Spread Payments - Is this a bug?

Despite playing FM for over a decade I have never utilised the spreadpayments option as I have always preferred to know the exact amounts of fixed revenue coming in and out of the club - therefore I have never bought or sold a player with spread payments.

In my current save on FM 11 I am managing Fulham. I started off with £13m transfer budget sold half the team and had £17m (board only giving 25% fees as transfer). I have used the spread 48 month payment option and with this method I have been able to buy players worth over £70m including;

Lukulu - £16m

Henrique - £16m

Shawcross - £12m

Rodwell - £11m

Guilherme - £9m

+ 5 other players = £10m

I still have a £6m transfer budget left which I can further use. Now I understand that I will be paying for this at around £1.4m a month for the next 48 months but still this seems far too unrealistic as I am sure the financial burden will not be as significant as it should be!!! Additionally my board dont seem worried or block the transfers (as they most certainly would in real life).

Could someone with more experience with this confirm if this has always been like this? If it is not then surely it is a bug/cheat?

I belive that you will lose some of your budget for future seasons as you are spreading the payments like all clubs do allowing you to buy more players

I belive that you will lose some of your budget for future seasons as you are spreading the payments like all clubs do allowing you to buy more players

So essentially if you can raise £10m or so through transfer budget and player sales you can spend £70m+ in the first season?! If you could spend that amount you could build a very good team and use your smaller future year budgets just to cream off the best youngsters = too easy.

Now I know I could just not do this but knowing it is there will be far too tempting when I just need that star striker!

You've spent £16m on Lukaku? Way to much. Can be got for £6m.

I don't think you lose money on your future transfer budgets either. The way it works is if you have £10m to spend and you use that and buy players of 48 months technically you have spent £40m. It's all abut speculate to accumulate. What you trying to do is increase spending to increase revenue the club makes through league position cups etc.

Lukaku costs more if you Belgium loaded i think.

Lukaku costs more if you Belgium loaded i think.

Oh ok. That must explain why then. Cheers.

Lukaku was around £6m but when I patched it it went up to £16m - and yes I do have the Belgium league loaded.

What I do is offer £0 in upfront fee and £16m spread over 48 months. This may be the reason why my buy price is slightly higher. My scouts suggested I needed to offer £14.5m.

Lukaku was around £6m but when I patched it it went up to £16m - and yes I do have the Belgium league loaded.

What I do is offer £0 in upfront fee and £16m spread over 48 months. This may be the reason why my buy price is slightly higher. My scouts suggested I needed to offer £14.5m.

Scouts can be wrong though.

You might not have lost £70m but its all going to come out of your finances over the next 4 years. Each month the club will lose almost £1.5m and there is nothing you can do to shake this debt until its paid in full. It will harm your chance to make a profit each season, quite substantially as you'll be down £17m or so a year, so you have the players now but what if in a couple years time one or two mess you about and leave on frees or you have a bad season and aren't too successful. Considering the inflated wage bill as a result of these signings too you're season ticket revenue, gate receipts and merchandising won't come close to settling up that side. It means you need your TV money and prize money to account for wages and transfer costs and you'll be left with very little to spend on improving the side if things go badly or if one or more of the players just doesn't work out.

Obviously it has positives, but it shouldn't be taken too far because it can have severe financial ramifications.

You might not have lost £70m but its all going to come out of your finances over the next 4 years. Each month the club will lose almost £1.5m and there is nothing you can do to shake this debt until its paid in full. It will harm your chance to make a profit each season, quite substantially as you'll be down £17m or so a year, so you have the players now but what if in a couple years time one or two mess you about and leave on frees or you have a bad season and aren't too successful. Considering the inflated wage bill as a result of these signings too you're season ticket revenue, gate receipts and merchandising won't come close to settling up that side. It means you need your TV money and prize money to account for wages and transfer costs and you'll be left with very little to spend on improving the side if things go badly or if one or more of the players just doesn't work out.

Obviously it has positives, but it shouldn't be taken too far because it can have severe financial ramifications.

I like your answer, thanks. I will play it out and see what happens.

Its fine to do this as long as your willing to cut spending the following few seasons, and as above you continue to be succesful. I did it as an experiment in FM10 and after 3 seasons I had £7m a month going out in transfer fees, needless to say it didn't end well!

