My evidence for why the transfer system is broken.

Until about half an hour ago i was manager of Worcester City, in the year 2015. The team that i started with, currently playing in the conference premier. The player in question is Sean McGuinty, who i signed on a free around 3 years ago. He has been my best player every year and has had numerous clubs wanted him and managers coming to watch hime play, BUT NEVER ONE BID.

So i decide to resign, on the 7th of Janurary 2015, with no bids being made for the player in question. So i press continue and go back to Worcester to see who they have hired as my replacement and Sean is no longer there. A quick search reveals that he was sold to Bristol City for 500k, being valued at 95k.

In this discovery i feel cheated by the game, i would have snapped up that amount of money. So big offers are made for players, just not when human managers are in charge!

I really hope this is fixed in the next patch...

That's an unusual definition of 'evidence'. I think what you meant is 'anecdote'. One occurrence isn't a trend.

That's an unusual definition of 'evidence'. I think what you meant is 'anecdote'. One occurrence isn't a trend.

i tried this out and he's right. i created two identical players and sent them to two identical clubs (editor ensured everything matches). when i holidayed without managing anyone they sold at exactly the same time - a week or 2 into the game i can't recall - to the same two clubs. this happened every single time. i then tried managing one of the two clubs on a number of occasions but never got a bid for either. i have a more detailed post somewhere on here.

Did you ever offer him out to clubs? How do you know whether the new manager offered him out or not?

Did you ever offer him out to clubs? How do you know whether the new manager offered him out or not?

i didn't offer them out because that wasn't the point of the experiment. i subscribed to them and i also made sure their clubs didn't want to let go of them. they remained indispensable to the club up until the day they got sold and in both cases only 1 club came in for them. these 2 players were perfect 200, 200 and had the highest reputation i could give them domestically and abroad. more clubs would have been interested if they were offered out.

edit - sorry i thought you were talking to me i'll keep the post because it answers your question indirectly. there is a problem here. maybe si programmed it this way so we don't complain too much about players being poached?

i didn't offer them out because that wasn't the point of the experiment. i subscribed to them and i also made sure their clubs didn't want to let go of them. they remained indispensable to the club up until the day they got sold and in both cases only 1 club came in for them. these 2 players were perfect 200, 200 and had the highest reputation i could give them domestically and abroad. more clubs would have been interested if they were offered out.

edit - sorry i thought you were talking to me i'll keep the post because it answers your question indirectly. there is a problem here. maybe si programmed it this way so we don't complain too much about players being poached?

Sorry my post was a response to the OP.

Did you ever offer him out to clubs? How do you know whether the new manager offered him out or not?

Look at the numbers in the OP.

Have you ever offered out a player valued 95k and received an offer of 500k?

Sorry my post was a response to the OP.

haha yeah i realised a little too late i promise i'm not normally this egocentric

Look at the numbers in the OP.

Have you ever offered out a player valued 95k and received an offer of 500k?

The offers you get depend on what you offer him out for. If you offer him out for 100k, you'll get bids of 100k. If you offer him out for £1m, you may well get offers of 500k.

Get this straight, I'm not saying it is right that the OP never got an offer, all I am saying is that had he offered the player out, he would have got bids. He, you or I will never know whether the new manager offered the player out or not, but I reckon he did.

The offers you get depend on what you offer him out for. If you offer him out for 100k, you'll get bids of 100k. If you offer him out for £1m, you may well get offers of 500k.

You're not answering my question though

Have you ever received this kind of offer (5 * value) when you offered a player out?

No matter how high I offer them out, I receive at most 2.5 * value.

I think what the OP is saying Rob is that he wouldnt have sold him for his face value £95k but he would have loved the opportunity to sell him for £500k - like the AI did.

Its discrimination, plain and simple. The game feels unrealistic when the only realistic transfer dealings are between the AI.

You're not answering my question though

Have you ever received this kind of offer (5 * value) when you offered a player out?

No matter how high I offer them out, I receive at most 2.5 * value.

why would you ever expect to receive 5 times a players value when your offering him out?

why would you ever expect to receive 5 times a players value when your offering him out?

