How badly can you ruin a club?

Ok I was playing my massively successful Ipswich game last night, in 2020, 180 games unbeaten in the League, loads of cup wins etc, the team is immense and even the backup team is full of great youth, new stadium etc, club is set up for 20 years.

I wonder on the other end of the scale how badly you could ruin a club? I mean say you took over a club with massive debt, but one that still has some money for transfers/wages, you could flog the whole team for £10k a player, then spend all your transfer money on 35 year old players from the lowest league you can find, give them huge wages on long contracts, release all the youth players, sack all the staff too.

What would happen? I assume they would just go into admin, lose every single game and plummet down the leagues? Where would it stop? I might give it a go.

Ok odd thread but hey its Friday right.

Do in with Rangers in the SPL

To totally ruin any club just two players are needed Robbie Savage and Emile Heskey. If signing these two dont get you sacked automatically then nothing will.

To totally ruin any club just two players are needed Robbie Savage and Emile Heskey. If signing these two dont get you sacked automatically then nothing will.

second that

To totally ruin any club just two players are needed Robbie Savage and Emile Heskey. If signing these two dont get you sacked automatically then nothing will.

take it you hate anybody who has played for leicester!!!!!

it might just be on my saves but deportivo collapse spectacularly, often getting relegated 2 seasons running when they start. lose all their players but still have huge debt.

just do it with portsmouth, they're f****d anyways

just do it with portsmouth, they're f****d anyways

i have a save where in 2017 utd got relegated to the championship and with all the debt

great challenge trying to rebuild the club again especially since the likes of rooney etc are on 100 grand a week and u only get 5% of transfers

GLASGOW RANGERS CHAMPIONS OHH OHH OHH OH lol do with chelsea

Surely Man UTD will be the 'best' club to do it with, they have what 600m debt in the gamne? Ok the stadium is big but surely nobody will go to watch them in league 2? By that time the sponsors deals will have run out too. I will give it a go this weekend, maybe Chelsea is a good bet though too - I guess its a question of who is the most debt ladden club in the game? (ideally with a small satduim)

Also will the board let you sell Rooney for £10k?

gonna try this with Man Utd see what can happen. seems fun to try.

Also will the board let you sell Rooney for £10k?

Why shouldn't they?

Why shouldn't they?

In old versions of the game I thought sometimes the board would intervine? I.e if you wanted to sign someone for £150m etc, so maybe it works both ways.

Ask the Bhatti brothers.

They managed it with the Wolves in the early 1980's

No good suing me; my only assets are a fridge full of beer (worth a bit though from a beer lovers point of view)

im trying this now and ive already put them in more debt. about 386 million of it. im in the process of a board takeover as well.

theres a guy on here who's in like 2075....and on his man u plummeted massively...ended out in LG2 or conf for a about 15 years. if i can find the link i will post it up. but on mine, last season which was 2022, man u and chelsea were relegated for the first time....and inter had been in italy......

Ok I did this;

- sold nearly all of the first team for either £0 or £100k

- some I couldnt seem to sell, so loaned them out with man U paying 100% wages, £0 loan fee and £0 fee set

- I bought a 36 year old from Braintree for £60m, on £175k a week

- I spent another £10m+ on younger Braintree players and put them all on £175k a week deals with huge add ons and long term deals

- I gave new £100k p/w long contracts to the worst youth players at the club

- Wage bill now totals £2.5m p/w - Scholes and Giggs are the only ok players left.

- Sacked all the satff inc physio's

Lost every single game, very badly, had massive injury problems, got sacked end of Sept - the club then went into Administration, got docked 9 points.

They somehow won 3 games though so got back to 0 points, also they came out of administation when I checked around Feb, the value was £150m and loan debt £109m, maybe they got bought out?? But gutted about that, but they still ended up bottom with 4 points from the season.

Will see what happens to them from now, the finances are now back to 'insecure' and given the huge wage bill which can't be changed and the fact they will be in the championship = surely they will get relegated again, the team is really poor!! However they have hired some staff, but also had at least 2 managers since I was there.

As a flip side I added a new manager, retired the Man Utd one, and took over Braintree - who now had £75m in the bank in Blue Square South........sounds good BUT seriously its barely any easier, nobody remotely decent will come to the club - its still a mission getting good players. I did win promotion but I could have done that without the money, I can't actually spend it!!

ive gave up i managed to put them to 400 million in the red. i was spending about 4 million on wages. i also offered all staff new contracts then sacked them. they got taken over by sir bobby charlton which put the finances ok. so i gave up cos i had a feeling that it would happen again.

Hmm, well they got relegated from the prem, then finished an amazing 5th in the Championship despite a 10 point penatly for going into admin, luckily they lost in the play off semi final.

