Unrealistic contract demands - Advice Please!

I'm Man City at the start of Season 2012-2013 and its driving me nuts, see below:

Wayne Bridge

Current wage: £80k PW

Apperance fee: £8k

Contract ends: 30/06/2013

New Contract Demands

Wage: £92k PW

Signing on: £525k

Agent fee: £550k

Appearance fee: £32k

Hes my 1st choice LB and kept Kolarov out the team...I grudge the weekly wage as hes 32, but never mind. But App fee of £32k? Y. Toure who is the squads highest earner is only on £18k, and defender wise K. Toure is only on £12k! Anyone else have problems with crazy appearance fees?

Joleon Lescott

Current wage: £94k PW

App fee: £9k

Contract Ends: 30/06/2014

New contract demands

Wage: £170k PW

Signing on fee: £2.1M

Agent fee: £2.5M

App fee £43k

Ok, arguably my best defender, but hes 30 in 4 days time. The above is just ridiculous....he won't budge, look at that app fee!

Kolo Toure

Current wage: £120k PW

App fee: £12k

Contract ends: 30/06/2013

New Contract Demands

Wage: £200k PW

Signing on fee: £3M

Agent fee: £3M

App fee: £20k PW

I've offered £145k, £1.7M, £1.7M and £16k respectively for the above and hes sticking to his guns. This is insane........

I also have issues with Nigel De Jong whos deal is also up 06/2013, currently on £70k PW, looking for £145k and agent fee of £3M.....

This is just mental! Of the 4 players I think Bridge is the only one who will resign. Lescott's app fee + agent fee are stupid, as is Kolos agent fee. De Jong's demands are also excessive, he also wants a first team regular status which I can't offer as he doesnt really get a game so I'm not really bothered about losing him, but I want to keep the others.

Any advice? I always have a policy of selling players toward Xmas if they are refusing deals and set to go on a bosman. At the moment, Toure & De jong are gonna go bye bye.........are all the above players not already on crazy ebough wages? Whats with the mental appearance and agent fees

Why do all the agents hate me?

Your bad at negotiating. Just give the agents a lot of fee and they will settle for almost anything.

The Agents are already looking for £3M each on average.....if your saying I should give them more that is ridiculous. If that is the case the contract negotiation model in this game is seriously broken.

You play City. Grannies would demand 100k a week knowing you swim in money. There are literally hundreds of players in the game you could buy to replace those three, who would demand a third of those wages while strenghtening your team. Get rid of them asap!

Also decreasing your wage budget to be near the minimum seems to make contract negotiations less demanding.. it's worth a shot.

The bonuses in my opinion are massively inflated. I only ever use FMRTE to edit the bonuses. The bonuses will cripple your club if you are a top club.

Your bad at negotiating. Just give the agents a lot of fee and they will settle for almost anything.

Still... if you have to give the player AND his agent a big fat bonus just to get them to agree to a lower basic wage, there goes the whole point of negotiating a lower salary...

In the end you're risking to spend MORE money now while you're trying to spend less money later...

You play City. Grannies would demand 100k a week knowing you swim in money. There are literally hundreds of players in the game you could buy to replace those three, who would demand a third of those wages while strenghtening your team. Get rid of them asap!

This to an extent. As long as Man City are loaded and doing well, players will ask for silly money knowing that you can afford it.

This to an extent. As long as Man City are loaded and doing well, players will ask for silly money knowing that you can afford it.

Is this what the problem is, because I'm man city and we have so much cash? Do other players experience the same as me at other clubs?

Is this what the problem is, because I'm man city and we have so much cash? Do other players experience the same as me at other clubs?

I think one thing is that your players will always look at the wages of your highest earner, which in your case is Yaya Toure with 180k per week. So as long as he is earning that much money the other good players in your squad will try to get at least close to what he gets.

There does seem to be a problem with appearance fees in the game. Some players just seem to ask for ridiculous amounts and the negotiations seem to be a little bit bugged as far as fees and bonuses/extras are concerned. It's sometimes impossible to get agents to budge on certain clauses.

Having said that, you're Man City so any comparisons to more normal clubs are difficult to make. If a key player sees someone else earning £180k a week he's going to want something close to that for a similar squad status.

Thanks for advice - I'm going to try lowering my wage budget and see if that helops

The Agents are already looking for £3M each on average......

Dortmund paid € 6M for Club Brugge's Perisic, HALF of that is for the agent ... .

Just saying for being Man City 3M isn't that bad.

I think one thing is that your players will always look at the wages of your highest earner, which in your case is Yaya Toure with 180k per week. So as long as he is earning that much money the other good players in your squad will try to get at least close to what he gets.