That's exactly the point! (Have even read what I wrote???)

This is clearly not the case (as suggested by robzilla) of AI manager offering the player out!

That's exactly the point! (Have even read what I wrote???)

This is clearly not the case (as suggested by robzilla) of AI manager offering the player out!

I don't see how you can say that the AI manager didn't offer him out, you simply cannot know whether he did or not.

I think what the OP is saying Rob is that he wouldnt have sold him for his face value £95k but he would have loved the opportunity to sell him for £500k - like the AI did.

Its discrimination, plain and simple. The game feels unrealistic when the only realistic transfer dealings are between the AI.

If the OP would have sold the player for £500k, then why did he not offer him out?

And to answer your question, yes many many times I have sold players at 3, 4, 5 times their "value".

Lower leagues, yes, I can double or triple my money on a player.

But when I am a top club, playing champions league and winning titles I get zero offers and when I offer a player out (at any value) I just get the face value bids - sometimes 20 of them identical. The transfer system (my favourite part of the game) is the worst it has been in 10 years.

It is clear most people want to get back to FM 10.3 where transfers were fun and unpredictable.

Lower leagues, yes, I can double or triple my money on a player.

But when I am a top club, playing champions league and winning titles I get zero offers and when I offer a player out (at any value) I just get the face value bids - sometimes 20 of them identical. The transfer system (my favourite part of the game) is the worst it has been in 10 years.

It is clear most people want to get back to FM 10.3 where transfers were fun and unpredictable.

I hear what you're saying but that has not been my experience.

... I just get the face value bids - sometimes 20 of them identical...

This is the bit I find ridiculous, I will offer a player out and teams from all around Europe will bid exactly the same amount for him? What are the odds of that happening in real-life - zero surely? This isn't just a case of offering a player out at £1m and getting 20 lots of £1m bids, it'll happen if you offer a player out for above his value, say £5m and you'll get a whole host of bids for exactly, say, £2.2m. It feels unrealistic.

The OP has a fairly easy-to-understand point:

"the day after I resigned, a 95k player who had been 'Wnt' for years but without ever attracting an actual bid, any bid, got sold for 5 times his face value! How is this not utter bs?!"

Quite honestly he's right.

Sure, had he offered the player to clubs he could have been able to get offers around the 200k mark, but the point is he didn't really want/need to sell... It was just a curious matter of finding out why a player who's has been on other clubs' shortlist for a long time isn't actually getting a single offer, as long as the human manager was in charge. And then once it's AI-to-AI business, the player leaves for a stupidly high fee.

Indeed, the transfer market hasn't been that bad in a long long time

i wonder why people are having different results with this, i have lower league games and big team games and i never struggle to sell players, i got over £30m for Pato when i sold him, £17m for Robiniho and i received a bid of over £80m for a regen striker who was valued under around £40m. Playing as Aberdeen ( i would class that as lower league) i sold a regen striker for £16m who was only worth £5m but his form was incredible and as Luton i have made £200k in the first season selling players.

Could it be that there is AI that takes the human managers activity into account, so say in the OP's case the AI thought it was better for the human that no bids where made for that player less it unsettles the player and ruins the game experience...

The transfer system is clearly broken. Based on numerous conversations on this forum and my own experiences I can't come to any other conclusion. Beside I haven't seen any proper proof for that it actually works.

Well of course it's also possible that I am just way too stupid for this game and someone should write "Selling player for Dummies".

i wonder why people are having different results with this, i have lower league games and big team games and i never struggle to sell players, i got over £30m for Pato when i sold him, £17m for Robiniho and i received a bid of over £80m for a regen striker who was valued under around £40m. Playing as Aberdeen ( i would class that as lower league) i sold a regen striker for £16m who was only worth £5m but his form was incredible and as Luton i have made £200k in the first season selling players.

This is something I am wondering too. Are you guys playing the same game as I do? I'm playing FM2011. Same patch? 11.2.1 for me. Do you guys know something that I don't about this game?

