These rules govern the in-team fantasy game inside the Panka app: how you field a fantasy lineup, how ratings are given, how the score is worked out and how the standings are built. They apply to every team hosted on the app.
They replace the «Regolamento Manita.app», written when Panka was called Manita and was one group’s game. What that text said about entry fees, prizes and handling the money has not been thrown away: it concerns the individual league rather than the product, and it now sits in Appendix A as a template to fill in.
The terms of service — minimum age, liability, what Panka is not — are a separate document: see §17.
0. How to read these rules
Panka does not have the same rules for everybody. Every team has its own parameter document, which the admin edits from Settings → Scoring, and the app calculates from there. So there are two kinds of statement in here, and it helps to tell them apart.
What it means
Mechanic
How the calculation works. Not configurable: it changes only with a new version of the app.
Parameter
A number your team decides. You will find the default here; the real one is in Settings → Rules, which always shows your own team’s parameters.
Every parameter is marked with ⚙. The full table, with the defaults for the four formats (11, 8, 7 and 5-a-side), is in §13.
1. Scope
These rules govern the in-team fantasy game: fantasy lineups, ratings, scores, standings.
Any extra rules a single league gives itself — fees, prizes, agreed penalties — apply between the participants and are not enforced by the app.
2. What kind of game this is
The game is for fun and entertainment. It is not a bet, not a prize competition and not gambling: there is no house, there are no odds, and there is no prize pool held by Panka.
If your group decides to play for an entry fee or end-of-season prizes, that is a private arrangement between you. Panka does not collect it, does not hold it and is not answerable for it. Appendix A is where you write it down.
3. Status of the software
Panka is in beta. The development team works to improve it and, while applying ordinary technical care, bugs and malfunctions can happen.
Whoever runs the team can at any time correct data, re-run the score calculation or void results spoiled by a technical error (§14). Keep notifications on: announcements about rule changes and corrections come through them.
4. Who does what
Three roles in a team, cumulative in one direction only: the admin can do everything the coach can, the coach cannot do everything the admin can.
Role
In the game
In management
Player
Fields their fantasy lineup, sees their own card, their ratings and the standings. Appears in the standings.
Nothing.
Coach
Does not field a fantasy lineup and does not appear in the standings — they are the one giving the ratings, so they cannot also be competing.
Creates and closes matches, enters ratings, calculates scores, runs tournaments, trainings, medical certificates and dues, sends notifications.
Admin
Fields a fantasy lineup like a player and appears in the standings.
Everything the coach does, plus: roster and player values, members and invites, scoring parameters, seasons, team data.
There is also a global super admin (the Panka staff): it exists for support, is treated as an admin for team actions and appears in no standings. A coach who also wants to play must be made an admin: it is the only role that carries both management powers and participation in the game.
5. Team, season, tournaments, matches
The hierarchy is Team → Season → Tournament → Match.
Season. Every team has one open season at a time. You open, close and reopen it from Settings → Seasons (admin only). Closing a season makes it archived and read-only: it can all be consulted, and nothing can be changed — not matches, not ratings, not fantasy lineups.
Tournament. Four types: league, cup, tournament, friendly. A match need not belong to any tournament: that is a friendly with no tournament.
Tournament participation. For each tournament the admin keeps a list of participants (by default every active player and admin). Anyone not participating cannot field a fantasy lineup in its matches and does not appear in its standings. Matches with no tournament have no participation requirement.
Roster exclusions. A card can be excluded from a season — someone who changed club, someone who stopped: they can no longer be called up that season and remain viewable in the history. Exclusions are inherited by the following season.
6. The roster and the cards
Everyone on the roster has a card: name or nickname, position, level, photo, value in credits with its change history and their rating trend. Four positions are recognised: Goalkeeper (GK), Defender (DEF), Midfielder (MID), Forward (FWD).
The value in credits is set by the admin ⚙ and can change mid-season. How it is decided is the group’s business: by eye, by a poll, by a form.
A change of value applies from that point on: fantasy lineups already saved keep the cost they had when they were saved, and scores already calculated do not move (§11.6).
Not everyone needs the app. An admin creates anybody’s card, and that person can be called up and fielded without an account. Someone who signs up later can ask to be linked to their own card; the admin approves or refuses.
7. The match
The coach or the admin creates it, with date and time, teams, tournament (optional), venue and duration.
The call-ups are the list of who is available for that match, decided by the staff. It is from this list, and only this list, that everyone picks their fantasy lineup: a player who has not been called up cannot be fielded by anybody.
