A Guide To Finance: Tips For Medium-Big Sized Clubs

I've noticed theres quite a few threads popping up in General Discussion about finances; Sugar Daddys, monthly profit/loss and feeder club finances etc and i couldn't see any Finance guides so i've started this thread with the intention of explaining some of the issues what have been raised and hopefully give some new guys some understanding

Feeder Club Affiliations - Chinese/US/Japanese clubs

I'll start with the most misunderstood aspect of FM09 and that's the benefits of 'Merchandise Feeder Clubs'.

Generally only available to clubs of a high reputation (I would imagine over 8000), the board explains the link with a US, Chinese or Japanese club as having 'major benefits to merchandising sales'. But what does that mean exactly?

In short, these kind of clubs act as a multiplier for your merchandise sales. If you check your Merchandise Income page at Finances > Income > Merchandise, you'll see your chart for the Merchandise income since your game was started. You might notice 'peaks' every summer, or whenever you've signed a big superstar name.

The benefit of having an affiliate club from the 3 nations listed is that instead of sales increasing say, 1.5x for a superstar signing, they would increase say 2.5x instead (estimate). Acting as a multiplier, the affiliate club allows an increase in merchandise sales.

Sadly this seems to be all that the affiliate club brings to the game. Arranging a tour of the nation has little or no impact, signing players from that nation also has little impact.

The underlying point is simple: don't expect massive financial windfalls from taking a US MLS club as an affiliate, or a Japanese or Chinese club. These clubs will only benefit you noticably during transfer activity. Deeper analysis of feeder club impacts can be found here

Selling Youth Talent

If you want to remain profitable in the long term and see your future income assured, then a Youth Policy must be adopted. As well as providing cheap first-teamers for years to come, you can also make a profit on selling these youngsters and keeping your finances healthy.

If you're in the situation where you've got 2/3 young strikers coming through aged 19/20 but don't have space for all 3, then invariably you're going to let 1 or 2 go before they get unhappy with their backup status as they get older and their value depletes year on year.

But have you ever thought about who you're selling to? Do you accept the highest bid from a rival without any thoughts about future income? Obviously you might not want to let a good prospect leave to a close rival or the league-leaders even if they are offering the most money. But stop and think for a minute. Once you sell this guy for X amount, that's all you're going to see, for the rest of his 10-15 year career you won't see any more money coming in to you.

There are other options as you know when selling players, negoatiate International appearances, Goals scored etc, but those take up a sizeable chunk of the transfer fee and you might not be able to include them to the AI clubs satisfaction. Instead i reccomend always inserting a clause of 'Future Transfer Fee' of 50%, the maximum. If he really is a star then he'll inevitably move on to bigger things and you'll be reaping the rewards with 50% of his next big transfer years down the line. The AI clubs nearly always accept your demands with the 50% clause inserted.

Getting the most out of this '50% of Future Transfer Fee' is where you need to sit back and take a look at the clubs bidding for the player.

Scenario: Player X is 20, with a PA of 180 and a CA of just 120. He's not developed the way you wanted, so you're letting him go. Several clubs come in with bids for him:

A. Do you sell him to Real Madrid for £5mill with 50% of future fee?

B. Do you sell him to Murcia for £3mill with 50% of future fee?

C. Or perhaps accept the bid from Villareal for £4mill with 50% of future fee?

You might not want to sell him to Real anyway, your biggest rivals, perhaps accept the bid from Murcia who are languishing at the bottom and won't cause you any worry? Or Perhaps accept the bid from Villareal, verging on the Champions League places?

Go through each scenario and play it forward 3-4 seasons:

A. Real Madrid sign him, he develops nicely after 3 seasons and becomes a world-beater, he doesn't move from Real and you never see a penny of the 50% of any future fee until he's 32, washed up and he's sold to Tenerife for peanuts!

B. Murcia sign him, he wants a 'Minimum Fee release clause' of just £5million because of Murcia's poor reputation and is signed by someone else in 3 seasons once he's developed. £2.5million is now yours and you wondered if it wasn't worth keeping him anyway.

C. Villareal sign him, he develops nicely with European football, grows in value to £10-12mill when Real, Valencia or Atletico come knocking after 3 seasons and sign him. £7-10million is now yours if he's sold!

Hopefully you can see what i'm getting at, don't just accept mass-bids for good youth prospects you want to let go, carefully accept bids where you think you'll get the best return if he develops fully and reaches his potential.

Wages, Wages, Wages!

