Fantasy Football: Allianz’ 2025/26 season winner Q&A

While the UK swelters under a heatwave and the Fifa World Cup group stages conclude across the Atlantic, Insurance Times thought it would be a good time to look back at our 2025/26 Insurance Times Fantasy Football League, which concluded last month. 

Congratulations to all those insurance professionals who got involved, but especially to our top 10 managers – and super-especially to league winner Steve Fisher, SmartComms engingeer at Allianz. 

While he has not caught the World Cup bug – which is admittedly hard to do via YouTube highlights – Insurance Times interrupted Fisher’s victory-basking to ask him how he found the season.

1. Congratulations on being the top Fantasy Football manager in the insurance industry for the 25/26 season – what message do you have for your colleagues in the insurance sector?

I’m absolutely delighted to have finished top. Thanks to Insurance Times for organising the league and to all the participants for making it so competitive – the standard of competition was incredibly high.

A special mention to McClarrons’ Mike Seals-Law, who pushed me all the way and was very unlucky that Haaland missed the second game of his triple captaincy week.

2. What do you think gave you the edge over the other managers over the long season? Do you have any skills from your career that help?

I leave my decisions as close to the deadline as possible in case there’s any last-minute snippets of information. However, this was nearly backfired on the final week of the season when the FPL site crashed with two minutes to go.

I also plan at least four weeks ahead and try to avoid any knee-jerk reactions.

The introduction of defensive contribution points has added a new element – rewarding you for holding on to players like Elliot Anderson who, whilst less likely to haul, offer great consistency and value for money.

Probably most importantly, you need a large slice of luck to finish in the top 10,000 overall.

I’ve never thought about whether job skills help with FPL, but looking at it now, there are clear parallels:

• Data analysis – studying data such as xG, fixture difficulty and underlying performance metrics rather than relying on gut feeling.
• Spotting trends – identifying players who are delivering consistent results before others jump on board.
• Diversifying risk – considering player ownership when trying to protect a lead or make up ground.

So, I guess the analytical, risk-aware mindset that insurance cultivates may be well-suited to Fantasy Football success!

3. Will we see a title defense from you next year?

Yes! I’ll bask in the glory until August, when it’s time to do it all over again and I’m back to planning life around FPL deadlines. I’m not expecting to retain the title, but a top 50 finish would be nice.

4. Who or what would you like to shout out?

I’m really proud of the work Allianz does with Barnardo’s, the children’s charity. We’ve raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for them and it’s a great organisation to be involved with.