Its now end of Feb the following season and they are somehow worth £150m but only £30m in debt! Must have been bought out - I added a new manager so I will check, had a quick look and they had lots of finace deals inc 'gift loan', wage budget was £3.3m p.w. Problem was first time around I couldn't get rid of some players, Hargreeves, Van der Sar, Valencia, Owen, even for £0! Will try and flog them on again for £0, they hav £1m in the bank now but £17m transfer budget, so I will spend that on a player from League 2 and give him a big contact.

I'lll also loose the next 10 or so games, sack the staff and hire the worst staff I can possibly find and put them on massive long term deals. Annoyingly they still sold 46,000 season tickets in the championship.

I'll go through and get rid of any promising players for £0 then sign up the rubbish young ones on as big as possible contracts, the 25% yearly wage rise is a right screwer too so will do that

On the flip side, I took over Braintree after I'd used Man U to buy some players from them for £50m, Its actually very hard to spend that money as nobody decent will sign for you no matter how much you offer them, I managed to get a few players once in BSP and LG2 though, but I had to pay £30k p/w to Dave Kitson to get him to come. I have signed though.....

Oliver Kapo

Lee Bowyer

Jacob Walcott

Joey O'Brian

Dean Kieley & Claus Jensen

Dave Kitson

Also some Scott Davies and someone Mensing and Gary Roberts who seem decent.

Those are pretty good players for a League 2 side, so naturally I've been unbeaten, draw 5 and won the rest so far, 102 points at the end of Feb and already promoted. I put them on 1-2 year deals and will keep changing up the squad, best to get out of contract players and offer then good money on 1-2 year deals. I know its cheating but its just a fun way, I did it the hard way once (i.e on the standard money, I got Braintree to win the Prem & CL etc) and it was a really big challenge. This is just fun way of doing it while I watch and see how badly I can screw up Man Utd (nothing against them just picked them as they had a big debt).

To totally ruin any club just two players are needed Robbie Savage and Emile Heskey. If signing these two dont get you sacked automatically then nothing will.

What about Titus Bramble? A team with Bramble, Savage and Heskey would fall for sure.

What about Titus Bramble? A team with Bramble, Savage and Heskey would fall for sure.

Indeed! Speaking as an Ipswich Fan I can agree that Bramble in any team = trouble. He will generally play ok for 99% of the match but there WILL be a moment in the game when he makes a big mistake, which will usually cost you. Dodgy backpass, going to sleep etc. Ahhhh good old Bramble!

Defo the best deal in the history of our club to get £6m for him, we fleeced stoke for £3m for Walters recently but Bramble for £6m is ridiculous.

Ask the Bhatti brothers.

They managed it with the Wolves in the early 1980's

No good suing me; my only assets are a fridge full of beer (worth a bit though from a beer lovers point of view)

Out of darkness cometh light!

We're hopefully now back on the road to an established premier league club...

Indeed! Speaking as an Ipswich Fan I can agree that Bramble in any team = trouble. He will generally play ok for 99% of the match but there WILL be a moment in the game when he makes a big mistake, which will usually cost you. Dodgy backpass, going to sleep etc. Ahhhh good old Bramble!

Defo the best deal in the history of our club to get £6m for him, we fleeced stoke for £3m for Walters recently but Bramble for £6m is ridiculous.

The same Bramble who's won Wigan's Player of the Year Award a few years ago, and was good enough to sign for Sunderland?

Yes he has his moments and playing for Newcastle has never helped any defender, but Bramble is a fairly good defender with slightly-iffy concentration.

Sorry but every time I've watched him he has made some fairly big mistake. I personally do not rate him.

Anyway back on topic.......

I'm playing Man Utd (10.3 patch) and managed to sell all but 6 players across First, Second and Youth teams. I storm out of every press conference and keep offering my players away.

The fans are upset by every result but buoyed by the fact that I sold Fletcher - who apparently they didn't like. It is already mid-October and I am constantly surprised to see that I still have a job.

The board are willing to expand the stadium (which should cost a fortune) and I have Beckham coming in for 150 Million GBP in July.

If this doesn't get them into administration, I don't know what will!

Any guess on when I'll eventually be fired?

Wow...apparently I was to be fired only a few weeks after I wrote that.

25th October. Two months short of my "fire me on Christmas Day" hopes...

In other news, Man Utd are paying an actual manager 22,000 quid a week, no longer able to afford the 135,000 they were paying me.

