I thought the transfer system had been rewritten but this keeps happening.

I want to buy a player who is transfer listed.

Asking price £3.4 million.

I enquire and tey ask for this up front.

I negotiate, £1 million down, £2 million over 24 months and £1 million if he socres 20 league goals. (This seems fair to me since the transfer is potentially worth more than they're asking price and it is a quality striker who should manage the target within a couple of seasons)

Selling club comes back and asks for £4 million up front, £1 million over 24 months and £1.7 million if he gets 20 goals.

Now this was a problem in previous versions so if the transfer system has been rewritten, why is this happening. Really makes negotiation very difficult. Makes it worse that the player is transfer listed because the presumably want to sell him and so would be willing to negotiate.

I haven't given clubs/players but if this has a bearing on it I am happy to provide these.

The transfer system reminds me of the Market scene in "Life of Brian"

It's nonsence - and very difficult when you are working within a budget.

I have't noticed this when I am selling a player, although I can't remember a club negotiating very much at all. If I offer a player then generally come back with a bid. This makes it easier than it was which is great.

But the problem remains when trying to buy players.

The transfer system reminds me of the Market scene in "Life of Brian"

Quality!! So true....

I wanted to buy a guy with no value, he was in BSN, the other team wanted 120K. I am a BSP team, don't even have that in the bank balance :|

It's nonsence - and very difficult when you are working within a budget.

I have't noticed this when I am selling a player, although I can't remember a club negotiating very much at all. If I offer a player then generally come back with a bid. This makes it easier than it was which is great.

But the problem remains when trying to buy players.

Exactly.

It's the selling part that is now easier, which is nice for us, but still it's stupid how they 'negotiate' when you want to buy.

The problem comes when they ask for an X amount and we usually try to divide that X amount into smaller parts. For example: part of it up front, part of it in 12/24 months, and another part as a variable payment after Y matches played, or goals scored, etc.

Usually, as it's obviously worse for the other team to received a fractioned payment, we usually understand this and increase the total amount of the payment to actually give them even more money than what they asked for, to try and compensate.

Now, you would expect them to ask for some more, change some conditions... but what they actually do is keep all the fractioned payments just as you put them in the first place, but change the upfront amount to what they initially asked for as well! So the total amount is almost doubled, which is ridiculous.

The AI just doesn't seem to understand that we're trying to divide their intial offer in various payments, they actually care very very little about variable payments and consider them to be close to zero, even when they're very very generous and very likely to happen and thus be received by them.

I mean, I would understand if they considered almost null an offer to pay 50 millions after 50 goals scored when signing a 30 y/o central defender. But I would expect them to seriously consider an offer which includes paying them 5 millions after 10 matches played, when signing an absolutely promising 19 y/o kid... It's almost a fact that I'm going to play him at least 10 times in the near future if I'm signing him that young and he's that good, unless he suffers a massive injury or something.

I really hope that these kind of things can be addressed for FM2010.

The team will most likely want the 3.5m upfront instead of being paid over 24 months. So therefore they could bring in a replacement if needed, You ever think of that? Say if you are wanting to sell a player to use the money to fund another player you want to bring in you would want the full ammount instead of 1m here and there. no?

So therefore they could bring in a replacement if needed, You ever think of that?

Don't forget this is not real life, the AI does not think like real managers!

This issue has bothered me for some time but I have to say I have not come across it in FM09 to my delight, until the op stated so. Iv'e managed to meet half way with clubs in quite a few negotiations.

The team will most likely want the 3.5m upfront instead of being paid over 24 months. So therefore they could bring in a replacement if needed, You ever think of that? Say if you are wanting to sell a player to use the money to fund another player you want to bring in you would want the full ammount instead of 1m here and there. no?