Meh, I signed a centre-half, after he was released by Man United, for Shrewsbury in League One. For the next three seasons, he was outstanding, establishing himself as probably the best defender outside the EPL. I ended up leaving Shrewsbury 15 games into my first EPL season, in which he was averaging 7.40 and had five goals already. I'd get a news item every day about a team supposedly interested or a manager praising him. Never received a bid for him, or even an inquiry. Two months after I left, he's off to Wolves for 5.5m.

I am currently QPR in the Championship, and have an amazing 20-year-old Ghanaian forward. He's rated by my coaches as a "leading star for most Premiership sides", and has scored 49 league goals in 70 games. Same deal with the news items and manager praise, seems to have a manager from a decent club (Lyon, Chelsea, Arsenal, Dynamo Kiev) attending my game and watching him every second week. Amount of bids or inquiries in this time? None.

I am certain if I was to leave the club, he'd be sold for a decent fee.

More evidence to my theory

This is something I am wondering too. Are you guys playing the same game as I do? I'm playing FM2011. Same patch? 11.2.1 for me. Do you guys know something that I don't about this game?

same game, same patch and everything which is really strange, i dont do anything different although i do set all offering values at 200% from the start but i cant see that making that much of a difference.

With the Ghana ST post, that is happening in my game often. Key players wanted, not being bid on except sometimes clubs offer market value for my 1st choice GK. It is a small issue that will hopefully be resolved in the next patch. For the mean time, I try to put min release clauses so I don't have to worry and if I get the bid I want then so be it. Setting the asking price seems to have no effect so I shall see what this release clause does, might attract more bids

It is broken. Other teams often buy players for 2-3x their value and when I ask for double, they offer his value non-negotiable. Never had a bid(without offering them out) on any of players for more than their value.

i wonder why people are having different results with this, i have lower league games and big team games and i never struggle to sell players, i got over £30m for Pato when i sold him, £17m for Robiniho and i received a bid of over £80m for a regen striker who was valued under around £40m. Playing as Aberdeen ( i would class that as lower league) i sold a regen striker for £16m who was only worth £5m but his form was incredible and as Luton i have made £200k in the first season selling players.

This is something I am wondering too. Are you guys playing the same game as I do? I'm playing FM2011. Same patch? 11.2.1 for me. Do you guys know something that I don't about this game?

There are two cases:

(1) You offer a player out with the intention to sell.

OR

(2) Your player is wanted by AI managers and they make a bid. You don't really want to sell but you might be temped if an offer was too good to refuse.

The first case is not a problem. You can quickly learn how to get a good deal this way and make a good profit.

The second case however happens to me (us?) extremely rarely, if ever.

That's not really clear to me after reading your posts... Are you trying to tell me that AI made all those bids for your players without you offering them out? With them being your key players?

I made some big outgoing transfers too, but always I was the one who offered a player out first.

The transfer system doesn't feel right in current version. It's not totally broken but it could and should be a lot better.

I would love to know how to get double the amount when you offer the player out..

I had the exact same experience as the OP. Never any bid, and then as soon as I left the club he was sold for good money (4x his value).

It gets so boring that you will NEVER get DECENT offers for players UNLESS you OFFER them out. I'm currently playing as Sparta Prague and I have managed to keep all good players that would normally leave for bigger clubs. 70% of the team are wanted by EPL, Serie A and La liga clubs, but no offers come in.

There has been so many threads on this subject that this has to be looked at for the next patch. FM 2011 is a great game otherwise.

I also find it interesting that there is always one poster that comes into threads like this and try shoot down any argument for anything being wrong (like robzilla in this thread).

I would love to know how to get double the amount when you offer the player out..

Set an asking price double, triple the price you want for him. Then wait for interest from clubs and offer him out at that price, you should then get offers somewhere between his value and your asking price which will be around the price you were wanting for him.

Of course it depends on the player concerned and who wants to buy him - It works best when you want to sell your star players and lots of rich clubs are after him. However if you want to sell someone who has been rotting in your reserves all season or the interested clubs don't have much money you'll struggle to get any offers.

There are two cases:

(1) You offer a player out with the intention to sell.

OR

(2) Your player is wanted by AI managers and they make a bid. You don't really want to sell but you might be temped if an offer was too good to refuse.

