Very important enhancements regarding finances and football business. (The Agents)

I've seen few ideas regarding the enhancement of the business and the financial part of the game being discussed in these forums. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but anyway, here are some ideas I think that could really improve the game. This is quite a big post, but please take a look and do not only agree or disagree with it, help improving the ideas and come up with some more:

-Pressure over other team chairmans: Right now FM is quite unrealistic in what comes to the transfer market. Many times clubs will simply accept any offer over a certain value, leaving it to the player to decide which club they want. There's also the flaw of many clubs paying huge amounts of money for players with only 6 months left in the contract. That's unrealistic. The only difference is that, when you approach to sign a player, he'll come in the end of the season, while if you buy him from the club in January, he'll go to your team immediately. But no club would pay great amounts of cash for such players. In fact, aware that the player is going to leave at the end of the season, the club owning the player would be ready to listen to offers at half his value. Unless the player his a vital piece in the team and the coach doesn't want to risk such alterations in the middle of the season, preferring to keep the player for more six months rather than having him leave in January in exchange for a quantity of money. And that's another point I'll address later.

Anyway, to get back to the point, we should be able to tell our chairman's or the person with the task of negotiating players to pressure other team chairman's into accepting our offer and denying all others. (To be easier, instead of telling the chairman to do it for us, we could do it directly when making an offer for a player). This would add more realism into the transfer market since it happens all the time in real life. Clubs want what's best for them, so even if they accept an offer of 4,5M from a club for one of their players, in case another club offers 7M for the same player, they(and us) should be able to cancel the first offer or make an "ultimatum" to equal the 7M value. In the other hand, the team that offered the 7M could also say "We are offering 5M, although it might be set at 7M if you deny any other offer from other clubs immediately".

The word here is Influence and Friendship between clubs. That should be dramatically improved. And we should have a table similar to that of Board and Fans where we can see their opinion in relation to us. In this case in such table we would be able to see the relation between other clubs and our own.

Also, such relations, whether good or bad, would tend to stabilize whenever a club changed manager. And would stabilize even further if a club changed the chairman.

-Vital players leaving in January: Right now is quite often to see clubs selling their most important players in md season. It's ridiculous. More than often that's what will put them away from the tittle challenge. Besides, the player in question would value even more at the end of the season rather than in January. It is ridiculous how often this happens and should be stopped. So:

- Make it easier for clubs to accept offers for a player at around half his value if his contract is to end in six months, unless he's a very important part of the team, in which case the club should only accept offers at a reasonable price.

- Make it harder for clubs to accept offers for a player's real value in January if he's a vital piece in the team. Such offers for such players should only be accepted if they are considerably high. (Like a player valued at 10M, that in a normal situation would leave for 20M, in this case should only leave in January if an offer of 30M was put in. However, if a club offers only 20M for that payer, it is ridiculous to accept it because they'll be able to sell him for that value at the end of the season anyway, or even higher, since he improved even further). So, basically, a player that might leave for 20M or 25M at the end of a season, should only leave in January if the club is offered 30M, 35M or even more.

I think this is quite realistic.

Agents and Enterprises: In nowadays football, the player's agents have an HUGE importance to the game. Right now they only appear in the game as a word. "The agent as informed you the player wishes a contract of 60,000 per month..."

I think SI should really look into it. I'm not the best person to give ideas in relation to this since I don't know the details of how they work, etc, but I think anyone will agree that they do play an huge part. Again, Influence" and "Friendship" should come up. Some points regarding this that should be given a good look:

- Many players ain't in the hands of clubs. Usually a certain percentage belongs to the club, other to the agent and the rest to other entities, many times the player himself. I will address this point later aswell.

- Depending on the relationship of a certain agent with you (or the club, I'm not sure what would be more important in this case), he could put pressure over players, depending on his own interests as well. For instance, if an agent fancies a certain club or manager, he might advise the player to accept a certain wage, while if he dislikes the manager or the club in question, maybe he would advise the player to make higher demands. This of course would be risky, since his job and reputation is at stake. It would depend on the personality of the agent (level of professionalism, personal ambition, cynicism, etc). Younger players would always be easier targets than older players. You could also add an hidden(or not) attribute to players regarding naivety and one to agents regarding persuasion.

