Selling players

I've got a slight issue selling players, and I've had this issue for the last few FM's. I can't seem to sell people for anywhere near their value.

I've read a lot on this forum about different tips, such as play them regularly or loan them out so they get noticed. I've also read excuses like "If you transfer list them, why would other teams buy them?" or "no-one else can afford their wages".

However, I don't believe this resembles real life at all. A few examples of recent real life transfers:

• Wilson Palacios of Tottenham - has hardly played this season, only appearing in 18 games, and yet Napoli are rumoured to be bidding £12m. The eventual transfer will probably be around £9-10m but even so, this is a guy who hardly played in the second half of the season and is a significant sum.
  
• Lucas Piazon moving to Chelsea for £7.5m. This is a guy that has a big reputation but has hardly played a huge number of games.
  
• Arsenal buying Vermaelen for £10m.
  
• Aston Villa buying Downing for £12m.
  
• Blackburn signing Kalinic for £6m, Givet for £3.5m and selling Warnock for £8m.
  
• Liverpool paying £18.5m for Glen Johnson and £20m for Aquilani.
  

These are a few examples, and my argument is that in the FM world, if I was in charge of Roma, I wouldn't be able to sell Aquilani for £20m. I definitely wouldn't be able to sell Warnock for £8m, and getting £18m for Johnson is an impossibility. In fact, if I was in charge of Liverpool, and transfer listed Torres, there's no way I'd get any clubs bidding £50m, especially as he'd be valued at £25m in the game. If I didn't transfer list Torres, I'd get no bids, or at the most, I'd get enquiries and once I'd ask for £50m, they'd reject it.

As a test, try loading FM and try to sell Andy Carroll for £35m. No matter how well he plays, how many he scores, you'd be lucky to sell him at all. I'm sure you have a player who's scored 31 in 80 games for your club now. Try selling him for anywhere near £35m.

So, I guess I have several problems:

1. I can't sell my top stars for high amounts. As Man United, I can't sell Rooney for anything more than £15m. That's a joke.
   
2. I can't sell my squad players who may not have played much AT ALL, or for tiny amounts. I certainly won't attract any £10-12m bids for a Palacios-type player, and normally, talented players like John O'Shea, Darren Gibson, Michael Carrick, Wes Brown, etc will just sit in my reserves getting no interest whatsoever.
   

How do other people do it? Is there handy tricks to selling players? How do I get the £80m bids for Cristiano, or the £60m for Fabregas? And considering my Man United squad players would be top stars at other clubs, how do I get bids for them?

It's definitely not wage problems. There's been rumours of Sunderland bidding £12m for Gibson and Brown, and there's plenty of Premiership teams that will pay high wages.

Can someone explain it to me? This is the only side of FM that annoys me.

It's all about interest. The reason those players went for those values in real life was because clubs were interested in them. In FM you'll find, as I have. That if you have a player who's doing well. Then lots of clubs become interested and they will look to pay over the odds for players. Just to secure him. If the selling club doesn't want to sell.

The players that you are transfer listing obviously aren't interesting any clubs. So therefore you will have to continue to lower your price before someone is willing to make a bid. I also believe that reputation and wages play a big factor on who is interested in your players.

You said that if you were Man Utd and you tried to sell Rooney. You could get no more than £15m for him. Whilst in real life that wouldn't happen. I can see why it has in FM. Rooney's on what, £125k at least a week. Alot of clubs can't afford that. So they may only be willing to pay £15m transfer fee and then they could pay him £125k a week wages.

But in real life, plenty of clubs would bid £40-60m for Rooney regardless of his wages. Why doesn't FM reflect this?

I agree with you that it is about interest. But I would argue that the interest levels in FM are lower than real life. If I transfer list Darren Gibson, for example, FM would probably register no interest. However, in real life, there would be quite a few bids from teams like Sunderland, Stoke, Fulham, Everton, etc.

I have never ever managed to sell one of my top top players for double their value. This often happens in real life, but never in FM.

Also, I've never managed to sell an unproven youngster for ridiculous amounts. Where's my FM equivalents of Theo Walcott, Gareth Bale, and probably Chamberlain-Oxlade soon?

Which version are you playing?

FM is a game. Values aren't set by anyone. They get set by reputation and things like that.

Also, it maybe difficult to work so much interest. If you think about it. In real life lots of players move for over inflated prices. Andy Carroll being the prime example. If you continuously had average players selling for more than they're worth then it would cause way too much hassle. All I can say is players transfer fees and values are determined by reputation, age, form(I guess) along with others that I can't guess. After all FM is only a game.

I'm playing the new one now Ackter, but I've had the same problem going back to FM07.

NottinghamForest - I'm not saying it's easy to do, but that's why game programmers get paid so well. I'm also not saying prices should be inflated for every player. But I am saying that there should be some ridiculous transfers, some high prices for awesome youth, and a decent level of interest for almost every top-level player.

If a team dont need a player then why would they bid for them?

I regularly get players tapped up with bids following on, why? Because the teams in question need a certain player in a certain position.

As Manchester United i sold Neymar to Barcelona for 42.5 million? Valued at around 19 at the time. Why? Because they needed an striker.

Apologies for rushed/no sense post. Dinner time

EDIT: Just checked, sold Neymar for 52 million to barcelona, January window, 1 year later they bought Abel Hernandez for 55 million...

If a team dont need a player then why would they bid for them?

Because he's better than what they currently have. Hence my argument that if Man United transfer list almost any of their squad, lesser teams should be interested.

I regularly get players tapped up with bids following on

As Manchester United i sold Neymar to Barcelona for 42.5 million? Valued at around 19 at the time..

How? It's never happened to me! No-one's ever bid for Rooney or Ferdinand or Carrick.

As manchester united I've sold:

Anderson for 15 million to bayern

Carrick for 20 million to real madrid

Valencia for 22 million to real madrid

Dzeko for 40 million to real madrid

Rooney for 60 million to real madrid

I play FM10 but I doubt that the transfer system has changed drastically in FM11.