The first case is not a problem. You can quickly learn how to get a good deal this way and make a good profit.

The second case however happens to me (us?) extremely rarely, if ever.

That's not really clear to me after reading your posts... Are you trying to tell me that AI made all those bids for your players without you offering them out? With them being your key players?

I made some big outgoing transfers too, but always I was the one who offered a player out first.

The transfer system doesn't feel right in current version. It's not totally broken but it could and should be a lot better.

sorry should be been clearer, all were offered out, but Robinhio and the Regen striker at aberdeen wanted to leave, the regen i got offered £80m again was offered out just as a test to see if i could get a huge fee for him.

There are two cases:

(1) You offer a player out with the intention to sell.

OR

(2) Your player is wanted by AI managers and they make a bid. You don't really want to sell but you might be temped if an offer was too good to refuse.

The first case is not a problem. You can quickly learn how to get a good deal this way and make a good profit.

The second case however happens to me (us?) extremely rarely, if ever.

The transfer system doesn't feel right in current version. It's not totally broken but it could and should be a lot better.

For me that pretty much covers it.

My experience is that there is less activity for a human manager than the ai on the surface but I suspect this is partly due to the way we approach transfers. How often do you transfer list players? How often do you respond to media speculation "Not for sale at any price"

I'm guessing but I think the ai are more proactive in encouraging bids for their players and more open to receiving them which leads to more activity.

I think the other area that needs to be addressed is peoples expectations. In the real world yes we've seen six big transfers this window involving English teams (Torres, Carroll, Dzeko, Suarez, Luiz & Bent) but these are by far the exception rather than the rule. From the link below we can see that there were only 16 transfers over £50k which shows that many teams simply don't have the money to spend on transfers.

http://www.footballtransfers.co.uk/football-transfers/highest-transfer-fees-2011/

But how many players who were "not for sale" in real life eventually left anyway?

Plenty of managers downplay the chances of Star Players leaving because they must say so... Then again if the club needs to sell and/or the player wants to leave, he'll get his wish as soon as a viable offer is made.

(think of Zidane or Kaká...)

Also even when a player isn't really "transfer listed" in real life there can be offers, and some are offers the club can't refuse...

So why should be different in FM? The only way to get decent money is offering players out... otherwise you'd be lucky if you get a negotiable "face value" offer so you can beg for a +10% on the initial fee...

And then AI clubs spend stupid sums on players who aren't worth half of their price tag...

For me that pretty much covers it.

My experience is that there is less activity for a human manager than the ai on the surface but I suspect this is partly due to the way we approach transfers. How often do you transfer list players? How often do you respond to media speculation "Not for sale at any price"

I'm guessing but I think the ai are more proactive in encouraging bids for their players and more open to receiving them which leads to more activity.

I think the other area that needs to be addressed is peoples expectations. In the real world yes we've seen six big transfers this window involving English teams (Torres, Carroll, Dzeko, Suarez, Luiz & Bent) but these are by far the exception rather than the rule. From the link below we can see that there were only 16 transfers over £50k which shows that many teams simply don't have the money to spend on transfers.

http://www.footballtransfers.co.uk/football-transfers/highest-transfer-fees-2011/

I think SI's explanation was that the first transfer window is tough because of the financial crisis,

so your explanation would make sense if it's the first transfer window.

The OP is clearly not in the first transfer window...

sorry should be been clearer, all were offered out, but Robinhio and the Regen striker at aberdeen wanted to leave, the regen i got offered £80m again was offered out just as a test to see if i could get a huge fee for him.

I see, so we do play the same game after all

Anyway, as I said, offering your players out is not a problem. Your examples are different than what the OP is saying.

I'm guessing but I think the ai are more proactive in encouraging bids for their players and more open to receiving them which leads to more activity.

Oh, believe me, I would be more open too if I ever received an offer of 5 times the player's value! Unfortunately, I was never given an opportunity...

And "Not for sale" translates roughly as "Not good enough, give me more" in football transfer market...

I agree with the OP. There's an issue and I hope it's improved in the 11.3 update.