The main reason against such long payments is because things can change dramatically over 48 months. If you are a team fighting relegation, it may hurt because if you go down in the same season, you are still paying off 36 months worth of payments with a reduced revenue stream. In addition, while you can get twice or three times as many players immediately, it doesn't mean you should go and do just that - because you are going to inevitably pay for it.

It's basically the Leeds approach. Spend big, with money you don't have. Hope that success pays the bills, because as soon as your standards slip, the entire deck of cards could collapse.

that said, I have been known to take advantage of it at Arsenal. We can always break even by the end of the year though. And at sugar daddy clubs where it just makes the chairman pull up some more cash.

My experience so far is that doing this actually has much more of an impact in FM11 than it did in FM10. Which is good, as I thought it didnt have enough impact in FM10 - it seems far more realistic in FM11.

I've managed to take Leeds United back to the brink of financial ruin in 7 seasons despite consecutive top 4 Premier League finishes (achieved by buying players with transfer fees spread over 48 months for the first 3-4 seasons). The Board has gone from giving me a transfer budget of £20m+ in the first few seasons in the Premier League to only letting me have £4m to spend in the last 2 years. They've also started actually cutting my wage budget year on year. Last season we won the league, played in the Champions League and still made a loss for the year of £25m.

So yeah, as tempting as it is to do, spreading transfer payments in this way has a definite long term impact!

(But hey, I was just approaching things in a traditional Leeds United manner - Living the Dream! )

i dont see anything wrong with it, in fact IRL most european teams use this function

the real con is paying a low inital fee then over-priced clauses such as X amount after 50 league goals etc. then selling them on close to the clause

after spending like crazy with hull in fm09 (when it was only 24 payments and not 48) i went into administration after about 5 years and lost the title by 1 point...... so its not a "cheat"!!

u need to provide results if u want to survive financially.

I think the monthly payments allow unrealistic spending to take place. People want a realistic transfer market but spending £70 million with a team like Fulham in the first season is as unrealistic as Messi or Ronaldo being sold for their value.

Monthly payments may seem unrealistic but they really aren't. 99% of transfers these days are handled this way IRL. I think in FM it is too easy to exploit this but there is a massive risk/reward thing going on. It can very easily bite you in the a$$.

Also the amounts are taken out of future budgets just to clear that up.

It's nowhere near as big a risk on FM as it is for clubs IRL, seeing as most of us WILL progress each year on FM and will go nowhere near relegation whereas real teams can never be certain.

I do not think they are unrealistic but they allow you to spend unrealistic amounts of money. In real life I think if a manager was given a budget of £20 million the board would only allow the manager to spend that much no matter how they spread it out. There is no way this type of spending would be allowed.

I do not think they are unrealistic but they allow you to spend unrealistic amounts of money. In real life I think if a manager was given a budget of £20 million the board would only allow the manager to spend that much no matter how they spread it out. There is no way this type of spending would be allowed.

Exactly why I said it can be exploited on FM, Walsh makes a good point above you though about the risks.

I try to balance it out with only spending what I will receive on monthly payments. Do you think there should be some sort of board interference with monthly payments? I think this is one area where FM is unrealistic as I doubt the managers sort out how a transfer is paid for in real life.

I try to balance it out with only spending what I will receive on monthly payments. Do you think there should be some sort of board interference with monthly payments? I think this is one area where FM is unrealistic as I doubt the managers sort out how a transfer is paid for in real life.

Yeah, absolutely there should be board interference. In FM10 I nearly bankrupt Spurs despite us winning League and CL for 3/4 years in a row. To the wishlist Acid!

I did it in the first season as Sunderland and because I never made champions league the club had to take out 2 loans for £25 million to cover my spending. I agree to the wishlist it is.

IRL though - how many clubs will accept payments over 48 months - most teams will want the money upfront to fund their own transfers - in this way it is unrealistic.

It is something that needs to be changed in the game yes , clubs should be less likely to accept spread payments compared to how they are now. I remembered I used it on one save, it was successful but it just felt like i was cheating :/

IRL though - how many clubs will accept payments over 48 months - most teams will want the money upfront to fund their own transfers - in this way it is unrealistic.

Not any more, almost everyone operates on this basis now, meaning no one needs all the cash, just the 1st installment.