I do agree that there are problems with both the transfer and loan markets.

First off, despite the examples I gave above, I do feel that clubs are unwilling to pay market value or higher for players. I end up having to reject similar bids constantly.

When it comes to bids, I find it weird that when multiple clubs make bids for a player of mine, they all make the exact same bid....as if they all came to a consensus or something.

My main issues with loaning players is that I am comfortably the best team on the planet in my save. Something I like to do is keep 1 youngster on the bench every game and try to get them as much first team football as possible. A lot of the time these players do well and thus their reputations increase rapidly. Because of this, they reject loans and I find that ridiculous. No 17 or 18 year old should be rejecting a loan and a chance to get constant first team football.

The clubs bidding the same amount is also something that annoys me. I want independent bids, maybe varying wildly. I don't want 10 clubs all bidding £2m, I want one of them bidding £3m in the hope I'll only accept theirs.

Your examples of United players being sold is interesting. I really can't replicate that. How do you do it?

Only way I've found of regularly successfully selling players is to transfer list them at the end of the season and offer them out for double value - they actually have to have had good seasons though.

I've sold a few players without having to offer them out, but it's rare.

i love selling and buying players in FM . and i feel values are realistic, as many said here, is all about interest ? like IRL

Damian, just because a player is better than what a club currently has. It doesn't mean they want him. Team blend is important too imo.

As a test I just offered out Neymar my best player and got offered £42 million for him from Barcelona. Ramsey my second best player I could not get a bid of over £16.5 million for him.

The example of torres and carroll going for such high amounts is mainly to do with the closure of the transfer window, I find the game isn't the best at following real life with this as one team if they sell a valuable player they try really hard to get another one in which is the reason why carroll went for so much

It's all about interest. The reason those players went for those values in real life was because clubs were interested in them. In FM you'll find, as I have. That if you have a player who's doing well. Then lots of clubs become interested and they will look to pay over the odds for players. Just to secure him. If the selling club doesn't want to sell.

The players that you are transfer listing obviously aren't interesting any clubs. So therefore you will have to continue to lower your price before someone is willing to make a bid. I also believe that reputation and wages play a big factor on who is interested in your players.

You said that if you were Man Utd and you tried to sell Rooney. You could get no more than £15m for him. Whilst in real life that wouldn't happen. I can see why it has in FM. Rooney's on what, £125k at least a week. Alot of clubs can't afford that. So they may only be willing to pay £15m transfer fee and then they could pay him £125k a week wages.

Sorry to be blunt, but this is A) baseless speculation and B)sorry excuses for a transfer system that doesn't work at all

If SAF decided that Rooney grew out of the club like Ronaldo/Beckham and wanted him to find a new club, every club in the world that believed he could possibly be interested in the slightest would take a sniff, and the 10 biggest clubs in the world would bid whatever it takes to get him, and eventually sell their grandmoms to afford his wage demand. Bids in the £50m region would be common for the likes of him, in such a situation. Your wage demand hypothesis ignores the 10-15 clubs in the world willing to cash out for the likes of Rooney. Of course, he may not want to go there but that is irrelevant in this discussion because we are talking about bids, not contract signings.

In the game, however, you can just forget it. If you gave him away for free, maybe you would be lucky to get a bid or two. It is that bad.

The Manchester United squad players OP mentions would be leading stars for all but the top 5-6 clubs in England plus top 4 in Spain and Italy, top two in France and Germany. These clubs would be extremely interested in signing them because they would strengthen almost all teams in the world even though they don't get to play for ManU. I know this because I have signed 2.5/3-star good-players-for-most-PL-sides that became 3/4 star leading-star-for-most-Serie A sides in several games. In other words, any scout would highly recommend them to their clubs.

However, in the game no-one is interested at all even though they have both the cash, the need and the opportunity to sign such players. I know this because I have checked the economy of several clubs during the seven seasons of my current game, and yes - they are l-o-a-d-e-d.

I am very rarely experiencing that another club wants one of my squad players even though it is obvious that he or she would strengthen their team and that I would accept a bid in the range of value+50-100% for him. To get rid of such players, I need to offer them out to every club in the world, transfer list him and set him to not needed by the club. Something which is a bit unfair since the AI rarely or never do this themselves. Instead they offer them contracts until they go off on a pension, or eventually the player mans up and refuses to sign because they haven't played a football match in years.

In seven seasons, I have received ONE decent bid (38m for a wonderkid worth 15) and that was from league rivals Real Madrid so I wouldn't accept anything from them anyways. A good example of how flawed the transfer system is, is that if you sign a big star like for example Hamsik, you have to pay like 30m for him. If you do this, a few months later one of the big clubs will come sniffing around and the media would suggest a transfer of roughly 15m because that is what he is worth in your club once the transfer value normalizes. If, against the odds, they actually bid, you would -never- get as much as 30m for him yourself. However, Barca paying 60m for him if he still plays in Napoli after a few seasons is quite common.

The basic demand of mine (and many others) is that if I my star midfielder has a value of 10m and a 4-year contract of 40k p/w is exactly as good as another club's star midfielder worth 10m and 40k p/w 4-year contract, the AI would want to pay exactly as much for mine as I would have to do to get theirs. This has never happened in the history of FM in any game I have played (or anyone else to my knowledge). I bid 20, they want 35, I bid 25 and some clauses and the deal is signed. The other way around, they bid 10 and I want 35 - they cancel. I would be lucky to get 15m.

I agree with everything BiggusD says.

However, I will add something to the discussion, and say that my original post wasn't necessarily about the absence of massive bids. I do agree that it's extremely unlikely that a human user will receive a bid of 100-200% a players value, something that is common in real life, and more common between two AI teams. The human user does seem at a disadvantage in that regard. If anyone wants to dispute this, I will volunteer a test. Start a new game, take charge of Man United and offer Rooney out. A "real-life simulator" should generate interest and bids around £40-60m (100-200% of value) easily, and clubs should literally bite your hand off. If anyone receives a bid that even matches his value, I'll back down and accept I'm wrong.