Keeping your wages low is the only direct control you have over your finances. I've often seen people say 'Im under my wage budget but im losing money every month' well here's some news! if you have any surplus transfer funds left, you can increase that wage budget even more by channeling those funds into the wage budget and make even BIGGER monthly losses by giving your players bigger contracts!

The AI doesn't consider your monthly profit/loss status when allowing you to increase your wage budget, so it's fairly safe to assume the wage budget should be ignored when planning your monthly finances.

It's complicated when giving advice on what cap you should place on your weekly wages, since the income of every club is different. Ideally you should be looking to cover your wagebill with your Gate Receipts and Merchandise together since those 2 Incomes are the biggest on a monthly basis. Obviously Gate Receipts varies wildly depending on:

1. Ticket Prices

2. Season Ticket Holder % of Home Attendance

3. Home Attendance

4. No. of Home Games [Cups, European etc]

Based on some previous saves and games in 2007 and 2008, i'd recommend the following [assuming 19 home games per season and £35 tickets and more than 50% ST holders]

1. Attendance: 40,000 avg, No European Football = Wage Bill Max of £600,000

A good cup run would see you bring in around £11-13mill in Gate Receipts total, whilst Merchandising might reach £10mill. That still leaves £10mill to be found since a wagebill of £600k a week is £31mill. TV Revenue should make up the shortfall over the months bringing you into a small loss or small profit.

2. Attendance: 40,000 avg, UEFA or CL football = Wage Bill Max of £750,000

A decent European run of 5 home games would net you £7mill on top of the £11-13mill from League/Cup games. Assume £20mill max. Merchandising of £10mill means you could cover a wagebill of £600,000 easily so you should be looking to stretch to £750,000 with TV Revenue making up any difference.

3. Attendance: 60,000 avg, No European Football = Wage Bill Max of £800,000

A good cup run would see you bring in around £16-18mill in Gate Receipts total, whilst Merchandising might reach £15-20mill. Combined that would result in a max of £38mill for the season, equating to around £730,000 a week in wages, again TV Revenue should allow you to pump that up to £800,000 a week.

4. Attendance: 60,000 avg, UEFA or CL football = Wage Bill Max of £950,000

A decent European run of 5 home games would net you £10.5mill on top of the £16-18mill from League/Cup games. Assume £28mill max. Merchandising of £15-20mill means you could cover a wagebill of £900,000 easily so i'd stretch to £950,000 a week.

It's all subjective obviously and theres lots of factors that will affect your own circumstances, so don't take my wage guide as a rule of thumb! If you stick to what i suggested then you shouldn't see too many problems with monthly losses.

Hopefully this has been of use to someone!

No offence, but YAWN.

No offence, but YAWN.

thats offensive are you that stupid. I'll help you out. yes.

Interesting reading on the affiliation detail

No offence, but YAWN.

That was very arrogant and not nice at all.

Nice Swisso, am sure this will help people

No offence, but YAWN.

Was that needed? swisso has, sucessfully imo, created a guide tha could help a lot of people. Yet you come in and criticise that.

Pathetic comment.

Good read swisso

No offence, but YAWN.

I've always wondered why people start with 'No offence' when clearly they're making an unhelpful and non-constructive remark!

You could have just ignored the topic and gone on your merry way dude, so what compelled you to make such a derisory comment?

he lives in Devon

I've always wondered why people start with 'No offence' when clearly they're making an unhelpful and non-constructive remark!

You could have just ignored the topic and gone on your merry way dude, so what compelled you to make such a derisory comment?

Don't feed him, just take in the comments from those who appreciate the effort.

And thanks for the explentation on Merchandising Affilliates, big from me.

Brilliant thread shame there are all these arrogent ....... about!

swisso, would I be able to use this on www.footballmanagerwiki.co.uk? I'll give you full credit for it. Cheers:)

swisso, would I be able to use this on www.footballmanagerwiki.co.uk? I'll give you full credit for it. Cheers:)

Yeah sure, fire away!

Yeah sure, fire away!

Cheers for this mate,

Could help a lot of people here and there.

Cheers, I'll write it in now. Thanks:)

Good stuff, swisso.

Surprised you didn't mention the "Arrange Friendly" clause in transfers, its my all-time fave, especially when my finances aren't flawless. E.g., as a Championship side in England, if I sell a young starlet up to an EPL side, I make sure to always include "Arrange Friendly", and I make a "Note" when the deal is completed that I have a friendly with so-and-so to arrange. The next June/July, when arranging transfers, I make sure to bring that club to my stadium for no fee, and reap a bit of additional financial reward.

