In this paper, a cooperation system suitable for networks with multiple users is proposed. In the first phase of the cooperation, the user who has correctly decoded the source signal and has the best channel condition is selected as the relay. Given that the best relay selected by one source–destination (s‐d) pair may also be selected by other pairs, complex field network coding (CFNC) is adopted by the relay in the second phase, to provide diversity gains for the s‐d pairs simultaneously. The number of channels used is reduced, thus increasing the network throughput. Additionally, this system makes up for the performance loss of the traditional CFNC cooperation in large‐scale networks by achieving more diversity gains. Especially, a closed‐form expression of the average signal error probability (SEP) is derived for small‐scale networks, while an upper‐bound estimation is given for larger networks. It is demonstrated that the system achieves full diversity and is robust. To improve the SEP performance of the system, the receiver is modified, and the results demonstrate desirable average SEP performance. Finally, the analytical results are validated by numerical simulations. © 2014 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.