Actually, £40-60m is cheap for Rooney if Ronaldo went for £80m, but I'm happy to start somewhere.

My original post was mainly about reasonable bids for squad players, and the fact that I'd like to receive some. The mega £40m+ bids for my superstars are all well and good, but my game would be much more immersive and realistic if I could properly squad build, and this involves selling off my squad players. For Man United, this might be the likes of Carrick, Owen, Biram Diouf, Welbeck, Fletcher, Evans, O'Shea, Anderson, Obertan and Bebe. If United offered these players around in real life, I'd be willing to bet my right arm that they'd sell them all.

Just off the top of my head, I reckon around £15-20m for Carrick, £1-2m for Owen (or at least there'd be interest if I offered him for free), £2-3m for Diouf (rising youngster according to Sir Alex and played reasonably well at Blackburn who would probably bid), £7m+ for Welbeck (rumours of a £15m Sunderland bid were around recently), £10m for Fletcher (he's established himself as a top defensive covering midfielder), £7m+ for Evans (rumours were around of a £10m bid by Roy Keane at Sunderland a few years ago, and he's matured since then), £4-5m for O'Shea, £7-8m for Anderson (still got a decent reputation and he's young), £2-3m for Obertan (same as Anderson) and maybe £2-3m for Bebe (reputation might get a few million but I admit he hasn't exactly set the world on fire).

Here's what would happen in FM:

Carrick wouldn't attract any bids until transfer listed. I'd be surprised if he attracted bids then. I'd probably get hundreds of loan offers. At most, I'd probably get bids of around 50-75% of his value. Definitely nowhere near £15m.

I'd probably offer Owen out on a free, and receive no bids, so he'd end up rotting in my reserves, and the board wouldn't let me release him

Biram Diouf and Welbeck would just attract loan bids. The absolute biggest bid I'd receive would be their value, which FM would have set at around £1m for Diouf and £3-4m for Welbeck.

Fletcher would probably sell for £5-6m, i.e, his value. All the bidding clubs would bid the exact same amount.

Evans might sell for 50-75% of his value.

O'Shea will sell for around £2m (50-75% of value) or no-one will be interested because of his history and reluctance to move, which is a rubbish reason.

Anderson, Obertan and Bebe will only attract loan bids. Anderson might get bids of £3-5m, but nothing substantial, and nothing close to his value.

The difference between my estimate (taking the low-end) of £57m coming in, and what I imagine FM doing (high end estimate of £31m) is £26m, nearly a 100% difference. And I'd be willing to take a bet that United would get substantially more than £57m in real life, and any human user playing FM will get a lot less than £26m.

I'm not going to make a long post but back to your original point - Why can't you get bids close to the value?

Well the answer is no team will start off bidding high and you seemingly don't negotiate well.

The answer is asking prices, this is the price you want for the player. If you don't set them the other clubs will just see the default value.

As clubs also bid lower than your price you need to set your asking prices at a higher level than you want - This is basic selling strategy in many industries for example selling a house or a car.

So for a player valued at say £5m that I would be happy to sell for around £15m I would set an asking price of around £20m-£25m, if clubs are interested you'll get initial bids of around £10m-£15m.

Carrick wouldn't attract any bids until transfer listed. I'd be surprised if he attracted bids then. I'd probably get hundreds of loan offers. At most, I'd probably get bids of around 50-75% of his value. Definitely nowhere near £15m.

I'd probably offer Owen out on a free, and receive no bids, so he'd end up rotting in my reserves, and the board wouldn't let me release him

Biram Diouf and Welbeck would just attract loan bids. The absolute biggest bid I'd receive would be their value, which FM would have set at around £1m for Diouf and £3-4m for Welbeck.

Fletcher would probably sell for £5-6m, i.e, his value. All the bidding clubs would bid the exact same amount.

Evans might sell for 50-75% of his value.

O'Shea will sell for around £2m (50-75% of value) or no-one will be interested because of his history and reluctance to move, which is a rubbish reason.

Anderson, Obertan and Bebe will only attract loan bids. Anderson might get bids of £3-5m, but nothing substantial, and nothing close to his value.

Been able to sell Carrick £12m, Brown £7.5m, Owen £2m, Diouf £6m, Welbeck,£6.5m Anderson £11m, Obertan £4m and O'shea £6.5m. It can be done

So for a player valued at say £5m that I would be happy to sell for around £15m I would set an asking price of around £20m-£25m, if clubs are interested you'll get initial bids of around £10m-£15m.

I don't.

I do sometimes set asking prices and I do negotiate up, but 9 times out of 10, the AI team will just reject any raise in price.

Seriously, do an experiment. Take over United, and set Rooney's asking price to £35m. Quite a cheap price. Now, transfer list him, and offer him out. How many bids do you receive? I reckon none. Now, considering he should be worth £50-60m, it shows how difficult it is.

Or, even better, try another experiment. You're Real Madrid. Make a bid for Rooney and see what price they accept at. I reckon it'll be upwards of £60-70m. Now, take over United. Don't transfer list Rooney, but wait for a Madrid bid, which should (if it was realistic) come in the summer months because Madrid always try and buy the best players. Wait for the Madrid bid, which will be right on his value. Negotiate this at the same rate United did when you were Madrid. I'd bet Madrid will walk away at the first negotiation.

Been able to sell Carrick £12m, Brown £7.5m, Owen £2m, Diouf £6m, Welbeck,£6.5m Anderson £11m, Obertan £4m and O'shea £6.5m. It can be done

This is a reply I'd be hoping for when I started this thread.

Can you explain what you did? Did you transfer list them, offer them out with a price over 24/36 months, loan them out for a year first, play them consistently before selling, etc? What are your hints?

This is a reply I'd be hoping for when I started this thread.