Good work very helpful for lower league managers tho in my opinion but i always have a tight reign over my finances, but a good read for people who think they can spend an infinite amount of money and beginners

Good stuff, swisso.

Surprised you didn't mention the "Arrange Friendly" clause in transfers, its my all-time fave, especially when my finances aren't flawless. E.g., as a Championship side in England, if I sell a young starlet up to an EPL side, I make sure to always include "Arrange Friendly", and I make a "Note" when the deal is completed that I have a friendly with so-and-so to arrange. The next June/July, when arranging transfers, I make sure to bring that club to my stadium for no fee, and reap a bit of additional financial reward.

Theres so many aspects to Finances that i wanted to concentrate on medium to big sized clubs as thats where my most experience has been gained. I don't think i've ever managed a 2nd or 3rd tier club since CM 00-01 with Rimini in Serie C2 !

Always been pretty good as far as club finances, however that wage budget/attendance and merhcandise bit will help

start with man u after about 6 years you could have 3-4 commercial links with clubs,

this will give you about an extra 7mil per season after fees have been paid to those respected clubs.

its a nice way to make a little extra on the side

he lives in Devon

And I find that offensive

Good read Swisso!

start with man u after about 6 years you could have 3-4 commercial links with clubs,

this will give you about an extra 7mil per season after fees have been paid to those respected clubs.

its a nice way to make a little extra on the side

The maximum you could have is 3, 1 club each from Japan, US and China, but i've only ever managed 2 !

But it's not a perfect science working out how much you gain from them. There is no formula available and im assuming only the SI coders fully understand how the merchandise benefits work and how it's calculated.

The benefits are only really seen during transfer activity, im raking in £74million per season as Barca now compared to £36million at the start, it's not as clear-cut as saying it's all down to my US and Japanese feeder clubs, because my club has acheived so much success and the reputation has grown and naturally i've bought new players year on year which have helped sales anyway.

Just for an example: you could take a Feeder club from Japan, not sign any players AT ALL for 3 seasons, and you'll see almost neglible difference compared to not taking the Feeder club! Feeder clubs on their own don't guarentee any income. You need to bring them into life

Good reading swisso.

The only thing I would add is use of pre-season home friendlies as a cash-cow. For any sized club, this can rake in large quantities of money, very quickly.

Ok, for big clubs, it's a little pocket change, but could in fact pay for a player or two. For medium and smaller clubs, getting multiple friendlies against big clubs from your own nation or overseas, can literally give you the finances to springboard your climb up the leagues.

Great read swisso.

I follow most of your tips, including the 50% sell on clause, which is a must for any sale...

Although your point about who to sell a player to is something I never thought of, although as Real Oviedo, I avoid selling my players to Real or Barca at all costs.

Great read swisso.

I follow most of your tips, including the 50% sell on clause, which is a must for any sale...

Although your point about who to sell a player to is something I never thought of, although as Real Oviedo, I avoid selling my players to Real or Barca at all costs.

To be honest, i gave it little thought myself until a scenario came about which cheesed me off a little!

I signed Sankhare, a French DMC for £4mill. He wasn't developing the way i wanted after 2 seasons and i couldnt give him football with better players ahead of him. So i let him go for free with a 50% clause to Racing Club in Spain, where he asked for a Minimum Fee Release clause of £5.75million and was signed by Leverkusen for his fee release the season after that.

Later he was sold to Juventus for £17.5million.

In hindsight, i should have sold him to Leverkusen myself and gained a nice slice of that Juventus fee. But in my short-sightedness i wanted to flog him to anyone who came as long as the 50% was included. Looking back now, theres no way he would have went for £17.5mill from Racing Club and it was a mistake selling him there.

I should have looked at the medium-sized clubs like Leverkusen where he can reach some heights before moving onto a giant for a big fee and rejected any bids from small clubs

To be honest, i gave it little thought myself until a scenario came about which cheesed me off a little!

I signed Sankhare, a French DMC for £4mill. He wasn't developing the way i wanted after 2 seasons and i couldnt give him football with better players ahead of him. So i let him go for free with a 50% clause to Racing Club in Spain, where he asked for a Minimum Fee Release clause of £5.75million and was signed by Leverkusen for his fee release the season after that.

Later he was sold to Juventus for £17.5million.