The coach can also record the real starting eleven — the side that takes the field, with the substitutions. That is a different thing from the fantasy game and enters no calculation. When everyone else gets to see it is up to the admin ⚙ (always / from kick-off, the default / from N minutes before): while it is covered a padlock shows, so the team knows the coach has picked without knowing what.
8. Your fantasy lineup
Before every match you choose, among those called up, who to field. A fantasy lineup is valid if:
the costs of the players fielded do not exceed the budget ⚙ (45 credits in 11-a-side; §13 for the other formats);
it contains at least the minimum number of players ⚙ (default: 5);
it contains at most 11 players;
it is made up only of players called up for that match.
You are not obliged to spend the whole budget, and you are not obliged to fill the slots. Only who you field counts: ten strong players can be worth more than eleven mediocre ones — but every empty slot is one rating fewer in the average, and every player you field who then does not play is a maluses (§11.4). That is where the game is. Entering and changing a fantasy lineup closes at the deadline your team has set ⚙ — 60 minutes before kick-off by default. After that moment your fantasy lineup is the one you saved. The home screen and the match detail carry the countdown, and the app sends a reminder to anyone who has not picked before the deadline strikes, with the lead time your team has chosen ⚙ (default: 30 minutes, so 90 minutes before kick-off with the default deadline). You can only field a fantasy lineup for a match still to be played, in an open season, and only if you take part in that match’s tournament. Other people’s fantasy lineups become visible from the deadline onwards, which is to say once nobody can change theirs any more: before then, reading someone else’s fantasy lineup would be reading their hand. Coaches and admins always see them, because they are the ones who have to check them.
9. If you do not submit a fantasy lineup
Anyone who has not picked by the deadline is not left on zero: when the scores are calculated the app assigns them a default fantasy lineup, marked as such (the app reads «generated by the system»). It picks it like this, in order:
your last saved fantasy lineup, reduced to the players called up for this match;
failing that, the lowest-scoring fantasy lineup ever recorded in the team;
failing that, the worst of this round;
failing that, the 11 cheapest players on the roster.
A default fantasy lineup counts in the standings like any other, but it does not compete for the three best of the round (§12) and cannot be shared as a card: you did not choose it. The coach is assigned no fantasy lineup, because they are not competing.
10. Ratings
Once a match is over, the coach or an admin enters the ratings: a mark from 0 to 10 in steps of 0.5 for each player called up, an optional comment, and the events of the performance (goal, penalty scored, assist, booking, sending-off, own goal, penalty missed, clean sheet and penalty saved). Clean sheet and penalty saved are not reserved to the goalkeeper: in many teams whoever is available goes in goal, and hiding them from the defender who kept a clean sheet would be wrong more often than it would be tidy. An event the team set to 0 ⚙ does not appear on the rating sheet, and that is how it is switched off. A scored penalty is recorded among the penalties, not also among the goals: they are two distinct counters, worth the same by default.
No rating means they did not play. There is no «0 because absent»: someone who did not play gets no rating, and whoever fielded them pays the absence malus (§11.4).
The rating is what the coach saw on the pitch. There is no appeal, but there is §16.
11.1 M1, the base score
The score is built from four pieces, all about your fantasy lineup: the average of the votes, the events, the department modifiers and the absence malus. They add up, and none of the last three touches the others.
M1 = ( Σ votes ) / ( number of fielded players who have a vote ) × 10.
It is the average of the coach’s votes for the players you fielded, multiplied by the base scale ⚙ (10). All players count equally, goalkeeper included.
A player with no vote does not enter the average, neither up nor down: he does not lower your base score, he costs you the malus of §11.4 — and the credits you spent on him.
11.2 Event bonuses and maluses
Match events are worth fantasy lineup points, added to the total: events = Σ ( times it happened × event points ). They do not enter the average, and they do not change anybody’s vote.
Why added and not averaged: events used to be added to the vote, so they ended up inside the average and were divided by the number of rated players. The same goal was worth 1.43 points in a full fantasy lineup and 2.50 in a short one — it was priced by how many team-mates turned up, something you do not decide and that the absence malus already charges for. Now a goal is worth a goal.
A sending-off absorbs the booking: if a player gets both a red and a yellow, only the red counts — −1.5, not −2. Otherwise a second booking would cost more than a straight red, so the harsher offence would come out cheaper.
Events do not unlock the department modifiers (§11.3), whose thresholds always read the coach’s raw vote. A defender rated 5.5 who scores is still a 5.5 for the defence bonus.