Can you explain what you did? Did you transfer list them, offer them out with a price over 24/36 months, loan them out for a year first, play them consistently before selling, etc? What are your hints?

I offer them out, normally at 150% percent of their value. i also find that offering pay monthly bids maximises how much you get. though i will normally try with full value up front first. If that doesn't work, I offer at pay over 24 months and/or lower my asking price incrementally. I will agree the market is erratic. sometimes i can never get rid of brown except for loan, sometimes 7.5m on the first chance. Setting a value on players you are thinking of selling but maybe not selling straight away (anderson for example) helps if you are still playing them a decent amount.

I'm not going to make a long post but back to your original point - Why can't you get bids close to the value?

Well the answer is no team will start off bidding high and you seemingly don't negotiate well.

The answer is asking prices, this is the price you want for the player. If you don't set them the other clubs will just see the default value.

As clubs also bid lower than your price you need to set your asking prices at a higher level than you want - This is basic selling strategy in many industries for example selling a house or a car.

So for a player valued at say £5m that I would be happy to sell for around £15m I would set an asking price of around £20m-£25m, if clubs are interested you'll get initial bids of around £10m-£15m.

Cougar - your last sentence - does this work in FM11?

Whenever I Transfer list a player I always set a price less than or the same as his value and either never get bids or get rubbish bids. Wondering now if I should try with unspecified, see what bids come in and negotiate higher from there?

The AI generally isn't willing to put bids in on human players. I ran a test on a while ago and posted the results on here. Created two players in two different teams and watched while the AI bid for them. Ran this a bunch of times and always the same result. When I took control of a club, I got no bids. Setting an asking price didn't matter at all.

The transfer market is way too erratic, and I agree with the OP. A lot of the time teams simply refuse to pay good money for good players. The problem here is the player would need to transfer list his player just to get clubs to make a bi, which means he probably won't be able to get a very good price. I've seen the AI buy players who aren't as good as a player I would be willing to sell for about 5/10 million more than I would've accepted despite setting the asking price.

I am not saying that it's impossible to get good money for players, but the game treats human players like lepers. The AI is a lot less likely to come up to us with an offer.

Damian, just so you dont think im ignoring you ill check my transfers tomorrow. For a general gameworld transfers and my transfers. Although ive kept many current united players on as coaches ill try find some examples.

Cougar - your last sentence - does this work in FM11?

Whenever I Transfer list a player I always set a price less than or the same as his value and either never get bids or get rubbish bids. Wondering now if I should try with unspecified, see what bids come in and negotiate higher from there?

Yes, its what I use all the time and have done for years.

Negotiating higher isn't great and we know that the user gets less bids than AI clubs (maybe partially intentional as many users don't like being harassed with bids so SI have maybe toned it down a bit). To counter this though we have the options to transfer list & offer out.

For example: Last transfer window I wanted rid of a fringe midfielder - value approx £850k and he had played 12 games during the season all but two as a sub. I transfer listed him at £5m for a couple of weeks until there were some interested clubs and then I offered him out. I had around 6-8 offers of between £2m & £3m, I accepted them all as I wasn't too bothered and he eventually left for £2m. I could have got £3m if I had been more picky accepting the offers.

The main issue is getting interest in your player, once you have the interest you'll get bids. If you don't get bids there is a reason, most likely is that your asking too much.

So my advice is always set your asking price 25%-50% higher than you want to accept.

Seriously, do an experiment. Take over United, and set Rooney's asking price to £35m. Quite a cheap price. Now, transfer list him, and offer him out. How many bids do you receive? I reckon none. Now, considering he should be worth £50-60m, it shows how difficult it is.

Hmmm, its really not that simple.

How many leagues have you loaded?

How many are playable?

Did you allow budgets in first transfer window?

Besides that squads have already been put together at the start of a save and summer transfers have already gone through.

You would get a much different result if you did it at the end of the first season.

Yes, its what I use all the time and have done for years.

Negotiating higher isn't great and we know that the user gets less bids than AI clubs (maybe partially intentional as many users don't like being harassed with bids so SI have maybe toned it down a bit). To counter this though we have the options to transfer list & offer out.

For example: Last transfer window I wanted rid of a fringe midfielder - value approx £850k and he had played 12 games during the season all but two as a sub. I transfer listed him at £5m for a couple of weeks until there were some interested clubs and then I offered him out. I had around 6-8 offers of between £2m & £3m, I accepted them all as I wasn't too bothered and he eventually left for £2m. I could have got £3m if I had been more picky accepting the offers.

The main issue is getting interest in your player, once you have the interest you'll get bids. If you don't get bids there is a reason, most likely is that your asking too much.

So my advice is always set your asking price 25%-50% higher than you want to accept.

Hmm.......the players I will potentially want rid of are:

Kolo Toure, 30, £140k a week 28 league games last season

De Jong, 28, £70k a week 19 league games last season

Santa Cruz, 30, £80k a week 20 league games, 8 goals

Off top of my head their values are £1M, £4M & £1.7M, its ot like they never ever got a game. De Jong and Santa Cruz were never my favourites and Toure was classed as a first team player but would their age and wages disuade other clubs if I wanted to try and get a bit more than the above?

In the previous versions, I hated the how the transfer market as I, too, couldn't sell a player for a decent amount and for most, I would just let their contracts expire. But in this version, I haven't had that problem, but I get annoyed when the market rolls in as it's a constant battle against Europe's top clubs from poaching my players (prime culprits being Barcelona and R. Madrid). I have to constantly reject bids and issue hands off warning and they are so unrelenting. They've pretty much tried to sign everyone on my team bar Pato and De Gea. I have even rejected a 81mil bid for Hazard from Barcelona and 46mil bid for his brother from Man Utd, heh!