In hindsight, i should have sold him to Leverkusen myself and gained a nice slice of that Juventus fee. But in my short-sightedness i wanted to flog him to anyone who came as long as the 50% was included. Looking back now, theres no way he would have went for £17.5mill from Racing Club and it was a mistake selling him there.

I should have looked at the medium-sized clubs like Leverkusen where he can reach some heights before moving onto a giant for a big fee and rejected any bids from small clubs

I would personally never sell anyone without some money up-front. I always want a nominal fee and the 50% clause.

I usually use 'Offer to Clubs' option for selling players, and teams usually meet my criteria. Although I regret one sale for US$7.5 million, and now he's worth over US$20 million...

The time where I did sell to Real was a Turkish DM who was complaining all season, and Real had a few DMs already, so I sold him for $19 million + 50% clause (before reading this of course). Not sure what I'll get if he transfers to another club...

I like your thoughts on the Real Madrid/Villareal/Murcia scenario. I had never actually thought of it like that before. Good post!

Good read, especially about Merchandising Feeders, i've never really understood the ins and outs of it.

Nice one.

Brilliant post mate

No offence, but YAWN.

Attention span or what.

I thought it was an extremely good read that will prorbably help a lot of people. Especially the Feeder Cluub bit and selling youth players.

It was a great read, now I'll definetly think more about where i sell my youngsters to.

No offence, but YAWN.

I will add myself to the DevonSpurs your an idiot movement.

Thanks for the analysis swisso I am currently Napoli but cant see myself getting a sugar daddy or Asian supporters anytime soon...

I acutally never cared about finances and stuff etc however recently I managed Bristol City for a while and I really felt it had a big impact on my club. I used to give players maximum wage whatever they wanted but I soon started to bargin them down to only pay them minimum wage. Also I used to bid whatever and try not getting into bidding wars, however I realised if you bid for ages they do tend to lower their bids, unless the player in question is like in hot demand, and sure I dont get them at cut down prices but something sometimes only 75% of what they first wanted.

Anyways thanks for that swisso!

P.S How do I apply for the DevonSpurs is an idiot movement President position?

Cheers,

ReeNah

Awesome post mate.

Was a good read, especially for me because Im at that position where I have the world class team and have won everything but want to increase my finances. Will make me step back and think who Im selling these players too, so I can maximize the potential amount I get from them.

Good post, well written and thought out,

It looks like the merch feeders were heavily reduced in rewards from 08 and 07.

I find the "Arsenal Policy" very profitable. Usually divide the squad into three teams...first team (players above 23 years of age)..rotation (from 19-23) and youngsters. For example in my Sevilla save..i sold Fabiano for 17 million to Man City but i had Keirrson whom i had bought for 10 million to replace him. Couple of years later Arsenal came sniffing and i sold him for 32.5 million but Saivet had developed enough to replace him in the first team. Now Real Madrid, Juventus and Inter are all interested in him

Excellent read swisso, thanks. You've raised a lot of points that I'd not particularly thought of.

As for DevonSpurs - complete twonk!

I always meant to test out having a tour of the country where your commercial feeder is located but kept forgetting inbetween seasons. Quite disappointed to read that it makes no difference financially and the same with signing players from that nation, but you've saved me some time anyway, so thanks.

Fantastic Read, I am playing as PSG and I will keep this account when the time comes to sell my good young youth to bigger european clubs.

w00t! my French Striker who i let go for £2mill + 50% has just been sold to Everton for £20mill! After i rejected all the bids except 1 from Zaragoza last season

Just shows that if you're patient enough you can reap the rewards from selling your Youth prospects

Good post. I saw your reference to it when you came over the fence into the tactics neighbourhood and starting causing trouble

I'd like to add a few points here if I may.

1. When taking over a club for the first time, beit from a game start or job change, always always check the transfer clauses in effect for any previous transfers. I took over at spurs and was losing money hand over fist, I then checked this page and established I was paying something like £280,000 everymonth for 2 years for Modric (may not have been that bad in terms of time). So this is always a reason a club may be losing money.

2. Check the amount of games played, goals scored clauses. I find this especialyl usefull on players that are backup that were once stars. If you have a player thats about to cost you another £1,000,000 (scale per league) for his next game when you barely play him... then transfer him.

3. Quality young players that larger teams want can sometimes be loaned out for good money and not transfered. As spurs, I allowed DeSantos to go to Barca on loan. They paid his wages and paid me 4.2mill for it. Oddly enough, he played really well for them and usualy plays terrible for me.

I am sure there are other points.

But... good post!

LAM