Can your AI chairman ever bankrupt your club?

For the past couple of editions of FM I have abandoned my beloved Arsenal and spent most of my game time attempting to take Sunderland to the dizzy heights. One thing I keep running into though is Niall Quinn continually offering me insanely large (for a club their size) transfer/wage budgets and pushing the club deep into the red. This leaves me with a choice of either spending it on players or having it just sit there. At least twice a season I get a message that we have "re-structured" our long term debt and see what we owe p/m in loans double. Currently I am engaged in a delicate balancing act of starting at zero balance in June, and sinking to roughly 60 million in the red by the following May, at which point I reset to roughly zero when the TV/prize money comes in. At what point does administration kick in a docked points become an issue?

You need to learn to control your bank balance better. Just because you get a huge budget doesn't mean it has to be spent.

Is it possible for human managed clubs to go in admin ? When this happens to me the chairman just pumps money into the club or restructures the debt.

Administration and bankruptcy are two different things. Yes, you can go into administration, but no - no club is made bankrupt ingame.

That is some terrible financial control on your part, it will not be the chairman that has bankrupted the club it will be yourself.

I am not sure why the chairmen give such large budgets but if you keep getting messages about reconstructing the debt you must be paying millions in loans. How many loans do you have currently?

Yes. I am aware I have essentially run the club into the ground. So, at what specific point does administration kick-in in FM? Is it a specific negative balance threshold, or a ratio of debts vs revenue, or what?

Yes. I am aware I have essentially run the club into the ground. So, at what specific point does administration kick-in in FM? Is it a specific negative balance threshold, or a ratio of debts vs revenue, or what?

It depends on the board. No hard-and-fast rule.

I had this happening in my very first FM11 save, a few months ago. It was in Serie C2 in Italy, I had been given a decent budget for the first season and happily spent most of it on wages, only to find out my club was leaking tons of money every month, as the profit we generated from attendances/etc was nowhere near what we were spending on wages. It caught me completely by surprise, as it had never happened to me before in any game from the FM series, and eventually I abandoned the savegame. Shame because it was starting to be enjoyable, with the good budget we attracted good players and got promoted.

I'll be very wary of that next time I try the lower leagues in Italy. Had no idea it could happen in England, I thought it was a league-specific issue as lower italian leagues are famous for having lots of clubs crash out financially!

Yes. I am aware I have essentially run the club into the ground. So, at what specific point does administration kick-in in FM? Is it a specific negative balance threshold, or a ratio of debts vs revenue, or what?

Essentially, as with football IRL, it depends on when the board are no longer willing/able to fund the club. Look at Plymouth Argyle as an example. When we went into Administration, our debts were reported as in excess of £17m, which was roughly 4x our turnover at the time. The end came when the board were no longer able to pay a bill that became immediately due, namely to HMRC, so they opted for voluntarily going into administration before it was forced on them. As it isn't possible for a club on FM14 to go under, they will enter administration at this same trigger point, and a new buyer will always emerge. Depending on the administration, it can leave a long term legacy of debt though, so it doesn't mean that the slate is totally wiped, just that only a portion of the debt is repaid over an agreed period.

Your Bank balance returns too Zero at the end of each season so your debts are affordable.I look at this way.The Chairman gives me a budget and it's up too him to decide if the Club can afford it or not.I am a Football Manager not an accountant.If the Club gets into trouble then it's up too him to cut accordingly then what should happen at this point is a renegotiation of goals for the season with a requisite too sell players to clear as much debt as possible.I have never had an interview where the Club mentions a policy on selling Players.

Would he be happy if I underachieved due to buying inferior players too keep within a budget?Would Portsmouth fans without the benefit of hindsight had accepted League One and Championship football because Harry Redknapp wouldn't spend a Premiership budget he was given?

I always negotiate my own contract too as high a wage as possible but do not request anything I accept the wage/transfer budget offered if another Club offers more while negotiating i'll go their.

I don't think I've ever seen a team go bankrupt and end up being kicked out of the football league as a result. I've seen clubs like QPR and Leicester go into administration and end up being in the conference by 2020, which didn't surprise me considering how much money both clubs have spent yet found themselves in the championship and couldn't get promoted on that save.

I find your board will always set ambitious budgets. I generally ignore these budgets as they will only ever harm the club. At a large club I usually set my wage budget against my gate receipts and season tickets. This is much harder in small leagues when you want to compete in Europe.

I always set myself wage caps and transfer caps as these can spiral out of control. If I get offers for a player, I seriously consider them as I can usually replace them with a youth player or bring in a similar player for smaller transfer fee and a fraction of the wage.

It’s all about a numbers game. Consider the board to be idiots and work to your own budgets.