I've now done this with Chelsea, and managed to get to Lte December before i issued an ultimatum so they would sack me before January so i could start a challenege at a lower league club being able to bring in fresh faces, the best thing was they were bottom of league, no wins, only 1 point, out of europe out of carling cup, all plays gone except Terry spent 120 millions on 3 very average plasyers but in november there was a board takeover and the new guy came in and said he was gonna sack me but seeing how much the fans loved me he kept me in a job despite the fact the fans hated me and hadnt won a single game in charge. it is my belief i would be there for a long long time had i not issued the ultimatum cos they just didnt wanna sack me!

well i've tried it too with manchester, sold for 0€ or let go all the 1st and reserve team players (except for gary neville, he must be the most loyal player in the database, other clubs didn't even want to get him because of that), bought 10-12 new extremely crappy players (blue square level) all with long term contracts and maximum wages, and as often as i could with 48 months deals and 46m€ clauses when they play their first match.

After two and a half months, Man U now spends 11million € per month on wages, has a bank balance of -50m€, has lost all matches (including a 0-41 defeat to chelsea in the community shield that i engineered with a novel 2-0-8 tactics with two full backs sweepers). i will see how far down they go!!

djoesy:That's one of the best things I've ever read on these forums. Great job! haha

Does anyone know how much Abramovich will write off of Chelsea's debt? I know he's set as an underwriter, but is there a limit for how much of a financial mess he will clean up?

Well i was sacked in end of october, but my job was done: Man U had a horrible, horrible first season, 1 points, a goal difference of -140 and went into administration...

However, the chairman resigned at the end of the season, and the club was bought with a huge injection of fund (debt went from 700m€ to approx. 140m€). The club has bought 57M€ worth of players and a new coaching staff for the second season and is now standing 8th in the championship in december, despite having one of the best team. Players i bought last year are all still there rotting in the reserves and on the transfer list, costing the club approx 10m€/month on wages, but no one wants to buy them. As a result the club is still losing lots of money every month, and the chairman has already injected 37m€ to keep them afloat.

Will be interesting to see how they go, though with the amount of money they have (only a low decrease in attendance, sponsorship and all that, rich chairman), it seems unlikely that they'll go down again. I'm betting on a full blown recovery after the crappy players leave, but you never know...

I mentioned on another thread somewhere, i left leeds with a huge squad of 'senior' players like paul furlong and they hit the conference, at which point the entire squad bar 2 players resigned. Not sure if they recovered from that or not but leave a big club to its devices and i reckon they'll usually turn it around. You may have to do it several seasons over to a club like man u anyway.

All tremendous fun.

Ok I was playing my massively successful Ipswich game last night, in 2020, 180 games unbeaten in the League, loads of cup wins etc, the team is immense and even the backup team is full of great youth, new stadium etc, club is set up for 20 years.

I wonder on the other end of the scale how badly you could ruin a club? I mean say you took over a club with massive debt, but one that still has some money for transfers/wages, you could flog the whole team for £10k a player, then spend all your transfer money on 35 year old players from the lowest league you can find, give them huge wages on long contracts, release all the youth players, sack all the staff too.

What would happen? I assume they would just go into admin, lose every single game and plummet down the leagues? Where would it stop? I might give it a go.

Ok odd thread but hey its Friday right.

The board usually veto's crazy transfers and contract offers. You would have to do it pretty quick befor eyouget sacked. I'm gonna give it a go.

I think i'll try fining every player two weeks wages, get them all ****ed off, sell them off, get some expensive hacks in on Transfers that are high now. Sell the better youth and start playing shjit enough to get them well enough down before i get sacked.

Might try Man U

Ask Rafa Benitez. He's doing good job of that with Inter.

The board usually veto's crazy transfers and contract offers. You would have to do it pretty quick befor eyouget sacked. I'm gonna give it a go.

I think i'll try fining every player two weeks wages, get them all ****ed off, sell them off, get some expensive hacks in on Transfers that are high now. Sell the better youth and start playing shjit enough to get them well enough down before i get sacked.

Might try Man U

I've never had anything blocked, It used to happen on the old CM when the offer was rejected for being unrealistic or unreasonable.

I did with Middlesbrough when they outrageously sacked me for finishing 2nd in the Championship with their new Dutch Chairman. I destroyed them to the point they are now in League 2 and have a stadium of 20,000 (H&S keep closing parts of the ground because the club doesn't upkeep them)

i got chelsea tossed out of the football league. they were unplayable in the ryman league. it was satisfying.

How badly did u guys lose to your Reserves? Ive only just sorted the tactics to lose badly It ended 4-9 to the reserves... who are bad n e way! This could be interesting

I will answer you in FM11, since I intend to manage River Plate (And I'm a Boca Juniors fan)

However... I'll try not to answer, that's the challenge XD

Man Utd just got beat 14-0 by Portsmouth in my save lol:D

I was once bored in one of my long-term games (FM08 or 09, can't remember) so created an alter-ego "Cupid Stunt", took over MK Dons for a few days during which time I took charge of one game (playing keeper up front, striker in nets, etc. you get the idea), then released every single player and resigned. Only got them two back-to-back relegations before they stabilised though, didn't think about getting creative and overloading the squad with crap freebies on massive wages, and leading to admin, etc.

