Agents.

I am about to loose one of my top youngsters on a free because I refuse to give his agent 500,000 fee, so he has stopped negotiations! blomin agents

If he is worth it then pay the agent's fee!

Won't he negotiate?

I've found this as well. But i guess it's like real life, the better the player and depending on the personality of the agent the higher the fee they will ask for.

As Kenco says try to negotiate them down a bit. If they won't enter into negotiations wait a week or two and they will usually give you another go.

Try and get him down on the agents fee as much as you can. I have found very generally if you offer the agent more you can offer the player less in wages. It's more outlay in the short term but if you get then on a long term contract then you will save in the long run.

When agents ask me for big fees i ask myself, how much would it cost me to buy a youngster of this quality? It's usually a lot more than what the agent is asking for so makes sense to pay it.

If you don't want the agent asking for a big fee for a while and you think the youngster will go far tie him down to a 4-5 year contract, that way the agent won't be bothering you for a long time :-)

My strategy is to actually increase the agent's fee. The more you give to the agent, the more likely the agent will take a lower offer back to the player. I have seen instances where the player will reject the offer afterwards, but generally they are not as greedy as the agents.

SiN8 has it down to a T.

I would offer the agent £600k/£700k here, reduce player signing on fee and wages.

Agents will sell a rough deal to their client if it's in their own interest.

OK will try this but I ain't happy dont like dealing with the agents, Darren Bent has been on fire so I tried to sign him on a free and he wanted £250'00/week and im sure between him and his agent he wanted like £8 million, im sure that was it!