Something I don't understand with contracts and wagebudget

Playing with Ipswich in the championship I'm a bit over my wagebudget, due to the finances of the club it is enough to limit the wages I pay to players. This is all good and I can understand why they would like to limit the wages on new players and on players that are not actually playing, but on players that are already in the club and is part of the first team and actually worth a bit of money it seems like bad business to allow them to go on free transfer. Still I can have some understanding about that. What really leaves me in disbelief is that you are not allowed to sign new contracts with first team players that are actually requiring a wage that is several thousand lower than what they have.

My 3 top earners at the club is willing to sign new contracts that would save 10-15k in wages every week, which would sort the wage situation nicely along with the players that are about to go on free transfer. I think that is something that should be looked at for the future as I have a hard time believing a board of directors not seeing the benefits of lowering wages instead of letting half the team leave on free transfer.

Another way to handle things might be to have the economy work a season ahead or so. That way you could tell the board I'm letting x and y leave on free so their wages will be freed up, but I would like to retain z and x. This would allow to keep the better players of the team and give a chance to actually build a team that has a chance to advance, which I would assume most boards would like to see and sees the financial benefits of.

Have you got any transfer budget you can push across to your wage budget for a short time while you sort out the new contracts.

It is not bad practice to always keep your transfer budget hidden in your wage budget each season, for a start it improves your confidence screen performance and it also has a hidden benefit of giving you a bigger budget next year (although you still do not have the funds and have to be careful of not running the team into the red).

So, the board is refusing to let you offer new contracts to these players due to restricted wage budget, despite them saying they'll have less than their current wage?

For me, I believe you should be able to offer "First Team" and "Key Player" contracts to your own players always upto their current wage, regardless (so if they are happy with the same, or abit less, you can always offer, but if they want more, you still need the budget to handle it)

Of course, the issue could be their signing on fees and extras

Have they asked for alot for signing on? Or even increased what they want per game or goal?

You may find, that despite the per week wage being lower, the signing on fee and clauses mean you'll pay out more over the year

Personally, I wrote an .ods file to work these out when going through my contract renewals, and sometimes it's not worth renewing

Eg. One player was on £40,000/wk with £1,000/game clause

New contract request was £35,000/wk with £16,000/game clause

With this, the moment he plays his 18th game of the season, he will earn more for the year on the new contract, and that's without a signing on bonus

With his signing on bonus being £180,000, he only needed to play 6 games before this new contract will pay him more per year than the old one

Quick math proof so you understand better

Old Contract

£40,000/wk = £2.08m/year

£1,000/game with 10 games a season = £10,000/year

Total = £2.09m/year

New Contract

£35,000/wk = £1.82m/year

£16,000/game with 10 games a season = £160,000/year

£180,000 signing on bonus

Total = £2.16m/year

So, that's a £70,000 more per year

Sure, it's not really alot, but it's not taking into account £/goal or yearly rises if the player stays, but I'm sure you understand the point

Of course, for me, the above player was a rotation player for my squad, which means he was better being on his old contract as he would hit 10 games/yr, come near the end of the season, he then signed a £28,000/wk with everything else the same, which saved me over £350,000 for the following year

So like I said, they may be asking for less per week, but it's possible the signing on bonus and contract clauses will lead you to paying them more over the season, meaning it's better holding off

Of course, with younger up and coming players, holding off gives them opportunity to get better and more well-known which will increase their wage demands, so be careful

My goalkeeper as an example:

Valued at £500,000 less than 3 month left on contract

Current wage: £13,750/week

Appearance bonus: £1,300

Clean sheet bonus: £4,000

What he is asking for:

Wage: £7,250/week

Appearance bonus: £725

Clean sheet bonus: £2,200

Also asks for a signing on fee of £65,000 = £1250/week, actually a 2 year contract so £675/week.

So still more than £5,000 cheaper every week without counting the lower appareance and clean sheet bonuses. Counting the lower appearance fee would save another £25,000 on league games a year. In my book the boards handling of this is pure wrong as there is no way I can get a keeper at similar ability for less than this and a new keeper will be needed as I will have a total of 0 after the contracts run out.

In that case the board should defiantly let you offer a new contract

Edit: Have you tried offering the maximum the board will allow? Sometimes a player will still except, try having a good yearly rise though

Been offering out some contracts to players that are asking close to what the board is allowing. By doing this I hope to make enough reductions in wages to make it possible to get the other players aswell.

Tbh, I think the signing on bonus will prevent the rise until the following season