Realistic? Lower League (mostly)

Couple of questions for you, if you don't mind.

In todays current economic climate is it realistic for me to start at a club and offer everyone new contracts on less money?

I'm starting at Solihull Moors and have a wage budget of £3900 and actual wage bill of £3950. So if I got an average cut of say 10-15% it would get me some funds. I don't want to take advantage of any faults in the game, what do you guys feel?

Also I set myself as Semi-Pro level as I can not accept a Sunday league footballer would ever be in charge of a Semi-Pro club (Fisher situation is a gimmick - good gimmick but a gimmick) Does this offer any advantages? Other than a deeper knowledge, which I would consider 'real'.

Couple of questions for you, if you don't mind.

In todays current economic climate is it realistic for me to start at a club and offer everyone new contracts on less money?

I'm starting at Solihull Moors and have a wage budget of £3900 and actual wage bill of £3950. So if I got an average cut of say 10-15% it would get me some funds. I don't want to take advantage of any faults in the game, what do you guys feel?

Also I set myself as Semi-Pro level as I can not accept a Sunday league footballer would ever be in charge of a Semi-Pro club (Fisher situation is a gimmick - good gimmick but a gimmick) Does this offer any advantages? Other than a deeper knowledge, which I would consider 'real'.

1.) Bigger chunk of expenses in LL is players fee and game bonuses in addition to ground maintenance fee.It can easily happen that even if you cut down wages for 10-15% you will still bleed money in big amounts.I had to cut down mine to 50% of cap in order to start making money, for example.

2.) I believe Semi-pro will make it much easier for you to sign players in comparisons to lower level of xp.

Hopefully this helps.

1) I would to reduce their wages as much as possible. Try to reduce their wages by 10/15% is very realistic in my opinion in that situation.

2) Starting with semi-pro means you have a bigger reputation than sunday league. This means that players will respect you more, you will get bigger jobs and so on.

It is your game though so play it as you like. I would see nothing wrong with what you suggested doing.

There's nothing wrong in trying. What will probably happen is that some players accept, and others - probably the more senior, key players will refuse and get upset with you. As such, it will a test of your man-management skills. It isn't an unrealistic exploit providing you face this challenge rather than everyone being happy on half-wages.

Here's a RL example (among many others) of the situation you just described - a LL club cutting down wages as a result of the credit crunch:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_conf/7856089.stm

So, it's pretty realistic.