I think SI's explanation was that the first transfer window is tough because of the financial crisis,

so your explanation would make sense if it's the first transfer window.

The OP is clearly not in the first transfer window...

Yes that was the reason for the first transfer window but in general finances are much tighter now than they have been in the past, particularly in the likes of England/Spain/Italy etc.

On FM10 I had long term saves with lower league clubs in Brazil & Sweden and even after reaching the top division in Sweden I struggled to break even every year.

In previous versions its been far too easy to make money with lower leagues teams in England but that problem has been addressed over the last couple of versions and now the finances are much more similar to real life.

If we take League 2 as an example below are the transfers from recent seasons and we can see only a small % of player movements either in or out of clubs involve any sort of transfer fee:

2009 Transfers

2010 Transfers

Nb I accept that the links above are possibly not totally complete but I believe that any players movements missed will be more likely to be free movements rather that transfers involving fees.

Oh, believe me, I would be more open too if I ever received an offer of 5 times the player's value! Unfortunately, I was never given an opportunity...

And "Not for sale" translates roughly as "Not good enough, give me more" in football transfer market...

It possibly does but we are talking about FM where "not for sale" means "not for sale"

After all there is also the option for "I would sell at the right price"

After all there is also the option for "I would sell at the right price"

Actually, it is an option I use from time to time (mostly for my aging stars) and it doesn't seem to make any difference.

Yes that was the reason for the first transfer window but in general finances are much tighter now than they have been in the past, particularly in the likes of England/Spain/Italy etc.

On FM10 I had long term saves with lower league clubs in Brazil & Sweden and even after reaching the top division in Sweden I struggled to break even every year.

In previous versions its been far too easy to make money with lower leagues teams in England but that problem has been addressed over the last couple of versions and now the finances are much more similar to real life.

If we take League 2 as an example below are the transfers from recent seasons and we can see only a small % of player movements either in or out of clubs involve any sort of transfer fee:

2009 Transfers

2010 Transfers

Nb I accept that the links above are possibly not totally complete but I believe that any players movements missed will be more likely to be free movements rather that transfers involving fees.

Hmm but shouldn't this phenomenon be affecting both AI and human-managed clubs then?

And if the AI have tools to get such inflated values for their players I would argue that humans should get the same access to these tools?

It doesn't make sense to artificially limit the funds that human clubs receive.

Hmm but shouldn't this phenomenon be affecting both AI and human-managed clubs then?

And if the AI have tools to get such inflated values for their players I would argue that humans should get the same access to these tools?

It doesn't make sense to artificially limit the funds that human clubs receive.

Well we've already discussed that human managers don't seem to receive as many offers as ai managers but this could be partly due to the way a human manager approaches the sale of a player as I've pointed out in my earlier post.

As human managers we also have the same tools to encourage bids - Transfer list, offer out, lower squad status, media reaction etc. I don't believe the ai managers use anything different.

In terms of finances, both ai & human are equal, I see lots of lower league clubs struggling for money. In fact I've just finished a season with a League 2 side and I'll quite happily post up their player movements and financial balances tonight.

Well we've already discussed that human managers don't seem to receive as many offers as ai managers but this could be partly due to the way a human manager approaches the sale of a player as I've pointed out in my earlier post.

As human managers we also have the same tools to encourage bids - Transfer list, offer out, lower squad status, media reaction etc. I don't believe the ai managers use anything different.

In terms of finances, both ai & human are equal, I see lots of lower league clubs struggling for money. In fact I've just finished a season with a League 2 side and I'll quite happily post up their player movements and financial balances tonight.

Interesting the bolded bit because from the OP and our experience it is just not possible to get the sort of prices the AIs get.

Do you have a counterexample i.e. you get a bid (without offering out) that is of a similar multiple in value to the OP?

cougar the tests i ran indicated ai simply get bids out of the blue while we humans have to do this whole song and dance. they get a bid without any speculation or anything like that. a club gets interested - puts in a bid a couple of days later- player is sold a couple of days after that. when i managed the same player in the exact same environment i waited the entire window but i never got a bid until i chose "at any price" but then i got very low bids compared to the ai.

cougar the tests i ran indicated ai simply get bids out of the blue while we humans have to do this whole song and dance. they get a bid without any speculation or anything like that. a club gets interested - puts in a bid a couple of days later- player is sold a couple of days after that. when i managed the same player in the exact same environment i waited the entire window but i never got a bid until i chose "at any price" but then i got very low bids compared to the ai.