Yes, this makes the current City players useless, as they are not good enough to deserve the salary they get. In Las Palmas, I went from limiting myself to signing players at roughly £25k p/w to now 45. Recently one of my best players demanded 80 and got 60. So key players I sign do not get to earn more than that, not until many years. The average wage creeps slowly upwards, and I still go on a profit almost every month of the year. Las Palmas has now reached its stadium's maximum at 40 000, and this means that I cannot go much higher until maybe 2023 (20 years after they built their stadium), when I can build a new stadium. The ticket prices go upwards, but is that enough to let me continue letting the average wage creep upwards? Only time will tell.

For City it is a bit different since you have a sugar daddy that keeps covering your losses, but I think that if you are to become the biggest club in the world you need to build a new stadium as well, and to do that you must go with a profit - and to do that you need to get rid of all the slobs with £100k+ p/w who can be replaced by backup players from your rivals who'd want 10k p/w!

I think your club's reputation has something to do here. As you are not the biggest and the most attractive club in the world, you have to convince players in other way - paying them more. In my save, where I'm managing Chelsea, Man City has just bought Hamsik and they pay him 1,200,000 euros per month. Now he's nearly the best-payed player in my save, only Messi recieves bigger salary (1,4million/month). Worth to mention, on my game they never achieved any trophies, despite of 2-3 meaningless cups. So they are pretty much on the same reputation level as they were while starting the game. :-) Maybe when you achieve something, players will not demand that high?

PS. sorry for possible language mistakes still learning

why do you want to keep ANY of them ???????????!!!!!!!!!!

I think your club's reputation has something to do here. As you are not the biggest and the most attractive club in the world, you have to convince players in other way - paying them more. In my save, where I'm managing Chelsea, Man City has just bought Hamsik and they pay him 1,200,000 euros per month. Now he's nearly the best-payed player in my save, only Messi recieves bigger salary (1,4million/month). Worth to mention, on my game they never achieved any trophies, despite of 2-3 meaningless cups. So they are pretty much on the same reputation level as they were while starting the game. :-) Maybe when you achieve something, players will not demand that high?

PS. sorry for possible language mistakes still learning

I won the premiership in my first season, FA cup runners up, league cup semi finalists, Europa cup semi finalists. 2nd seaosn won all domestic trophies and got put out the champions league quarter finaks narrowly against Real when I was the better side in the 2nd leg. I'd say thats not bad for 2 years in

why do you want to keep ANY of them ???????????!!!!!!!!!!

I don't like change - I prefer stability. Toure is still one of the top CBs in the league, Lescott is the best premiership CB in my save. I'd still like to keep De Jong, although he doesnt get a game so its no huge loss. If Toure goes I'll take in Boyata, not sure if I'll sign a replacement for De Jong or pull up a youngster.

Dont know why your paying that amount of wages and bonus'es for them you could easily get better players that would play for less especially with you being man city

Still... if you have to give the player AND his agent a big fat bonus just to get them to agree to a lower basic wage, there goes the whole point of negotiating a lower salary...

In the end you're risking to spend MORE money now while you're trying to spend less money later...

You need to start looking at the savings you make in their wages compared to the amount you pay in initial bonuses.

Let me give you an example:

If a player asked you for £140k p/w for a 4 year contract, with a £1.5m bonus for both him and his agent.

You reduce the wage to £90k p/w. This would save you £10.4m in wages over the 4 years.

So as long as you don't end up paying an extra £5m to both agent & player in their bonuses then you will have made a saving on the initial demands.

Dont know why your paying that amount of wages and bonus'es for them you could easily get better players that would play for less especially with you being man city

They are all stupidly over paid at the start of the game, so I dont have much choice.

It's a problem with super contracts in general, not just at Man City.

Out of interest, why would you even bother re-signing them? They're over rated and way WAY over paid. If players ask me for a ridiculous contract they're gone. There will usually be better replacements available for less money. Other than that, there isn't any magic formula around the ridiculous contract demands, they all have pros and cons.

With the amount of money Manchester-al-City churns out, I would be able to replace the whole overpaid, mediocre squad in two seasons. And that is exactly what would happen if I continue on my City save. I don't see the point, though, as it takes very little effort to make them the biggest club in the world.

In two seasons with Milan, all the overpaid oldies were gone and I had cut the wage budget in half. By then it was time to build a real squad.

It's a problem with super contracts in general, not just at Man City.

Out of interest, why would you even bother re-signing them? They're over rated and way WAY over paid. If players ask me for a ridiculous contract they're gone. There will usually be better replacements available for less money. Other than that, there isn't any magic formula around the ridiculous contract demands, they all have pros and cons.