Man Utd just got beat 14-0 by Portsmouth in my save lol:D

You seem surprised

If you could take a team from the prem all the way down to level 10.....that would probably be the worst you could do.

Do it with your Ipswich side, oblivion is the best place for them ;~)

Well i tried another time with manchester, and i think the best thing to do to ruin a club is to sell or terminate contract of all players, and then offer all at once long term contracts to a huge lot of free and crappy players. There's an "exploit" in the game, you can propose a contract with any salary to any number of player you want, and you can all sign them, as long as you offer them all a contract before signing others. Just did that with Man U, they now have a 25m€ wage budget, and all original players except those on loan gone. they had a horrible first season 4 points), and have only signed players and staff of blue square level

Without using this, i've found that huge clubs will recover quickly, infrastructure and reputation is too high and goes down too slowly too really mess them up (quite realistic i think btw). And even then, the effect will only last for the maximum length of a players contract, so 4 years i think.

Guys just to update. Ok its season 3 now.

In season 2 Man Utd were in the championshp, lost the play off final. I took over them again and finally got rid of ANY decent players. However the club had been bailed out at somepoint and at the end of the season it got £120m from the chairman, DAMM IT!

However.... we had a £18m transfer kitty so I signed another Braintree player for that then also sign about 50 or so out of contract (utterly cack) players and put them on the max allowed £10.5 pw BUT gave them all max £600k signing on fee's.......that took a big chunk out of the new money. I then signed up youth players (17yr olds) and other players, some allowed me £45k pw deals with £2.2m signing fee's. Basically I managed to get it down to £34m before the season (3) started and with a wage spend of £3.3m per week, but with NO good players.

The club is now in 21st place in the champ, and in bet (woth 90m loan debt 140m I thinK). I will take over them for the last few games (currently on played 41) if needed to make sure they get relegated again.

the main 'problem' seems to be the chairmans kind donations, but also the club has about 5 'gift loans' which are over a long period and only cost the club when they are in debt, even then they probably only total £500k or so per month. Also the club still has some good sponsor ship deals, most should expire end of next season though. Oh and the club still sold 46000 season tickets!

I will keep going though and see how badly I can ruin them, I doubt they will do well in Leage 1 with the players they have, and I recon 2015 will be a hard year for the finacnes as the club will have massive wage bill still but no sponsorship.

Remember to always crank up the contacts, esp the 25% yearly rise as this counteracts the forced 25% drop if relegated.

On a side note my Braintree team (who I gave the Man Utd money to) are top (just) of League one, but I need to get rid of some aging players on big money, and try and get some new players in, back to back promotions was easy but getting out of the Champ will be tough, I need to sign 10 quality players in the next 1-2 seasons, but its VERY hard to spend the money - its barely any easier than when I did it with no money!

I would LOVE to see Milan disappear into Italian league abyss HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

easy to totally ruin a club. use fmrte and give the club a 1.5 billion pound debt, make their stadium rubbish and same with youth and training facilities. also make them amateur club status and reputation of 1. that should totally ruin the club and send them into administration. Thus giving you a chance to sign 1 or 2 of their star players on the cheap

easy to totally ruin a club. use fmrte and give the club a 1.5 billion pound debt, make their stadium rubbish and same with youth and training facilities. also make them amateur club status and reputation of 1. that should totally ruin the club and send them into administration. Thus giving you a chance to sign 1 or 2 of their star players on the cheap

doing it in FM is much better >D

I've just dropped Inter from Serie A, they have 400 mil loan debt

Yep must better to do it via the game itself.

£400m is good going! I wonder who can get the record debt?

On my game Man Utd were 21st in Champion ship with ONE game to go, then they went into admin, minus 10 points and finished bottom! However the debt has now reduced it seems, I need to take them over again and see why and try and screw them up a bit more. Im sure the chairmen keeps giving them hand outs, most annoying indeed.

On the flip side, my Braintree team are getting ready for their first season in the championship, (inc 4000 cap staduim) - let some oldies go but signed Mathew Upson, Dindanne and also Colback all on frees. Need to scout the hell out of Europe and get in some decent players ASAP though if we are to push for Promotion. This 2way game is really fun!

hi mr dan

great thread-keep us updated when you can

FM just won't let any club die, no matter how hard you try.

Keep up the good work, this is the funniest post i've read on the forums in years!

You have to wonder where the new Man Utd chairman is making his fortunes? Possibly the greatest money laundering operation in British history?!

Glazers must stay!...............