An event set to 0 is switched off ⚙ and disappears from the rating sheet. That is the only switch: a team that does not track assists sets 0 and never sees them again. Goal conceded costs little per occurrence but happens every time — about 1.72 goals a match — and that is the point: measured, the goalkeeper is the highest-value role and also the cheapest, so without that malus fielding him would not be a choice but an obvious bargain.
Event
Default ⚙
Goal
+2
Penalty scored
+2
Assist
+1
Clean sheet
+2
Penalty saved
+2
Yellow card
−0.5
Red card
−1.5
Own goal
−1
Penalty missed
−1
Goal conceded
−0.5
The values change per format ⚙: in 8- and 7-a-side a goal is worth +1.5, in 5-a-side +1. On a smaller pitch more of them are scored, and at equal weight they would decide the season on their own.
11.3 M2, the department modifiers
Fixed-sum bonuses: each one either applies or does not, with no shades in between. The thresholds read the raw vote.
Modifier
Condition (11-a-side)
Points ⚙
Goalkeeper
the fielded goalkeeper is rated 7 or more ⚙
+3
Defence
at least 3 defenders ⚙ rated 6 or more ⚙
+3
Midfield
at least 3 midfielders ⚙ rated 6.5 or more ⚙
+3
Attack
at least 3 forwards ⚙ rated 7 or more ⚙
+3
The four are independent and cumulative: taking them all banks +12. The thresholds rise as you move towards the opposing goal — a defender is asked for a pass mark, a forward for a 7 — and that is a league’s choice, not a law of the game. In the 8, 7 and 5-a-side formats the minimum counts drop (§13): a defence bonus asking for three defenders in a 1-2-1 would be unreachable. The goalkeeper modifier applies to the fielded goalkeeper, one only: it is enough that he is rated.
11.4 The absence malus
malus = (fielded players with no vote) × 0.5 ⚙.
Half a point for every player you fielded who did not play. Fielding somebody «just to fill a slot» is not free, and leaving the slot empty is a legitimate choice.
11.5 The total
Score = M1 + events + M2 − malus, rounded to one decimal, once and at the end. The score can be negative: if none of the players you fielded played, M1 is 0 and only the maluses are left. That is correct, not a bug.
A full example, 11-a-side and default values. You field 9 players:
Coach’s vote
Events
Goalkeeper
7
clean sheet
Defender 1
7
Defender 2
6.5
Defender 3
7
Midfielder 1
6.5
Midfielder 2
7
1 assist
Midfielder 3
5.5
1 yellow card
Forward 1
8
1 goal
Forward 2
8.5
M1 — votes total 63, over 9 rated players: 63 / 9 = 7.0 → 70.0. Events — clean sheet +2, assist +1, goal +2, yellow card −0.5 → +4.5. M2 goalkeeper — the keeper is on 7 → +3. M2 defence — 3 defenders on 7 / 6.5 / 7, all ≥ 6 → +3. M2 midfield — raw votes 6.5 / 7 / 5.5: only two reach 6.5, and the second one’s assist is irrelevant because the threshold looks at the vote → nothing. M2 attack — you fielded 2 forwards and 3 are needed → nothing, and the first one’s goal does not change the count because events do not unlock departments. Malus — nobody fielded without a vote → 0. Total: 70.0 + 4.5 + 6 = 80.5 points. Had you also fielded a fourth defender who then stayed out, the average would not change (it stays on the 9 who played), the defence bonus would stand, and you would pay half a point: 80.0.
11.6 Scores are frozen
The calculation is not continuous: the coach or the admin launches it with «Calculate scores», and at that moment the result is frozen. After that:
changing the scoring parameters does not rewrite scores already calculated;
correcting a rating does not rewrite them by itself;
changing a player’s position or value does not touch past fantasy lineups: every fantasy lineup keeps positions and costs as they were when it was saved.
To make a correction count you have to re-run the calculation on that match. This is deliberate: without freezing, tweaking a parameter in March would rewrite October’s standings.
12. Standings
The standings are the sum of the scores of the valid matches of the current season.
There is a general season table and one per tournament. A tournament’s table shows only that tournament’s participants; the general one shows everybody.
Players and admins appear. Not the coach, not the super admin.
A match excluded from scoring (§14) enters no standings.
For every finished match the app shows the three best fantasy lineups of the round, default fantasy lineups excluded (§9). If your league rewards the best of the round, that is the list.
13. The parameters, with their defaults
All editable by the admin from Settings → Scoring; the budget and the fantasy lineup deadline live in Settings → General. Your own team’s parameters are in Settings → Rules, which is the authoritative version: if a number here does not match, the app wins.
