It was released for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X on 4 November 2004 in Europe and on 8 December 2004 in North America.

It competed directly with Championship Manager 5, the severely delayed and widely slated effort from Eidos Interactive-funded Beautiful Game Studios.

[11] Football Manager 2005 was banned in China when it was found that places such as Tibet and Taiwan were included as separate countries in imported releases.

SEGA published a statement in reply, reporting that a Chinese version of the game, complete with Taiwan included as part of China, would be released.

The offending games were believed to have been imported or downloaded, written to CD, and boxed to be sold in illegal software shops in China.

[21] Brett Todd of GameSpot deemed it "every bit as thorough and addictive as its predecessors", giving it 8.6 out of 10, and remarked that this is the first time a game from Sports Interactive is being published in North America.

[22] The Swedish Gamereactor called it "the real Championship Manager 5, albeit with a different name", and "the absolute pinnacle of the genre", giving it 9 out of 10.

[23] The Swedish FZ liked the fact that real-world local news like Expressen, Svenskafans.com, and Fotbolldirekt.com were in the game and added to the realism.