As said I'm not a fan of change, I don't agree with the continental method of replacing entire teams season by season. Toure is solid, Lescott the best defender in the league and I've always been a fan of Bridge. De Jong......meh, no biggy. Why would I change them? Part of my successful squad and already settled.

YES!!!

Toure, Lescott, and Kompanys agents have all accepted new deals which must be a positive thing. Decided what the hell I'm going to experiment and deliberatly offered each player about half of what they are currently on and slowly incrimented it each time as it was rejected. Eventualy the agent says "It looks as if (manager name) and I have a large different opinion in this players value, at which point I hike it up to a bit higher than what they are currently on. The agent then totally lowers his demands and I negotiate a few more times and get a deal I'm ok with!

It took like 9 iterations which I think is crazy for a contract, I've never ever negotiated that long. TAll accepted for £10-£15k a week more than what they are on which is not a lot considering they are stupidly over paid anyways and its better then asking for nearly double what they are on. De Jong just failed, I think the stumbling block is he wants his status as first tem regular whuch im not prepared to give, if hes not accepting my terms he can go.

Just want to point out that one of the reasons players ask for very high app. bonus is if they think they won't get to play many matches (ie. older backup players) they want every match to pay.

The whole "agents/negotiations" model is poorly designed and implemented.Let's hope FM12 has it correctly.

Dortmund paid € 6M for Club Brugge's Perisic, HALF of that is for the agent ... .

Just saying for being Man City 3M isn't that bad.

That is a new signing, not a contract renewal.

I tried to sign Aguero and he wanted a signing on fee of 11.25m, and his agent wanted 6m. He also wanted about 200k a week, with 25k per game and goal. I tried to negotiate him down, but he wouldn't budge. Oh and this is with Liverpool in the 3rd season, I bid 39m to get his minimum fee release clause. Oh and I told him where to put his contract!

I've had a player refuse to move clubs because "his agent deserves a better fee" - but surely his agent has already accepted the deal and passed it on to the player?

After going through this process 4 times with the same club with the same result (obviously they didn't offer the agent more because the agent accepted every time) I sacked the player as there was no other clubs interested in him. So his agent got nothing. Then 1 week later he was snapped up by another club, who weren't even interested before, even for free (for much the same wages I might add, before anyone suggests he was overpaid).

Transfers, agents, players, makes no sense whatsoever. Come on SI let's think this agent thing through next time!

I tried to sign Aguero and he wanted a signing on fee of 11.25m, and his agent wanted 6m. He also wanted about 200k a week, with 25k per game and goal. I tried to negotiate him down, but he wouldn't budge. Oh and this is with Liverpool in the 3rd season, I bid 39m to get his minimum fee release clause. Oh and I told him where to put his contract!

At the start of the game Aguero is on 175k a week plus 18k a goal and 18k appearance. His wage demands are realistic, the signing on fee is too high but these can be negotiated.

At the start of the game Aguero is on 175k a week plus 18k a goal and 18k appearance. His wage demands are realistic, the signing on fee is too high but these can be negotiated.

Yeah, I was more complaining about him being a greedy so-and-so, rather than having a go at the game Although he wouldn't budge from his signing on fee.

I notice that sort of thing but with youth players. They try and sneak in stupid pay rises after making 20 league appearances. I always reduce that bit so it's only £100 or £50 more than they earn on their contract that I'm giving them just in case I use them for say, an injury crisis rather than because they deserve to break into the first team. Sneaky gits.

I always barter for contracts mind, I'm very happy to let a player go on free transfer if he's backup or rotation and he wants silly money. At lower leagues I've effectively ended their careers seeing how I'm usually the only club who'll use them and no one at that level inclusive of me will pay above and beyond for an average player. ¬_¬

Agents can be incredibly stupid, here's my story:

I was managing Hamburg, we were rich enough, but not Man City-rich of course, no sugar daddies. I had wanted to sign an extremely talented Hungarian player for a long time, back when I was managing in Hungary, but he wouldn't talk to me because he came from a rival club (I guess, that's the only reason I could see.) So there he was at 21, at a mid-table Hungarian team, his contract of about 200k a year expiring. I was on his favoured personnel list too, although his agent disliked me.

So I approach him, and the initial demands are 5M/year, plus 3M each for the player and himself. I managed to get the wages down to about 3M/year, which was still way too high, but I needed the guy. In the meantime, Serie A leaders Bari and a mid-table Premier League approach him too, as well as some other Hungarian teams. They think for two weeks, and then comes the response: he's gone to a weaker Hungarian team for 115k a year.

Now if he had gone to Italy or England for slightly less money, I would have accepted that, the agent might want to spite me because he hates me, but this is just idiotic.