I've never disagreed with that mate - my first sentence highlights that:

Well we've already discussed that human managers don't seem to receive as many offers as ai managers but this could be partly due to the way a human manager approaches the sale of a player as I've pointed out in my earlier post.

Interesting the bolded bit because from the OP and our experience it is just not possible to get the sort of prices the AIs get.

Do you have a counterexample i.e. you get a bid (without offering out) that is of a similar multiple in value to the OP?

You are confusing the discussion.

The first one that everyone seems to agree on is the ai receives more bids/offers in general than human managers.

The second is about the size of the offers received and here its clear some people can manipulate/work the market better the others which is perfectly fine.

but this could be partly due to the way a human manager approaches the sale of a player as I've pointed out in my earlier post.

this is the part i'm arguing against i don't think it has anything to do with the human manager's approach. should be noted that both players were sold at exactly the same time when i holidayed but when i reload and choose one of the two teams the dates change completely.

for example when i holiday both will get sold around 14th and 25th to the same two clubs- i'm not sure about the dates but you'll get the idea. this happened every single time i holidayed - around 8 times.

when i reload and manage one of the two clubs the other player gets sold later on for more money to a completely different club. this happened every time too.

its weird it's like our mere presences throws a wrench in things.

I've never disagreed with that mate - my first sentence highlights that:

You are confusing the discussion.

The first one that everyone seems to agree on is the ai receives more bids/offers in general than human managers.

The second is about the size of the offers received and here its clear some people can manipulate/work the market better the others which is perfectly fine.

So can you show examples of people manipulating the market to get the kind of bid that the AIs got in the OP?

Perhaps we need more options in negotiating. I'd also like the obvious problems fixed but perhaps we need some way to really signal our intentions to AI managers?

for example, at the mo, we have the option to put players into these categories: "Listed", "no status" and "not listed" and can offer the following responses to media speculation: "hands off", "only at the right price" and "come and get him". If we could set a transfer status that said "willing to listen to serious offers", then this could perhaps tell the AI that we'll sell if necessary but it'll cost some serious wonga to prise the player away. The same goes for responding to media speculation; if we could say something somewhere between hands off and only at the right price, maybe something like "he's worth a lot to this team and this club, better make your offer a good one". Small things like this may just encourage more offers without us having to offer out players which we aren't actively looking to sell. I think this would come in handy anway, but in light of the problems with the transfer system i think we would almost definitely benefit from something like this.

In FM 2010 I got lots of unwanted offers for my better players asking to buy them at far above their listed value. In FM 2011 I have gotten none ever. In FM 2010 I rarely had difficulty selling a player for a little above his listed value even if he wasnt especially good. In FM 2010 I can rarely sell even a good player for more than his listed value. If I offer a good player for his listed value I get many offers--virtually all identical in all respects. If I offer his for 50% above that value I get nothing except, perhaps, loan to buy offers which, of course, are meaningless because the player will never agree to a contract with the new team on a loan to buy.

Clearly something is broken. Equally clearly the SI response to bug reports systems is broken because, unlike most bug reports, this board contains no SI response asking people to upload saves so they can work on the problem. I suppose if I were optimistic I would assume this is because they are aware of the problem and it is so easy to recreate that they don't need our saves.

I take it this issue will be fixed in the upcoming patch?

I take it this issue will be fixed in the upcoming patch?

Sure...

Just like several other transfer-related issues that have been reported and "worked on" year after year but are still pretty much plaguing the game...

Best case scenario, we get a quick fix that will inevitably unbalance the market and we'll then have clubs getting 5M bids for Joe Average.

Don't get me wrong, I understand it's a very delicate balance between "constipated market" and "every club spend like Man City", but we've been going back and forth for years already and there doesn't seem to be a decent way to keep it realistic