The relation between an agent and a club would also influence the cost of the percentage owned by the agent. If he has a good relation with you, he might be willing to accept offers for his part at a reduced cost than what he would if he disliked you. In fact, if the later situation was the case, many times he would simply deny any offer unless extremely high. Of course, one of the ways in which this would work would be you advising your players, especially the youngsters, to accept the services of a certain agent. In these way and others you would be able to improve relations with them, which could bring benefits to both parts.

So, in brief, ALL entities in FM and the relations between one another should be improved beyond friendly words of admiration and put into real acts.

Oh, and do not forget fathers. Many times a player's agent his the father(more likely in younger players). And those can be quite hard to handle since most lack any knowledge on how things work.

A voice in the financial direction of the club: Right now you can control it through wages, etc. But that's not good enough. You should be able to ask the board for a stronger word in the financial decisions of the club. (Just like you ask for improved facilities, another stadium, etc). Of course it would almost always be rejected in the first year at the club, but if you are in a club for several years and achieve success, you should pressure them into accepting your voice in the board. If this was to be accepted, then you would be able to propose a few different ideas from time to time, and you would be given a vote. (Make it standard for a club to have a fixed number of voters in the board, like 5 or 7). Among some of the things you would be able to propose and vote would be the percentage of the profit available for transfers, which could be improved by 5% or 10% at a time, and given a set date of, for instance, 2 or 3 years between them. (So after a proposition to increase the amount from 70% to 75% be accepted, you could only propose to increase it to 80% after 2 years. In the case it was denied, you would have to wait an year to be able to propose i again.)

There would also be occasions where you would have to vote for a certain issue without actually proposing it in the first place. Like television and advertising deals. For those who have tried some of the later FIFA's, you know you are able at the beginning of a season to choose from a bunch of different deals.

I think it would be interesting to add something similar to the game, but improved ofcourse.

REMIND, these options would only be available after spending several time in a single club. Like 5 years at least.

Team attributes: Right now you have player attributes and I suppose a few hidden team attributes regarding gelling, relationship between players, ambition, etc. I think it would be nice to see some of these attributes made visible. And maybe add an option to make them visible or not before starting a new save (like you have the option to use real or fictitious players, medium or large database, etc). These team attributes would give stars from 1 to seven. They would be given to:

-Defense

-Midfield

-Attack

Basically your assistant manager would give you a report on the next opponent, rating the opponent team from 1 to 7 on the strength of the team in the different positions. The result would be that, if you were to play a defense with 7 stars, you knew maybe it would be advisable to play a slower pace to try and break through. Or if you were playing against a 7 star attack you knew that maybe playing an anchorman wouldnt be a bad idea, etc...

Also, every team could have an overall rate from 1 to 7 stars, which would be given to you by your assistant manager(so it would depend on his ability to judge other teams). This is already in the game anyway, and you usually can look at an opponent's strength based on the chances of him winning certain matches or competitions, so actually giving them a visible rate wouldn't hurt. These could be always available, or only after asking your assistant manager to report on them. Or maybe even ask for the current strength of the team instead of overall strength (Some key injured players could dramatically decrease a teams rating).

I believe this would definitely make the game more user friendly. Just make something visible that's already there.

If you want to know the strength of an opponents defense, you might prefer to be given an overall rating by your assistant manager, rather than having to look at all the players including the goalkeeper to get an idea.

Other ratings or visible bars regarding team gelling, friendship, ambition, professionalism, respect for the manager, club or/and chairman could be made available. Right now you can only look at a team harmony through the board room. I don't see why this shouldn't be improved.

However, in these particular stats, I think only your club should be visible to you. What I mean is, you wouldn't be able to look at the level of ambition or harmony of an opponent team.

A player's rights: Yesterday Mourinho said the following regarding Cristiano Ronaldo's transfer:

"Those who have money decide the best way to spend it. If Manchester sold him it is because that's what they wanted, and Real Madrid must be happy with the buy.[...] If Ronaldo accepted to be transfered, than he must be happy with it and I imagine that Jorge Mendes is "superhappy". Everyone's happy, so I don't see the problem".

So Jorge Mendes is super happy. Jorge Mendes is, of course, an agent. For those who ain't aware of their importance, here are some links:

Independent.co.uk

How Mendes has made himself key player behind the biggest deals in Europe

Scolari's move to Chelsea is just the latest multi-million pound move to be brokered by the Portuguese superagent. Jason Burt reports

Jorge Mendes is agent to both Cristiano Ronaldo and Jose Mourinho

When Jorge Mendes was asked to write a column for the Portuguese sports daily, O Jogo, during the European Championship, the title that was originally suggested, somewhat jokingly, was "My Millions". Mendes said no to that, instead agreeing to the column being called "The Value of Euros" which could, even so, be interpreted two ways. It's not just the football competition; it's the currency.