The same for every format:
Parameter
Default
Base scale (M1)
10
Malus per fielded player without a rating
0.5 points
Goalkeeper bonus
+3 with a mark ≥ 7
Rating threshold for department bonuses
6 in defence, 6.5 in midfield, 7 in attack
Points per department bonus
+3
Goal / penalty scored / assist
+2 / +2 / +1 (fantasy lineup points)
Clean sheet / penalty saved
+2 / +2
Booking / sending-off / own goal / penalty missed
−0.5 / −1.5 / −1 / −1
Minimum players in a fantasy lineup
5
Maximum players in a fantasy lineup
11 (not configurable)
Fantasy lineup deadline
60 minutes before kick-off — closes the editor
Reminder lead time
30 minutes before the deadline — 90 minutes before kick-off with the default deadline
Ratings
0 to 10, in steps of 0.5
Different per format: 11-a-side → 45 credits, ≥ 3 defenders, ≥ 3 midfielders, ≥ 3 forwards, goal +2. 8-a-side → 33 credits, ≥ 3 defenders, ≥ 2 midfielders, ≥ 1 forward, goal +1.5. 7-a-side → 29 credits, ≥ 2 defenders, ≥ 2 midfielders, ≥ 1 forward, goal +1.5. 5-a-side → 21 credits, ≥ 1 defender, ≥ 2 midfielders, ≥ 1 forward, goal +1. The goal weights of the three small formats are not calibrated on real data: no team of those formats has played a full season yet. Changing format (Settings → General) moves only the format: the scoring parameters the admin has tuned stay as they are and are not rewritten from the template.
14. Powers of whoever runs the team
Coach and admin, each within the limits of §4, can:
correct wrong ratings and data and re-run the score calculation;
exclude a match from scoring — the switch is in the match form and in «Close match»: it generates no scores and enters no standings. Real player statistics (appearances, goals, average rating) still count it;
delete a match, and with it fantasy lineups, ratings and call-ups;
change the scoring parameters, and so the structure of the game, when it serves stability or everyone’s enjoyment;
close the season, which from that moment is read-only.
Whoever runs the team does not cheat: they act fairly and in the group’s interest. A parameter change mid-season should be announced — the app has notifications, use them.
15. Conduct and fair play
Participants undertake to behave properly and not to exploit bugs or holes in the app. Anyone who finds one reports it (§16) instead of using it. Scores obtained unfairly are voided.
Photos and names of real people end up in the app, and shareable cards leave the group: what you upload must be lawful and must not infringe anybody’s rights.
16. Reporting
Everyone checks their own score and their own data. An error must be reported straight away, on the channels the team has agreed or through the support form inside the app (Settings → Support). With no report, the score is taken as accepted.
17. Personal data, images, minors
These are game rules, not the privacy notice. The documents that matter are on panka.app/en/legal, each at its own stable address: the app privacy notice, the terms of service, the page on image use and shareable cards, the one on minors and the one on health data.
Three rules are worth stating here, because they touch the game:
shareable cards carry the nickname, not first name and surname;
no photo of a minor ever ends up on a card;
anybody can refuse the use of their image, from their own profile or by asking the staff. The refusal always holds, deletes cards already generated straight away, and from that moment the person appears as «Player».
18. Changes
These rules change with the app. The version in force is the one published here; the parameters in force for your team are the ones you read in Settings → Rules.
19. Acceptance
Using the app and fielding a fantasy lineup means accepting these rules.
Appendix A — Your league’s own rules
Panka collects no fees and awards no prizes: if your group plays for something, write it down. This is the template, to fill in and share in the group. It applies between the participants and is not enforced by the app.
League: ____ · Season: ____ · Approved on: ___/___/______
Entry fee. Amount: ____ €, decided ____ (e.g. by agreement of the participants, at a meeting). To be paid to ____ by ___/___/______.
Prizes. ____ (e.g. the final table rewards the top three; each round, whoever finishes last buys). Set and announced by ____.
Who holds the money. ____. Funds are handled transparently and accounted for to the group ____ (e.g. at the end of the season).
If the game stops. After deducting costs already incurred, the remaining funds go back to the participants in proportion to what they paid in.
Official channel. ____ (e.g. the team’s WhatsApp group). Every change, clarification or exception goes through it.
Extra rules we give ourselves. ____ (e.g. anyone who fails to field a fantasy lineup three rounds running drops out of the prize standings).
The rest — ratings, bonuses, scores, standings — is not written here: the app does that, and your parameters are in Settings → Rules.