Surviving Financially In The Lower Leagues

Whilst the below information is completely legitimate and in the game without any mods, third party additions etc. it could be considered unrealistic by some.

If you are worried about learning something that potentially ruins the game for you, back out of this thread now!

Guide

We've all been a lower league side and hemorrhaged money non-stop. There's a way to stop that.

You set up away friendlies in order to gain massive gate receipt revenues as the home side pays you to play them.

The best time to do this is after your last game of the season (you usually get a five or six day window where you can organise friendlies, so you can organise one every day and not worry about fatigue for an upcoming game.)

The screenshot below shows you how you do it.

How to set up the friendlies - click here for image.

Note that you need to make sure it's an away game or you'll be paying the other side the money!

Go through all the teams you can play and you're looking for the one with the highest number in the brackets. You can't arrange a friendly against the same side more than once.

Here is a screenshot of the season where I didn't use this feature and was perpetually skint, and this season where I did. A 1000%+ increase in revenue.

If you didn't know about this, enjoy! If you did, ah well!

Tubey

P.S. You can also earn mental amounts of cash by arranging a friendly "League" if you can entice big clubs to join you in one in pre-season.

More @ TAS

There are other ways to save money when managing in the lower leagues that may be worth mentioning in this thread:

1 - Staff. You have not got the facilities to improve players a whole lot through training, so you only need a skeleton coaching staff. That means one assistant, one coach, one physio and 1 scout. Anything else is just a waste of wages.

2 - Players. As above, only have what you need. At this level you don't need to run reserve and youth squads. Have a first team squad with enough players to cover injuries and that's it.

There are other ways to save money when managing in the lower leagues that may be worth mentioning in this thread:

1 - Staff. You have not got the facilities to improve players a whole lot through training, so you only need a skeleton coaching staff. That means one assistant, one coach, one physion and 1 scout. Anything else is just a waste of wages.

2 - Players. As above, only have what you need. At this level you don't need to run reserve and youth squads. Have a first team squad with enough players to cover injuries and that's it.

Agree utterly - glad it's the first post on the thread as that covers it ^^

I can add cup runs, staying within the wage budget etc. but they're kind of obvious.

The friendly thing is a LLM'ers nightmare But sometimes you do lose money no matter what you do. I know somebody who was managing in American Samoa and THAT was difficult!

Does this work for all teams or is it only really suited low league clubs?

Does this work for all teams or is it only really suited low league clubs?

Works for all teams - when you get to the "big time" you get about £150k per friendly.

But you find it's not worth it if you play in a big stadium and can attract a big pre-season friendly opponent as you'll make more via gate receipts. The reason it's valuable for lower league teams is because they don't have the stadium to do this, and usually can't attract the likes of Barcelona to come and play anyway!

There are other ways to save money when managing in the lower leagues that may be worth mentioning in this thread:

1 - Staff. You have not got the facilities to improve players a whole lot through training, so you only need a skeleton coaching staff. That means one assistant, one coach, one physio and 1 scout. Anything else is just a waste of wages.

2 - Players. As above, only have what you need. At this level you don't need to run reserve and youth squads. Have a first team squad with enough players to cover injuries and that's it.

Chopper, do you not find that you get trouble with dissatisfied players about rotten coaching if you can't provide at least a minimum standard?

Chopper, do you not find that you get trouble with dissatisfied players about rotten coaching if you can't provide at least a minimum standard?

This has never happened to me and I've managed in the lower leagues quite a bit. That's not to say it can't happen, but it's not something I've experienced.

The assistant and the coach covering all coaching has always been enough for me. Once I make a little more money the next thing I'll hire is a second scout to find more players.

On that note the only thing I ever look for is first team players that will make an impact straight away, I don't bother much with youth potential atthis stage as the poor facilities make it unlikely that they'll make their potential anyway.

This has never happened to me and I've managed in the lower leagues quite a bit. That's not to say it can't happen, but it's not something I've experienced.

The assistant and the coach covering all coaching has always been enough for me. Once I make a little more money the next thing I'll hire is a second scout to find more players.

On that note the only thing I ever look for is first team players that will make an impact straight away, I don't bother much with youth potential atthis stage as the poor facilities make it unlikely that they'll make their potential anyway.

Thanks. Maybe they are used to lousy coaching and expect it!

I found arranging friendlies against Manure and Chelsea was worth £55k you paid them as you pull in twice or thrice that in gate money.

I found arranging friendlies against Manure and Chelsea was worth £55k you paid them as you pull in twice or thrice that in gate money.

That's not the case if your stadium holds 2'000 people And I'm pretty sure Man United and Chelsea would not be attainable as friendly opposition at that level.

It comes into it's own in the lower leagues, as I say.

Playing home friendlies against rivals works well too, fills stadium a lot more, but that probably only works in small countries, as there is less chance in lower leagues that they have a lot of rivals in the same strength league anyway. When I was playing in Iceland (all semi-pro clubs), I played most friendlies against my rival filling my 4k stadium every time, which gave me more money than the fee of playing away at the best team I could get.

Young player's improvement is determined by amount of playing time much more than training. In general first team practice = improvement, while training = reshaping attributes.

The home friendly versus rivals is something I used a lot at Hinckley United. On their rivals list is a non-active, non-league team (Barwell) who are ready and willing to play a friendly whenever. The games are hardly sell-outs but are never-the-less profitable and can be played dozens of times throughout a season. It doesn't even seem to matter if you pick all your reserves and kids for these friendlies just as long as the friendly is arranged through the first team fixtures.

I'll try the away friendlies trick in the next pre-season of my fantasy/borderline-cheating save