So far, I've managed to sell my young defender (disrupted squad harmony by complaining to players about his contract) for 15mil to Shaktar in his second season with me after signing him for 1.7mil, Robinho (no place for him) for 23mil to Barcelona and Toni Kroos (wanted a new challenge and couldn't blame him) to Valencia for 32.5mil. Now, I just have to keep those greedy hands from the rest of my team (8 players in my 20-man squad currently barring youngsters).

So, yeah, clubs have to be interested in your players for you to get bids.

£81 million?? The only players I would reject that for would be Messi and Ronaldo. Anyone else and hes offski!

I'm not going to make a long post but back to your original point - Why can't you get bids close to the value?

Well the answer is no team will start off bidding high and you seemingly don't negotiate well.

The answer is asking prices, this is the price you want for the player. If you don't set them the other clubs will just see the default value.

As clubs also bid lower than your price you need to set your asking prices at a higher level than you want - This is basic selling strategy in many industries for example selling a house or a car.

So for a player valued at say £5m that I would be happy to sell for around £15m I would set an asking price of around £20m-£25m, if clubs are interested you'll get initial bids of around £10m-£15m.

My experience is different. If I set a price of 25m for a player the game thinks is worth 5m I get no bids.

But all that misses the biggest problem. No matter how a human player manipulates the situation he will never get the insanely high offers that AI teams will offer each other for the best players.

Hmm.......the players I will potentially want rid of are:

Kolo Toure, 30, £140k a week 28 league games last season

De Jong, 28, £70k a week 19 league games last season

Santa Cruz, 30, £80k a week 20 league games, 8 goals

Off top of my head their values are £1M, £4M & £1.7M, its ot like they never ever got a game. De Jong and Santa Cruz were never my favourites and Toure was classed as a first team player but would their age and wages disuade other clubs if I wanted to try and get a bit more than the above?

Personally I don't find age an issue but wage demands will have an effect as will contract length and reputation.

That said I also sold three wingers the previous season with little effort and all three came back asking me to pay a portion of their wages until their contracts expired.

Looking at your three players I shouldn't think you would have a problem selling them, its just a question of how much and how desperate you are to get rid of them. Note you'll possibly have to pay them some wages until their contracts expire.

Toure & Santa Cruz I would probably start by listing for £10m (hoping to get around £5m for them). De Jong around £15m-£20m (hoping for around £10m). Leave it a couple of game weeks and see how many clubs are interested in them. If you have a few offer them out and wait for the bids, if you get a lot you could have possibly asked more, if you get none your prices are too high.

My experience is different. If I set a price of 25m for a player the game thinks is worth 5m I get no bids.

Do you offer him out? Are there interested clubs on his transfer tab?

If the answer to both is yes then you value him higher than the AI does, if you want to sell him you need to lower your valuation.

But all that misses the biggest problem. No matter how a human player manipulates the situation he will never get the insanely high offers that AI teams will offer each other for the best players.

I'm at work now but I did look at my leading transfers last night and I can post up a screenshot later if you want. I'm in 2017 and there have only been around 20-25 transfers that have exceeded £20m in my save and the highest is approx £38m - Hardly what I would call insanely high.

I sold a striker who was 22 who had only ever scored 2 senior goals for over £12 mil. He hasn't played first team football in over a year as well. There's no problem here.

Yes, there is a problem here.

The computer often behaves differently when bidding against the human manager than they would when bidding on AI managers.

I'm going to assume its down to how player valuations work - each AI managed player has a declared value inside the game, the human managed players don't unless you set the value yourself.

Personally I'd like to see how much your assistant manager values your players - and then the AI could use their valuation as a starting point, just like they would with AI managers. That should even it up.

But all that misses the biggest problem. No matter how a human player manipulates the situation he will never get the insanely high offers that AI teams will offer each other for the best players.

That sums it up nicely.

AI will expect you to offer stupid money, up to 4x the estimated value, for their players, but you'll never be able to get AI clubs to come up with an even remotely similar offer for your Top Stars.

Unfortunately AI-on-AI transfers will be equally expensive, so the human player will always be at disadvantage.

SI have said several times there is no such thing as "anti-human bias" on AI's part, but I don't realy buy it... Otherwise I wouldn't be forced to offer 4M for a youngster who's valued 650k by his mid-table Dutch club, while my (much better) youngster valued 2M wouldn't get a single offer (or would get offers around the 2M mark anyway) despite him being a great catch for plenty of clubs.

There are two serious flaws with the transfer market...

1) Reputation affect asking prices, but it just work for non-human clubs and players somehow, so it's hard to generate interest even for good players

2) AI is greedy and unreasonable when selling, but stingy and cheap when buying... a luxury human players can't have.

Personally I'd like to see how much your assistant manager values your players - and then the AI could use their valuation as a starting point, just like they would with AI managers. That should even it up.

I think this is a good idea Ackter, it would probably go a long way to helping those users who struggle with transfers.

That sums it up nicely.

It really doesn't.

AI will expect you to offer stupid money, up to 4x the estimated value, for their players, but you'll never be able to get AI clubs to come up with an even remotely similar offer for your Top Stars.

Unfortunately AI-on-AI transfers will be equally expensive, so the human player will always be at disadvantage.

If you want to buy a player who is under a long term contract and is classed as a first team player you should expect to pay over the odds, if you think different then your logic is flawed. If the scouts tell you he is unavailable or the team is unlikely to sell him then you should be moving on to other targets. If you are quoted high prices when you make a bid this is the other team telling you to take a running jump so move onto other targets.

If your club is in a bigger league and has a larger reputation you stand a chance if you are willing to pay more however if your club is of similar or lower reputation the AI clubs will be more than happy to dismiss your offers.

Your other option is to use the media to encourage the player possibly leading him to be unhappy at his club and/or refusing to sign a new contract, at this point if he is interested in your club (Use the scouts) you may be able to sign him at a lower price.

As for selling players a user doesn't achieve high sales very often because in general they want to keep their best players but as I've shown above I have no problems selling players for more than their value.

