I tried downloading Fifa 09 the other day but when i tried to play it, it said "the save data cannot be read please remove the game card and try again." or something similar. I also tried to download a few other new games and the same happened. However I then downloaded animal crossing which works fine so I think it might be something with the new games.
Look all over the forums for patching Arm 7, this is a common fault and there are work arounds, including unofficial system software
Unfortunately the latest software still suffers from the save date issue, there is a different operating system available (YSmenu) I think, look at R4 forum on the gbatemp website, as an M3 simply is basically an R4, produced by the M3 team under licence, the R4 team have now gone so there will be no more official updates to sort these issues.