Low League Finances

Im in BSN and I im 50k in debt. At the start of last season I was 300k in debt but since then I got new owners who took out a loan and a 3rd round FA Cup tie v Bolton put me 30k in the black. But since then my finaces have continued to slip and now my wage budget is 2.8k considering my first season is BSN I had 5.2K wage budget. How do I avoid going into debt in the BSS/N level? Is tehre anythign I can do to prevent it happening?

In my experience, if you are ambitious and want to win promotion quickly then it is almost impossible not to go into big debt (without cheating/exploiting the friendlies).

I think it took me until I reached the Premier League to get out of debt.

I always used to fire all my reserves and under 18s every season. With poor training facilities they were never going to amount to anything so i didn't see the point in paying them. I also fired all but one coach, one scout, and I think one physio, as I didn't find scouts particularly useful at that level and as I already said coaching really wasn't going to get me very much. It's quite an unrealistic way of playing though and I'm sure many people would disagree with my methods, but I found that by only paying the bare minimum of players I was able to actually build up some money each year.

Same problem here, I am in BSS. I started at 200k in the black, now about the same in the red.

Is it my fault if the club goes into debt? The club gives me a wage budget of 300k (per year) and I only use about 200-220k, and we avoided relegation by plus/minus only last year. Looking at the ledger, all the money goes to "other expenses".

What can I do? I'm spending less than I should, and on the confidence window, the boardroom mentions nothing about debt, in fact, they're thrilled that I have wages under control.

Same problem here, I am in BSS. I started at 200k in the black, now about the same in the red.

Is it my fault if the club goes into debt? The club gives me a wage budget of 300k (per year) and I only use about 200-220k, and we avoided relegation by plus/minus only last year. Looking at the ledger, all the money goes to "other expenses".

What can I do? I'm spending less than I should, and on the confidence window, the boardroom mentions nothing about debt, in fact, they're thrilled that I have wages under control.

Don't panic, you get most of your money at the beginning and end of the seasons, so the finances should sort them selves out by year end. Assuming you hit your expected target, as the budgets are based off the revenue for reaching that level. Even then, you need to be disastrously over drawn in the bank for the trouble to start and missing your expected league position by a few places is not the end of the world.

Some tricks to lower league managing;

- sell / release old players. As they tend to demand higher wages.

- sign free young players released from bigger clubs. (They are released in late june every year).

- Arrange friendlies with big clubs at home field at start of every season. The more the better. You can earn much money from this.

Young players will do okey for you at these levels. You dont need very experienced players. And when you reach L1/L2 levels you have other income to help out.

We are doing a lot better on the field, I doubt we'll be relegation battling this year, I expect mid-table. Though I don't recall getting a ton of money at the end of the year.

It's just unnerving because the finances issue is making its way into our recaps, such as:

"Debt-ridden XXXXX are favorites for today's match" or

"XXX recorded his first career hat trick. XXX isn't one of the highest paid players on the club, but could lose his position if the rumored finance problems come to fruition"

how bad does your debt have to be for points deduction?

Get rid of every player you do not need. Use youth players as cover if you have to. Get four quality loan signings in for the season, and suppliment these with the short term loanees you can recruit.

Not that it always helps. I took over Tranmere, who have a loan debt of £7.5million, had just been relegated, and were losing £200k a month. I got promoted back the L1, but I released almost all the players at the club, bar a few who are actually decent.

Try to develope any decent young talent you have and sell them on for a decent fee, i find that works also =}.

how bad does your debt have to be for points deduction?

I'm guessing the debt would need to be bigger than the value of the club, with the club making regular losses and showing no signs of being able to turn it around.

I've put a club £40m in debt before, but with a decent squad in the Premier League it is easy enough to recover the debt reasonably quickly.

In my Bromsgrove saves, I found out that our finance is destroyed by match day expense, even getting to the 4th round of FA Cup was not enough to turn the season into a profitable one.

I wish I could cancel matches, save some money, and just spend the weekends watching Premier League to know that things could've got even worse

It took me 15 years to properly end a season in the black in my Dover save. I spent big and the board were similarly ambitious to approve all that... could have all gone to hell had we not won stuff.

The fastest and easiest way to fix it is through friendlies. Fixing home friendlies against premier league reserve teams at the BSS/BSN level should almost garantee a sellout. Alternatively you can do foreign away friendlies against very small rep opposition in which they will pay you. Pre Season Friendly leagues against premier league reserves and they come with TV coverage. The amount of money you get is no joke. Which should be usually more than enough to survive a season.

Of course depending on how much you are willing to do this, you could even schedule friendlies halfway through the season. Just get your reserves and U18 to play them.

Since you are playing in the BSN, some of these are basically borderline exploitation or outright exploitation. So... you define your own rules so you play by them. How much you want to use it is up to you. But this is the best way to earn money before you get TV rights windfall in premier league.