SI have said several times there is no such thing as "anti-human bias" on AI's part, but I don't realy buy it... Otherwise I wouldn't be forced to offer 4M for a youngster who's valued 650k by his mid-table Dutch club, while my (much better) youngster valued 2M wouldn't get a single offer (or would get offers around the 2M mark anyway) despite him being a great catch for plenty of clubs.

Why don't you get offers for your young player?

Well which team are you for a start, if you are a high rep team in a high rep league other clubs won't target your player as they don't think they'll be able to sign them. Therefore you need to inform other clubs that he is available and you do this by transfer listing him, offering him out and reacting to media messages in the appropriate manner.

If you list him & offer him out you should get offers most of the time.

There are two serious flaws with the transfer market...

1) Reputation affect asking prices, but it just work for non-human clubs and players somehow, so it's hard to generate interest even for good players

2) AI is greedy and unreasonable when selling, but stingy and cheap when buying... a luxury human players can't have.

Just wrong, I generate interest no problem, I buy suitable players without an issue and I sell players for more than their value. What I don't do is try to sign players that aren't available to me. I don't target players who play for bigger clubs (unless they are backups/transfer listed etc), I don't target players who show no interest in joining my club, I don't target players who the scouts say are unlikely to be available and I don't target players who are outside of my price range.

If I can do it so can everyone else.

Overall I would say you need to assess your approach to transfers.

See...

I had no problem paying Lyon over 50M for their top AMC/striker, because that was a somewhat realistic evaluation taking into account his skills, his squad status and his original value.

What I take exceptions to is Man City wanting > 20M for their BACKUP KEEPER, who they apparently keep in high esteem despite having played 5 league games in his whole career...

Or every second-rate club expecting me to fork out at least 5M for every semi-decent prospect they happen to have.

You say it's easy to generate interest... but is it?

In my recent spells at Chelsea and Barça I've had plenty of youngsters/backups I needed to loan out or just to dispose of... I'd think many clubs would still look forward to signing a couple of decent "top club rejects", even for a bargain price... instead I was lucky to get offered a 100-150% value after throwing players at AI clubs time and again.

The only occasion AI clubs seem to go crazy with offers is about youngsters with high potential, but then again if they're offering for 17yo valued under 1M, it's quite difficult making good money out of said transfers.

Media interaction, unsettling a player etc are all good tricks to get a better deal, but the point is we shouldn't have to bend over backwards to sign for 20M a player we would be lucky to sell for 10M.

It really doesn't.

If you want to buy a player who is under a long term contract and is classed as a first team player you should expect to pay over the odds, if you think different then your logic is flawed. If the scouts tell you he is unavailable or the team is unlikely to sell him then you should be moving on to other targets. If you are quoted high prices when you make a bid this is the other team telling you to take a running jump so move onto other targets.

If your club is in a bigger league and has a larger reputation you stand a chance if you are willing to pay more however if your club is of similar or lower reputation the AI clubs will be more than happy to dismiss your offers.

Your other option is to use the media to encourage the player possibly leading him to be unhappy at his club and/or refusing to sign a new contract, at this point if he is interested in your club (Use the scouts) you may be able to sign him at a lower price.

As for selling players a user doesn't achieve high sales very often because in general they want to keep their best players but as I've shown above I have no problems selling players for more than their value.

Why don't you get offers for your young player?

Well which team are you for a start, if you are a high rep team in a high rep league other clubs won't target your player as they don't think they'll be able to sign them. Therefore you need to inform other clubs that he is available and you do this by transfer listing him, offering him out and reacting to media messages in the appropriate manner.

If you list him & offer him out you should get offers most of the time.

Just wrong, I generate interest no problem, I buy suitable players without an issue and I sell players for more than their value. What I don't do is try to sign players that aren't available to me. I don't target players who play for bigger clubs (unless they are backups/transfer listed etc), I don't target players who show no interest in joining my club, I don't target players who the scouts say are unlikely to be available and I don't target players who are outside of my price range.

If I can do it so can everyone else.

Overall I would say you need to assess your approach to transfers.

You have completely misunderstood the problem. All the guys in this thread complaining that they don't get 200% value for their players are not "phailing" at transfers, and the fact that you get offers in your game is not evidence that this is a non-issue. It is only evidence that your game is an excempt from the rule and without you offering a valid reason for your game being an excempt from the rule your opinion is of no value to this discussion.

Assuming that other users don't know the game is a major problem in this forum.

Yes if we want to buy a player that is classed as First Team or Key Player we should expect to pay more. That is not the problem. What we are saying here is that the AI do not offer more for our First Team or Key Players, not nearly enough and not nearly often enough. They offer their value, and since the AI clubs do not set a price tag on their players (it is normally unknown like with us) why should we? The AI estimate of what I would let my players go for is completely off in all circumstances, and setting them to what I consider an acceptable fee is a surefire way of avoiding bids altogether.

You say that if you list him and offer him out you would get bids most of the time. That is not the issue here. The issue is that we HAVE to list him and offer him out to generate interest. Otherwise, regardless of how few games he have played for you, the player is not interested in finding another club unless you set him to Not Needed, and since the AI managers with a few exceptions are clearly programmed to go for bargains only and bid max 125% for any player (and max 10% increase when negotiating apparently), players that you'd like to keep but don't regard as essential are never of interest to the AI clubs.

I target players that I believe strengthen my team without breaking the wage budget, something which excludes the biggest stars from the biggest clubs. This means I have to pay 200-400% value for anyone I want from the AI clubs, which in turn offers maximum 125% for any of your players who would strengthen their team without breaking their wage budgets.

This, along with the fact that very few clubs attempt to strengthen their teams in an intelligent fashion create a transfer market that ruins the game in the long run. I don't want to add a manager and go into big struggling clubs in order to "fix the game" any longer. I, and many others with me, want the AI team building and the transfer market to be extreme the other way around in FM12: we want them to replace their teams every five years or so just like we do, we want every club in the world to have the ambitions to improve and win stuff.