This cannot be true as they ask for more up front than they originally did, which, no matter how you look at it, is unrealistic and a bug. AND they still keep the clauses. So they originally ask for 3.4, they then come back wanting 4.1 PLUS another couple of million in clauses, which will have a 99% chance of being paid Furthermore, is it not the cas that even if you accept monthly payments, you still get a proportionate amount put straight into your budget.

And by the way, the selling club is not desparate for cash!

Don't forget this is not real life, the AI does not think like real managers!

This issue has bothered me for some time but I have to say I have not come across it in FM09 to my delight, until the op stated so. Iv'e managed to meet half way with clubs in quite a few negotiations.

If I'm being honest I don't think it affects simple negotiation on price only. They want 10, you will pay 5, we meet in the middle and agree on 7.5 - these type of transfers seem ok.

But anyone who claims it is realistic is kidding themselves and I would have thought Si would have fixed this when rewriting the system.

well, negotiations really aren't up to the standard the rest of the game has after 9.3.0 and that inclues all types of negotiations...

- Transfer negotiations: What I'd like to see is maybe a new screen called "negotiation table" where both parties canstart off with their initial offers/demands and adjust them in round robin fashin.. that means, the bidder improves his bid, the seller then has a chance to lower his demands. It would be brilliant if the AI tema swould tell you things like "we're not willing to discuss the matter any longer, take it or leave it" or something similar. The Anstoss Series had something like that ages ago, and whilst it wasn't perfect, it was really excellent.

- player contract negotiations: see above

- multiple bids for a single player/contract of that player: it would be a nice feature if a player that has offers from multiple teams would, before making his decision, put some demands on the table that would make him join your team rather than another. You can then accept these demands or let him go. If then again multiple teams accept the new demands he could come back once more until only one team is left. -- of course you'd need the exception if a player does have strong team preferences and does either not want to join a particular club or wants to move to a certian club anyways.

- Feeder clubs... - When the board asks me for a specific feeder club I'd like to have feedback from the club I'm about to target if they are actually willing to form an affliation with my club. That would make it easier to choose from a number of clubs the player may want to have an affliation with. For example, I'm despertely trying to get a second work permit feeder club rom an active league. AFAIK that leaves Belgium, Poland, and, for South Americans, Spain. However, I just can't get any of the teams, even without existing feeder club, to become my feeder club. The only feedback you get is that no link could be formed and you have to wait a couple of months before trying again... maybe this one is not really a negotiation but I feel it is linked.

In my opinion these areas lack interaction between the involved parties. It is just pure trial and error and does not feel linked.

IRL, other then you saying "I won't sell" or coming back with ridiculous demands (say, 4 times the offer), clubs would not just pull out of negotiations, especially when 2 days later they come back with the same or a slightly higher bid.

When you're trying to buy, certainly you wouldn't offer, say, 2 million, being asked for 4, then offer 3 and being asked for 5, but that's what happens in the game (occasionally, but hey). At times, it is/feels random.

Imho, negotiations are one of 3 areas that can and need to be vastly improved in order to move this game forward. The others are tactics (well, the slider system) and training (which currently does not seem to have any real effect on player development rates..), but that'S a different story.

No one is saying that the AI shouldn't prefer the quantity upfront. Of course they should.

The thing is, if I ask 10M for a player and the other team offers 5 now and 5 in 24 months, I might reply back saying "no way, I want it all upfront", so I would ask for 10M upfront again.

What I wouldn't do, is ask them for 10M upfront + 5 in 24 months!! It's completely stupid, as I understand that what they did was trying to divide the 10M payment in 2 parts, probably because they can't afford a 10M payment upfront. They weren't increasing it by 5 extra millions in 24 months, they were fractioning it.

However, the AI doesn't seem to understand this at all, so they end up negotiating in a stupid way, which means that the best way to negotiate with them is to cancel negotiations and start again. Otherwise they'll keep increasing the amount they want for as long as the negotiation lasts.

The only way to sign realistic deals with them is usually to pay all the money upfront, but that requires you to have it all available.