The Horrors of Receivership

I take over Billericay in 2015 and move them from the BS North to League 1 by 2019. Shortly after that season's end, I get invited to manage Port Vale, who has just been dropped from the Championship to League 1 because they've gone into receivership. Never having managed a bankrupt club, I figured this would be a new challenge.

It certainly was.

The board tells me they expect promotion back to the Championship at the end of the 2019-2020 season. Then they cut the salary budget to $32k a week from the previous year's $250k a week. They also dump my top GK and best DC. I dump more players and get the pay level down to about $93k a week -- about as low I could get it while keeping a squad I thought had a chance of fulfilling the promotion mandate.

I was stuck with this squad. No transfer money. No new quality players because of the ridiculously low pay limits for free agents. I pumped money into the coffers with big-bucks preseason friendlies. I scheduled the reserves for money friendlies whenever they had a week off from their league. Despite the dumping of players, the first team fared well. We were always in the playoff zone and never more than six points from automatic promotion.

Then the January transfer window opened and the board released two of my best players. That did it for me. I took the nuke option. I released all first-teamers. Their payoffs pushed the club debt from $10M to $12M. I canceled four long-term loans of players who had been contributing. I fired the entire staff, costing the club about $1M. I also canceled the parent club, another move that added to the red ink.

Leaving the club in a shambles, I happily resigned. There were no farewell messages from the board. (I guess SI didn't program for the possibility of a manager intentionally destroying a club.) I got one message saying the board wouldn't allow my assman to leave. A few messages later, he quits anyway, citing loyalty to me.

I kept hitting "continue," waiting for manager jobs to open. After a couple of months, Southampton (League 1, 16th place) came open. I applied and was hired. Meanwhile, Port Vale, using a mix of former reserves, a few over-the-hill free agents and grey players, were dropping like a rock -- 0-1-6 since I nuked them.

My advice to all is to avoid teams in receivership. Let the AI endure the horrors. The nuke option doesn't fully offset the frustration and pain. It was fun, though.

This is one side i quite enjoy, trying to balance the books of a football club is a big part of the game for me. For example, my Gateshead team broke even in BSN, and have made healthy profits in the BSP and League 2. It pays off because now in League 1 im financially secure and able to grow the club, adding in backroom staff and improving the playing side. Its fun for me, or maybe im a geek

I've seen this only once with Fulham in my long term game (I'm not managing them) Several clubs have entered administration, but all have come back out within a year. Fulham have now been in admin for seven years and are heading straight out of the football league. Their administrators seem to release a player every few weeks, including allowing me to re-sign a player on a free who I sold to them for £12M.

In real life, the club would have been no longer. It would have gone straight into liquidation, and a new club would have been formed. Unfortunately, i couldn't seem to find a way to do this with FMRTE, as I know it can't happen automatically for legal reasons

When I joined TOP Oss in my current game they were close to bankruptcy, being over 5 million euros in debt and it was getting worse by the week. Selling a few of the better players around I managed to bring it back to around 4 millions and started to invest in young talent without contracts and managed to get promoted to the Eredivisie after 3 seasons. That's when things turned around. Currently, many years later at the verge of going in debt again though as I invested a lot and results are nowhere to be found...

It is mad managing at the lower levels in FM, I am loving playing my Welling United game. I lost about £12,000 at the end of my first season, I was promoted however via the play offs and as I like to keep my wages down I'm £2,500 under the allowed level.

My balance is over a £100,000, and I am turning a cracking profit every month of nearly £10k. Lower League management really makes you wary of the financial side.

..then you went to Southampton?...Me thinks your learning curve is not on the home straight yet! LOL. Seriously though, I dont think I could do the destruct thing, would be too painful. A "Virtual Robbie" may have stepped in at some point to save you especially as you were clearly "doing well" (under trying circumstances). Now your future rep is surely messed up? Interesting OP though.

..then you went to Southampton?...Me thinks your learning curve is not on the home straight yet! LOL. Seriously though, I dont think I could do the destruct thing, would be too painful. A "Virtual Robbie" may have stepped in at some point to save you especially as you were clearly "doing well" (under trying circumstances). Now your future rep is surely messed up? Interesting OP though.

Southampton in 2020 is in good financial shape. I was ready to quit Port Vale anyway, so I dropped the nuke just to see what happened. It didn't seem to affect my profile. On the upside, before I arrived Southampton had signed my top-rated player from Port Vale and I am now in the process of signing my best Port Vale DC, who was still a free agent. I look forward to Southampton. I have always managed frugally, made money for my boards and gotten my clubs promoted by signing good young players who improve with age. Southampton is in far better shape than most of the clubs I have taken over. We play Port Vale about five games down the road. Should be most interesting.

Only good has come of Running Cloud. He took Billericay up, then when he had the audacity to move to Burslum, er, I mean Burslem, he saw sense and destroyed Port Vale.

Nice one.