As it is now, the AI clubs keep the players they have until they retire or have declined so much that they end up in the reserves - and too few clubs are replacing them with equally strong or stronger players - making the FM universe from season 5 and onwards decline in overall quality. I want the average quality of players to increase over time because A: that makes the game more of a challenge in the long term, and B)it is realistic.

Again BiggusD has got it spot on.

I think everyone can accept that if you're a lower division club, let's say Bristol Rovers because they're my home town team and they've had a reputation of selling their top strikers for peanuts recently (Barry Hayles, Jason Roberts, Nathan Ellington, Richard Walker, Jamie Cureton, Scott Sinclair, Rickie Lambert, Will Hoskins etc), then you will receive small bids for your players. If I had a striker for Rovers scoring 30 in a season, I'd probably expect bids from other clubs at around the £500k to £1m mark. I don't mind that.

I accept that the lower down the leagues you are, the cheaper the players are and the less you need to accept - I'm fine with that. As long as it's a reasonably high amount for the level you're at, then it's realistic and team re-building can happen.

That being said, if I was Rovers and I had an awesome youth player, someone like Aaron Ramsay, Jack Wilshire, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Gareth Bale, Theo Walcott, etc, then I'd quite like to see the odd £5-6m bid from a team like Arsenal, regardless of how many first team games he's played for me. Not very frequent, but I'd like to see it happen occasionally.

I'd also really like to see the AI making a few more mistakes, and offering £5-6m for one of my youth players who actually isn't that brilliant, but they've been scouting him and he happened to play really well so they take a risk. Again, not all the time, just every now and then - that would add a good dimension to the game.

The main issue I was arguing was that if you're a top team, you shouldn't have any difficulty in selling your unused squad players because these squad players will easily get into 10+ other teams in your league or 50+ other teams across the world, and you should have no problem attracting bids of varying amounts. I can imagine Tottenham bidding amounts like £10m for Gibson and Welbeck in real life. I wouldn't be surprised to see that. I honestly think FM could do a better job of increasing AI interest in players, and increasing the frequency of bids. I don't mind being annoyed by answering a few more transfer bids.

Compare Man United this season in real life to United in FM world having had the same season. Berbatov is valued at £10m. In real life, I reckon United could get £15-20m from teams like Bayern. In FM, I honestly don't think anyone would bid £10m, and I'd probably have to accept £5m, or, more likely, have to keep him in the reserves because no-one's bidding.

Personally I don't find age an issue but wage demands will have an effect as will contract length and reputation.

That said I also sold three wingers the previous season with little effort and all three came back asking me to pay a portion of their wages until their contracts expired.

Looking at your three players I shouldn't think you would have a problem selling them, its just a question of how much and how desperate you are to get rid of them. Note you'll possibly have to pay them some wages until their contracts expire.

Toure & Santa Cruz I would probably start by listing for £10m (hoping to get around £5m for them). De Jong around £15m-£20m (hoping for around £10m). Leave it a couple of game weeks and see how many clubs are interested in them. If you have a few offer them out and wait for the bids, if you get a lot you could have possibly asked more, if you get none your prices are too high.

I'm going to keep Toure now, but De Jong and Santa Cruz are on there way. De Jongs value is £4M, Santa Cruz £1.7M. I try to play the game realistically, I'd be happy with around £7M for De Jong and about £5M for Santa Cruz.....Santa Cruz has been on the transfer list, set to not needed with asking price of £4M for 2 months and been offered to clubs but no offers or interest so far. Bit surprised at no interest as he still done a decent job for me in the last 2 seasons. Hes not registered in my 25 man squad and wont be playing a minute of football for me.......I refuse to play him in the reserves when it devoids youngsters the chance of playing. His lack of games shouldnt be a problem though as his reputation is still continental and hes done well enough in the last 2 seasons and his stats are still good enough to show he could still play week in week out in the premiership for say I dunno, Everton/Fulham/Villa/ Blackburn etc

I still think there is a bit of a flaw in the transfer system - FM08 & FM11 i've found it the hardest versions to sell players. I've had Bellamy on the transfer listm, set to not needed for 2 years and I just wanted rid, I set the asking price at half what hes worth and i just kept getting loan offers, he ended up with 2 different loan spells at Stoke. Now hes worth £500k and my asking price is £0 - I just want his wages off my bill.

This thread has been interesting though, at least I know it can be done.

You have completely misunderstood the problem. All the guys in this thread complaining that they don't get 200% value for their players are not "phailing" at transfers, and the fact that you get offers in your game is not evidence that this is a non-issue. It is only evidence that your game is an excempt from the rule and without you offering a valid reason for your game being an excempt from the rule your opinion is of no value to this discussion.

I actually take offence at your suggestion my opinion isn't a valid one.

How in anyway is "my game" exempt from the rule???

I can create a save using FM11 on any PC, anywhere in the world and have similar experiences in the transfer market.

SI don't make different copies for different people and I don't have a "special" copy or anything. What is different between what I experience & what others experience is their expectations & their overall approach to transfers.

Yes if we want to buy a player that is classed as First Team or Key Player we should expect to pay more. That is not the problem. What we are saying here is that the AI do not offer more for our First Team or Key Players, not nearly enough and not nearly often enough. They offer their value, and since the AI clubs do not set a price tag on their players (it is normally unknown like with us) why should we? The AI estimate of what I would let my players go for is completely off in all circumstances, and setting them to what I consider an acceptable fee is a surefire way of avoiding bids altogether.

I'll say it again, set asking prices above what you are willing to accept and you get offers more than their value presuming you get an offer. I would agree I don't get that many offers "out of the blue" most offers come through offering players out but I'm proactive and I discourage bids all the time by issuing "Hands off" warnings/setting high asking prices. Would I get more offers if I didn't do that? probably. Plenty of my players have other clubs interested in them but these clubs target other players rather than mine because I give them the impression I don't want to sell or if I do they would need to pay through the nose.