Mendes' name doesn't mean much to the average football fan. But it should. Still just 42, he is one of the most powerful men – maybe in terms of deals the most powerful man – in the game. Mendes is also an agent, a shrewd businessman and a clever media operator with his own management company, website, which employs full-time journalists, and contacts that spread from his Portuguese base throughout the world, particularly in the valuable markets of South America.

Pini Zahavi has long been regarded as the number one super-agent but, this summer, as with last year, Mendes' name is being mentioned by the biggest clubs in Europe as the man with the greater influence. He has just taken Jose Mourinho to Internazionale and Luiz Felipe Scolari to Chelsea to make the pair the highest-paid club managers in world football.

timesonline.co.uk

Jorge Mendes has done well out of the game for a man whose dreams of making it as a footballer were shattered by a series of rejections from small Portuguese clubs in his early twenties.

The Portuguese agent will make £4 million alone in the next few days as a result of negotiating Cristiano Ronaldo’s move to Real Madrid, a fee that will just be the start of his earnings during another stellar summer.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/sp20070127cd.html]japantimes.co.jp

Agents receiving massive sums for little work on transfers

By CHRISTOPHER DAVIES

LONDON -- The following conversation took place at a house in England recently . . .

Father: 'So tell me, what do you want to be when you grow up?'

Son: 'A football agent, Daddy.'

Father: 'A football agent? Not a teacher or a doctor?'

Son: 'No, Daddy, a football agent.'

Father: 'But wouldn't you like to serve society in a more positive way?'

Son: 'Not when you can make so much money doing so little as a football agent, Daddy.'

Father: 'They can't make THAT much money . . .?'

Son: 'Oh yes they can. When Yakubu moved from Portsmouth to Middlesbrough a couple of years ago, the man who brokered the deal earned £3 million.'

Father: 'Surely that cannot be true . . .?'

Son: 'Yes, it is. What's more, the fee was only £7.5 million, so the agent collected about 40 percent of the fee for his . . . well, fee. That seems nice easy money, Daddy, which is why I want to be a football agent.'

Father: 'So let me get this right. Yakubu was with Portsmouth but wanted to join Middlesbrough . . .?'

Son: 'Yes . . .'

Father: 'So the agent didn't have to do the hard sell like, say, an estate agent trying to sell a house to a client . . .?'

Son: 'Oh no. Middlesbrough wanted Yakubu. Portsmouth were happy to sell him. Yakubu wanted to join Middlesbrough.

Mr. Pini Zahavi fixed it all up, organized the five-year contract and collected £3 million in the process. Mr. Zahavi will only get the full £3 million if the striker sees out his five-year contract . . . And I read somewhere Mr. Zahavi has to pay another agent, Barry Silkman, something because he kind of owns Yakubu.'

[...]

Lucho Gonzalez

His performances at River Plate earned González a deal with Portuguese Liga's F.C. Porto in 2005, with Porto sharing the ownership with Global Soccer Agencies. Porto paid €3.6m to purchase half of the rights and signed a 5-year contract with the player.

In Porto, He became team captain. In November 2006, he had already signed an improved contract that would last until 2011, and in August 2007, Porto paid €6.65m to Global Soccer Agencies to achieve full ownership of the player.

In June 2009, Porto announced the sale of Lucho Gonzalez to Olympique de Marseille for a fee of 20M €, with the possibility of an increase to 26M €, depending on the player's performance

In this last case, for instance, you can see why Porto had interest in buying the remaining rights of Lucho. That way they get the full 20M with the possibility of reaching 26M. Otherwise, if they owned less, they would also get much less for selling him later.

So, again I say, do not ignore agents and other entities who have a major say in player transfers and deals. I strongly believe this deserves a lot of focus.

So does the one way 100% buy of a player, from club to club. That's not how it works in reality. There's lots of money involved, lots of interested parties trying to take a piece, and they have such a crucial importance in the game, that they shouldn't be kept in the dark anymore in FM.

- Webster ruling: I apologize if this is already in the game, but I'vent seen any situations in which law has been applied. For more info look here. I don't see why this shouldn't be implemented.

