disc image“
This will begin burning the files to the disk. The disk might eject when the process is complete
Now, click the setup.exe to install the game
Once you get to the “install DirectX” just dismiss it as we no longer need it
Now, find the launcher within the install patch and run it as an admin. Below are options for each Windows: (info taken from Champman0102). Windows 10/11 users: suggested to set the compatibility mode as Windows XP (Service Pack 3).

. Windows Vista/7/8 users: suggested to set the compatibility mode as Windows 98 / ME.

. Windows XP users: suggested to set the compatibility mode as Windows 98 / ME

The game is now installed and ready to run.

Installing the Championship Manager 01/02 patch
It is highly recommended that you download the patch to help with the game running on modern PCs. You can find the file here.

After that, the Champman forums are full of discussion and downloads to help you get on your way. The group is still really active and full of people willing to give you help or offer you databases to add another level to your game.