FIFA 23 FUT Champions guide, including how to qualify, Weekend League start time and rewards

How to qualify, the rewards you can earn, and tips to secure a strong finish.

FUT Champions revolutionised week-to-week competitive play when it was first introduced, and FUT Champions in FIFA 23 Ultimate Team is still the best place to test your skills, earn exclusive red FUT Champions cards, and secure valuable tradeable packs.

In this guide, we break down how to qualify for FUT Champions Play-Offs and FUT Champions Finals (still colloquially referred to as the Weekend League), and the exact rewards you can earn every step of the way, as well as tips to win your matches in FIFA 23.

Follow this guide and hopefully you will know exactly where you want to finish in FUT Champions and be well equipped to secure those rewards.

On this page:

If you’re interested in Ultimate Team, we have pages on best starter teams, Squad Battles, Milestone rewards and FUT Coins and trading.

Qualifying for FUT Champions is a simple matter of racking up games in Division Rivals, which acts as a sort of feeder competition. Win, draw or lose; every match in Rivals gives you Qualification Points, and as you progress through the divisions, the amount you earn per match will go up. Winning matches always gives the biggest boost. You need 1250 Qualification Points to take part in FUT Champions Play-Offs.

You can enter FUT Champions Play-Offs multiple times per season, as indicated on the FUT Champions page. (Look in the bottom-left corner to see how many entries you have left.) You can take part in Play-Offs any day of the week, including the weekend. Similar to Rivals, you earn points for taking part – 4 points for a win, 1 for a defeat. You have 10 possible matches per play-off run and need 20 points to qualify for FUT Champions Finals.

This means you need to win at least four matches in FUT Champions Play-Offs to qualify for FUT Champions Finals. Four wins gives you 16 points, and then you need to either quit out of four more matches (earning the last 4 points) or keep playing to try to boost your points total. Better rewards can be unlocked if you win more of your play-off games.

Once you’ve reached the 20-point threshold, the game will tell you that you’ve qualified for FUT Champions Finals, and you can either end your run to claim your play-offs rewards, or keep playing until you use up your 10-game play-off run.

FUT Champions Finals, aka the Weekend League, starts every Friday at 7am UTC (8am BST, 9am CEST, 3am EDT, 0am PDT) and runs until the same time on Monday morning. During that period, you can play up to 20 games, and depending on how many matches you win, you can earn all sorts of different player and pack rewards.

If you finish your 20 matches before Monday morning, you can claim your rewards immediately, including your red player pick items and tradeable packs. If you do not finish your 20 matches, rewards will automatically be claimed on Monday morning when the competition ends, and you can open at your convenience.

Everyone's focus is usually on the red picks in FUT Champions Finals, but FUT Champions Play-Offs has its own tradeable rewards that can be claimed as soon as you finish a qualification run. As with Finals, you can earn 4 points for a win and 1 point for a defeat (or by quitting out of a match in progress).

Here is a complete breakdown of what you can unlock, as well as the easiest possible way to earn them (e.g. for 4 points, we say 4 defeats, although you could also do it with 1 win). All packs are tradeable unless noted otherwise.

Those upper ranks look great, of course, but most players will be happy to achieve the four victories needed for qualification. Save your blood, sweat and tears for Finals itself!

Here we go then. This is what it is all about. FUT Champions Finals rewards are the best competitive rewards available in the game, including those coveted "red picks". Red picks are untradeable Team of the Week players with a special red card design, and for most of the FUT cycle the only way to obtain them is through FUT Champions Finals. Red picks are so called because you get a random choice of 3-5 red FUT Champions cards from the current TOTW. It is rare to get anything amazing, but that doesn't stop people trying. Red pick players are always untradeable.

Here are the rewards for FUT Champions Finals. You get 4 points for a win and 1 point for a defeat (or by quitting out of a match). Ranking information is provided as well as the easiest way to reach that rank.

Based on our experience, nine wins (for Rank VI) is a pretty solid result for most players, equivalent to the old 'Gold 2' finish in earlier games in the series. Rank V is a nice spot to aim for to get that extra red pick, but given the quality of most people's red rewards, it is not worth losing your mind over. Good luck!

If you’re just getting started in FIFA 23, check out our Ultimate Team best starter teams page. You can improve your team by trading and spending FUT Coins - some of which can be earned by completing Milestone Objectives. It's also a good idea to learn how Squad Battles and Champions work in FIFA 23. We also have an OTW tracker and RTTK tracker.Chemistry has been completely changed in FIFA 23 too and don't forget about the wide variety of Skill Moves, and make sure to claim your Ted Lasso and AFC Richmond rewards in FUT while you can!Finally, if you need help building the perfect team, we have pages on the best players overall, best Premier League players and fastest players. Along with FIFA 23's best lengthy players, wonderkids, best strikers, best wingers, best midfielders and best defenders.

The FUT Champions Weekend League is notorious for driving FIFA players to distraction. Whenever you see a TikTok of someone throwing a controller at the wall or breaking their headset in fury, you can probably see a FUT Champions scoreboard somewhere onscreen.

It doesn't have to be that way, though. Here are a mixture of gameplay and mentality tips to help get you to your best FUT Champions finish:

Hopefully that will help you get ahead in FUT Champions. GL HF!