The Webster ruling is a test case in association football law involving Andy Webster, a defender formerly with Heart of Midlothian football club in Edinburgh, Scotland. In September 2006 he became the first player to exploit the updated transfer regulations of FIFA, football's governing body, which stipulated that players are able to unilaterally walk away from a contract after a fixed period, regardless of the duration of the contract itself.

In simple words and using an easy example, players older than 28 years old are able to break their current contracts and sign for other clubs. All that has to be paid to the current club his an indmenization regarding the value of the remaining of the contract.

BUT KEEP IN MIND, it is the player who pays for it. So only unhappy players should accept these kind of approaches and the offer of another club to cover the players compensation. All other players should deny it and force the interested club to buy him through normal ways. I suppose "Professionalism" would also play a part in these deals.

It his important that these kinds of deals allow only to buy players who are very unhappy at their current clubs, giving them a moral reason to apply the ruling. DO NOT make of it a contract-breaking fest.

Such deals could also result in the damaging of the relations between the clubs involved.

So all you have to do is make all players older than 28 years approachable to sign by any club, during the 14 days after the last game of the season. A bit like it happens with staff, were you are informed "You'll have to compensate [insert club here] for the amount of [insert value here]"

Paulo Assunção

On July 2008, after buying out the remainder of his contract, Assunção joined Atlético Madrid. He adjusted quickly with the capital side, playing in all league matches safe four and helping it repeat the fourth-place finish, with a subsequent UEFA Champions League qualification.

But definitely make it hard to sign a player through these methods.

More spamfest after winning a title: I might be wrong, but wasn't there a message in previous FM that would say something like "Man.UTD fans sing [Manager] name in the streets, for winning the League title", which now was substituted by a message stating "You've won the League" followed by "The board is pleased with your managing of the club. This is in no small way related with the conquest of the League. However, the board is unhappy with your handling of team wages." Eh...

Don't they realize that a simple message does make a lot of difference? Please, make it more obvious how much fans love me .

Inflate player values: This one is obvious and all I've to say is "Cristiano Ronaldo" for everyone to understand what I'm talking about. 3 seasons into the game and the highest transfer fee was of 30M. Most clubs let their players out for cheaper than what they should.

Inflate to better simulate real life transfers.

I think that's all. I understand that FM10 is already in the making, but please keep some of these in mind for FM11.

These are just some ideas. Please help me here.

And sorry my English. It's harder to keep it clean and nice when writing so much.

some ideas are really amazing, especially these 1-7 team ratings..! the same with ''Influence" and "Friendship"

I really like these ideas, although i very much doubt even 1/2 of these will be implemented into next years version but perhaps we will se more of them in future management games.

Thanks for the opinions . Yes I understand it would be hard to implement some of them, especially in the next to come FM, but I believe these suggestions could really improve the game in future years .

SI have said they won't be implementing third party ownership any time soon. At most, they'll do what they did with Tevez:

*Short contract

*Minimum fee release clause

*Money out of transfer budget in advance.

Some good, well thought out ideas here my friend!

Inflate player values: This one is obvious and all I've to say is "Cristiano Ronaldo" for everyone to understand what I'm talking about. 3 seasons into the game and the highest transfer fee was of 30M. Most clubs let their players out for cheaper than what they should.

Inflate to better simulate real life transfers.

This is already a problem.

Inflate player values: This one is obvious and all I've to say is "Cristiano Ronaldo" for everyone to understand what I'm talking about. 3 seasons into the game and the highest transfer fee was of 30M. Most clubs let their players out for cheaper than what they should.

Inflate to better simulate real life transfers.

Well, the "actual value" displayed in the player's profile is one thing, but the amount of money the club wants to sell the player is a whole different ballgame...

In my save, Luka Modric's value was 25M, but my offer kept getting rejected, until the club wanted to "negotiate" starting at 80M+clauses!

So, don't let get yourself fooled... "value" and "actual offer you need to make" are not the same.

The agent idea is good, but rather complicated to implement.

I applaud the effort you've spent trying to explain your ideas

What i will say, is that the Finance section of FM (as it stands) has quite a lot of people confused already. Even basic things like the wage budget: I'm under my wage budget but i'm still losing money, help! is posted in threads every week because theres little understanding of how it works. Any new finance additions really need to be carefully thought through so that it adds to the depth of gameplay for the professional and doesn't dissuade the amateur from venturing into the finances screens.