For the record the AI do set price tags on their players and furthermore your scouts give you their views as to what price you would need to pay.

You say that if you list him and offer him out you would get bids most of the time. That is not the issue here. The issue is that we HAVE to list him and offer him out to generate interest. Otherwise, regardless of how few games he have played for you, the player is not interested in finding another club unless you set him to Not Needed, and since the AI managers with a few exceptions are clearly programmed to go for bargains only and bid max 125% for any player (and max 10% increase when negotiating apparently), players that you'd like to keep but don't regard as essential are never of interest to the AI clubs.

You don't HAVE to list them and offer out to generate interest but it certainly helps.

If I look at my save in October 2017 - I have a first team squad of 27 players, seven are "wanted" by other clubs, two others were being chased before long term injuries kept them out of the final couple of months of last season and seven/eight others I had to respond to media messages regarding interest in the last transfer window. Now I would say thats a fair bit of interest and only one of them is transfer listed however I would agree that there are some players that simply don't seem to generate much interest for no obvious reason.

Is this enough interest? Should there be more? Well in reality all of my first team squad should be attracting interest and if I listed any of them several clubs should be interested. I guess SI have been trying to achieve a balance between too few & too many offers and I would say the scales are still on the "too few" side but its still reasonably easy to sell players if you use the options available.

I target players that I believe strengthen my team without breaking the wage budget, something which excludes the biggest stars from the biggest clubs. This means I have to pay 200-400% value for anyone I want from the AI clubs, which in turn offers maximum 125% for any of your players who would strengthen their team without breaking their wage budgets.

So are you saying you give no thought as to the club they play for, the league they play in, their nationality, their squad status etc?

Personally I think its reasonable that you pay 200-400% of their value if they are a first team player while for a player of the same status in my team I get a similar level of offer - 200-400%. Your notion that the AI pays a maximum of 125% of any value is simply wrong and can be proven very quickly in any save.

This, along with the fact that very few clubs attempt to strengthen their teams in an intelligent fashion create a transfer market that ruins the game in the long run. I don't want to add a manager and go into big struggling clubs in order to "fix the game" any longer. I, and many others with me, want the AI team building and the transfer market to be extreme the other way around in FM12: we want them to replace their teams every five years or so just like we do, we want every club in the world to have the ambitions to improve and win stuff.

As it is now, the AI clubs keep the players they have until they retire or have declined so much that they end up in the reserves - and too few clubs are replacing them with equally strong or stronger players - making the FM universe from season 5 and onwards decline in overall quality. I want the average quality of players to increase over time because A: that makes the game more of a challenge in the long term, and B)it is realistic.

Fully agree here, AI team building could be much improved and hopefully its something we'll see in the future.

I'd also really like to see the AI making a few more mistakes, and offering £5-6m for one of my youth players who actually isn't that brilliant, but they've been scouting him and he happened to play really well so they take a risk. Again, not all the time, just every now and then - that would add a good dimension to the game.

Well tbh the AI do make mistakes but I suspect its not intentional, its more that despite a player having a good rep/CA/PA their attributes are poorly distributed.

Having "mistakes" programmed in would add another dimension to transfers if it can be done right.

The main issue I was arguing was that if you're a top team, you shouldn't have any difficulty in selling your unused squad players because these squad players will easily get into 10+ other teams in your league or 50+ other teams across the world, and you should have no problem attracting bids of varying amounts. I can imagine Tottenham bidding amounts like £10m for Gibson and Welbeck in real life. I wouldn't be surprised to see that. I honestly think FM could do a better job of increasing AI interest in players, and increasing the frequency of bids. I don't mind being annoyed by answering a few more transfer bids.

I've covered this in my previous post above but in general I have no real issue selling players providing I transfer list and offer out. I do get some bids that differ but for the most part I would agree that there are too many bids of the same amount and not enough competition between the buying clubs to push the price up more.

Compare Man United this season in real life to United in FM world having had the same season. Berbatov is valued at £10m. In real life, I reckon United could get £15-20m from teams like Bayern. In FM, I honestly don't think anyone would bid £10m, and I'd probably have to accept £5m, or, more likely, have to keep him in the reserves because no-one's bidding.

If you look at the gossip the last week or so in the media general impression seems to be that Man Utd will sell at £10m-£15m although Berbatov is quoted as saying he wants to stay at Man Utd.

In terms of FM I haven't tried but I'm confident I could get around £10m for him perhaps slightly more which is quite similar to RL levels and certainly your comment about "more likely, have to keep him in the reserves" is total rubbish.

Its not realistic. Pretty much as simple as that. Hasnt been for the last couple.

I was a very small club paying very small wages in the championship. I had the leading goal scorer in the championship for a few seasons running (a 19 year old eglish lad with plenty of potenial) and plenty of other star performers yet nobody wanted any of my players. I got the odd bid. Less than value and over half a decade in payments. No thanks.

I had pretty much the same squad from blue square to championship. None of them were bothered about leaving.

Values seemed completly wrong. I had a young english player who had played about 200+ games for the club. Great little player. Hes valued at 2.5k. He was worth more than that when he first regened into my youth team. No bids for him either.

I released great players, usually because I couldnt give them a new contract. With my like 3k max wages. They stayed released most of the time. The AI do not seem to be interested in even picking them up for free. Scotland sometimes came in when they were running short on contracts to take them on a free, but that was about it.

This could be all down to the history bug my save got. So I'm not 100% sure if that would have been the case if I never got that. Still wasnt realistic before the bug either.

Time at club: 3482 days

Players bought: 51

Total value of players bought: £0

Players Sold: 11

Total value of players sold: 1.4M

Highest transfer recieved: 1.4M (30-1-19) Payed in 75k monthly installments.

I sold 11 players in 10 years. Only one player I sold for a fee, and it took me till 2019 to do so. The other 10 probably went to scotland when their contract expired. It wasnt exactly a thrilling save when it came to the transfer market. No where near realistic either.