Problem after club turning semi-pro (from being amateur)

A problem has risen in my career-save at a dutch amateur club (4th tier) because of the club turning semi-pro, from being fully amateur. Now I can no longer sign players on an amateur contract, which has some serious implications.

Before now I could get some decent players (for my level) in as amateurs, but the same players now ask wages I cannot afford (as I spent my total wage budget of €800 euro's per week to keep my 5 key players at the club). This has virtually made it impossible for me to sign any new players, no matter how worthless they are. They all want a paid contract, and I can afford none.. I just cant make amateur (N/A) contracts anymore.

This is annoying now, but it will get really sticky when other clubs start 'pulling' on my amateur players. I cannot offer my player a new contract to counter the other clubs offer (as they all want a semi-pro contract), and I can't get any replacements in (as they want money aswell). In short: I'm f**ked come the new transfer window if the board don't raise the wage budget by at least 200%...

I was actually glad to see my club turning semi-pro, but I didnt expect this. I fear it'll be all youths next season. 3 seasons of scouting all for nothing.

Anyone else have the same problem?

Are you completely unable to sign players on 5-7 pw contracts (as in the board is restricting wages to zero)? I had no problem signing players on semi-pro contracts like that as a semi-pro club (although the club was semi-pro, not amateur, at the start of the game). 800 on 5 players sounds like far too much, I was signing key players on semi-pro contracts between 80 and 200 - and 200 pw was particularly high in my eyes. At 80 per player you could sign 10 players on your budget... and you can go much lower than that. Although I'm talking pounds not euros, the difference is not that great.

Well, all players I try to sign want more that €100 p/w at least. I can get them down to €65 sometimes, but those are the players that I get in as back up. The quality players (as you can call it quality at this level) start at €350 p/w. And the players I'd like to keep at the club (but are still on amateur contracts) ask around that number too. So the first one I needed to offer a contract to (my star-player got an offer from a pro-club) didnt want less than €400 (half my total budget), while 3 months earlier he agreed on a N/A contract. As I didnt apreciate the problem at that time I gave him what he wanted. No keepeing the rest of my players is quite hard.

I think that it might be due to the fact that in Holland amateur-levels start at level 4, while in a country like England even level 8 is still (semi) pro. In that way the players I need to get higher up in Holland, need to be (far) better than the ones you need in english 8th tier, and therefor start at a higher salary. I know for a fact that te players I had when I managed Burgess Hill Town (8th level england) are way worse than the players I have as amateurs in my current dutch team, although they earned about €20-€100 p/w there.

I guess the step from amateur to semi-pro is too big for players at 4th level (or the wage budget for a semi pro 4th tier dutch club is way too low). They seem to be good enough to earn > €200, but while I'm at an amateur club they are willing to play for free (probably because no-one else wants them at that moment in time), while a semi-pro club needs to pay them for what they're worth. The willingness of the club to pay certain players makes it impossible to pay others nothing.

In my opinion it's quite silly that a club can no longer sign players on amateur contracts when it turns semi-pro. In real life lots of players play for pro-clubs on an amateur contract, or an achievements-contract (just a appearence fee and bonusses). Very young or old players mostly, or players who are back from a serious injury and clubless because of that for instance. "We'll give you a shot, and if you show you earn a semi-pro contract come end of season you will get one". Now when I try to offer a €0 contract the players end negotiations immediately, as we're "miles apart".

An other silly thing is the fact that while I'm fully amateur I can keep offering my players amateur contracts, when pro-clubs offer them a pro-contract, which they always seem to accept (rejecting a "real" contract in the process, very strange). But that's a bug in the game no doubt.

I did survive the first transferwindow reasonably by the way, only lost my rightback (wanted €400 when FC Dordrecht (2nd tier) came along, which I didnt have off course). One of my best players, but also a position where I had a good back-up. The board was even pleased to see him go according to 'board confidence' (as I apparently got €6.000 in compensation fees for the lad, a small fortune for AFC'34).

Not having played in Holland, I can't comment too much on the players' qualities, but out of the box, level 6 is the lowest playable level in England (i.e. 2 divisions below L2), which was where I started the game. I take it you had downloaded a db with extra levels. I'm pretty sure the BSN players I was signing were a lot better quality than those a couple of levels down you're talking about.

I did find that you needed to negotiate with players as their wage demands were always much higher than what they'd accept, and I missed out on several players who weren't bad, but whose wage demands were much higher than players of similar quality.

Sorry for you, but it's the game....I have the same issue with my french amateur team. Once I obtained semi-pro, I can not sign anymore player without wage.......you must adapt now your management way of life good luck.

O well, I'm not complaining, really. It's another spicy addition to the game I didn't know before, so it's a challenge. But it's not completely as it is supposed to be. The consequences are too severe. I wonder what my wage budget is next season, when most of my good players do find another club. Might be time for a job-hop again, although I wonder who would want me (back to square one maybe...well maybe not then).

Perhaps it's due to the downloaded extra levels. I think that in real life the difference between the tiers is much bigger in holland than they are in england. Where a top half 2nd tier dutch team would struggle in League One I think, and a tier 4 club would find it hard to keep themselves in the BSP. In fact, I cant think of a dutch tier 4 club that's semi pro in real life, or maybe just bonusses are paid. In tier 3 (which is a new league) there might be semi-pro players, but I guess less than amateur players.

The budgets for the new season came in and problems are solved: 6k wagebudget and a staggering 300k transferbudget! Thats a 600% wagebudget rise!

I dont know what to do with the 300k as no player over 4k in value would ever consider joining my club, but it's clear the problems described above are over. I have all my players on semi-pro contracts now, and still half of my budget left. This transitional period of very low budgets has only cost me one key-player. I guess I must feel lucky..

Beste ommerson, can you tell me with which club do you play your FM game ? I read somewhere that if you have 300k transferbudget that you can't use, you must move the slider to put this money in wage budget....So you can sign big free player with high wave if you need to do. And after a few month, your club will put another money in transferbudget...Don't let the transfer budget unused.

Jim, nice dutch into.

I play with a dutch 4th tier club called AFC'34 at the moment and in my 4th season there (downloaded league-expansion).

I have my slider to the maximum wage-budget (which is 6k), I can't get the transferbudget any lower than the 300k. My actual transfer-budget was higer (I think 350k), but the wage-budget increase seemed more handy than the transfer-budget.

So I'm in wage-heaven at this level. And still I can't sign everybody because of my clubs rep, and rightly so. Whatever I would offer, I understand fully that players of 2nd tier don't want to play in front of a crowd of 150 at AFC'34.. I've approached lots of players that just don't want to enter negotiations, which is pretty realistic. Less realistic are my budgets, so it's probably more realistic if my transerbudget gets cut because I don't/can't use it fully.

I guess that in real life AFC'34 is fully amateur (and will be untill they get promoted at least once) and may only pay their players a win-bonus or small appearance fee. I can't imagine them ever buying a player. That just doesn't happen at that level in Holland. The gap between pro (1st and 2nd tier), semi pro (part of 3rd tier) and amateur (4th tier and below) is pretty big here. So most players of third tier are playing for free, while only 2 levels up some players earn tons or even millions per year.

Come to think of it, that isn't possible in FM is it? Players on N/A contracts that only get bonusses as a fee.