Well, the "actual value" displayed in the player's profile is one thing, but the amount of money the club wants to sell the player is a whole different ballgame...

In my save, Luka Modric's value was 25M, but my offer kept getting rejected, until the club wanted to "negotiate" starting at 80M+clauses!

So, don't let get yourself fooled... "value" and "actual offer you need to make" are not the same.

Yes, but like you said, it was you who were negotiating the player. I find it rare to see high values involved between clubs not managed by human players.

Today Chelsea has offered 70M plus Deco and Ricardo Carvalho to Inter, for Ibrahimovic. That's just something that does not happen in the game.

What i will say, is that the Finance section of FM (as it stands) has quite a lot of people confused already. Even basic things like the wage budget: I'm under my wage budget but i'm still losing money, help! is posted in threads every week because theres little understanding of how it works. Any new finance additions really need to be carefully thought through so that it adds to the depth of gameplay for the professional and doesn't dissuade the amateur from venturing into the finances screens.

Hmmm, yes, I understand that. But anyway, these financial improvements that I was talking about would only be available after a few years, and even so, only if you were interested in taking a greater part in the board. So it wouldn't be forced onto you. You would be able to choose .

I have to disagree here. It's mostly football game though. The main aim here is to put your team work well and fulfill your tactics on the pitch to win competitions. Am I right?

Transfers are one part of the game, but they shouldn't be overrated, but that's exactly what OP suggests. If 'Agents' suddenly become important part of FM, it makes transfers harder and more complex. It will be pain in the ass - somehow like press conferences are at the moment - it sounds like a good idea, but after 2 seasons you feel that there's nothing more pointless than trying to settle an agent after you have already made a bid for a player.

Also, financial concerns are more like the issue of chairman-board. Your job as a manager is to bring trophies. There's no reason to make this management job too complex. It will just take focus away from football to give it finance. And that's just not that fun any more.

Although I like the idea of unhappy player buying out his own contract. Atm it's pretty hard to get rid of deadwood in your squad - players with no value but somehow ridiculously large contracts like Albert Luque of Ajax - there's no chance I'll play him, there's no club who'd like to buy him and if any club appears (like Spain 2. division or smth.) then Luque in FM somehow thinks that he's still worth £30,000 p/week and rejects contract offer just to stay in Ajax bench.

Players should be more willing to accept mutual termination when they are unhappy about not getting enough first team games, that would be a start as well.

Good post

What I'd like to say is that realism in transfers is very important. For example some smaller clubs will look to hold onto their prized assets for a few seasons then cash in. For example a team like Braga in Portugal may have a striker who is capable of shining in the Premiership, and scores 30+goals a season for them. After a few seasons they may feel that they can draw a £20mil bid for him, they would want to draw the bid and cash in on him. So in these scenarios teams should perhaps after a few season offer their prized assets out to the big clubs to cash in, because if they hold onto him he will do well, but won't be able to win them trophies. By cashing in they can sign another striker and improve other parts of the team, pay off debts etc.

In FM05 you could sign players after 2 years of them signing their contract or so. For example Ronaldinho signs a deal at Barca. I'm Chelsea boss but don't want to pay £70mil that Barca want for him. His value is £30mil, and 2 years later his contract becomes unprotected and I can sign him for his value (£30mil) without Barca being able to stop me unless they offer him a new deal, and the player can exploit this situation to get higher wages off his current club or Chelsea who want to buy him. I think this feature needs to come back certainly. It is like buying out his contract.

re Webster: Webster is outdated. Now the Mathuzalem case has replaced Webster as the leading case and it is not that easy. FIFA law requires a compensation which is now way higher than just the remaining value of the contract. FIFPro's according press statement from yesterday is pure rubbish.

Then national labour law prohibits a unilateral termination in many countries, i.e. this situation can only arise in certain countries. On top, even FIFA law itself does not provide a right to terminate the contract. The court in Webster and Mathuzalem confirmed that explicitly.

SI had it in the game once, but then removed it as it pretty much doesn't exist irl. So out of the game it should stay.

re Agents: What really should be in the game is the money they make. Massive sums, especially further up the ranks.

The other suggestions sound very interesting, but I don't believe that it can be implemented properly in any economic fashion. Would be a massive amount of work and add something, but not enough to justify the effort. Just imho.