How do YOU deal with the sale of your star players?

(All my mentioned figures are in £ sterling - and I am playing FM11)

Hi there,

I am now into 2025 with my Atletico Roma team save and in Serie A. Now ever since I've got into Serie A, I've improved year in year out, and my players do exceptionally well, considering I keep them all on low wages.

So, my question is about selling your best players for decent prices, I mean IRL, and also as a virtual manager on FM, every one of your players has a price!!! Atleast for me anyway.

Now, this is something that didn't really bother me before, because it meant I was able to keep hold of my best players. Therefore, I could keep improving my squad and get to the level I'm at now. (AKA challengingfor honours) So, my problem with the game in my save is my squad is always flooded with 'Wnt' symbols. So what I do for these players is set a price I would be willing to accept, and still the 'Wnt' symbols remain... Yet... I'm still getting no bids? I occasionally get transfer speculation(tangent - But I don't respond to these because with experience I've noticed this just seems to make players unhappy and want to leave, which in my opinion would lower the potential amount of money I could receive as the game would then see them as unsettled - and then even if i do respond... and the player gets unhappy, i can player interact with him and tell him i want the club to grow and him be part of it... and so he says he is cool with that... but i still don't get any clubs trying to tempt me with offers!!!) So how does the AI manage to get good offers for their players? Do they not set a price and wait for an enquiry? Then ask for said amount and then they get it? How do you get your star players sold? I'm not talking about players that you don't want anymore aka players you transfer list. You don't care as much because they probably wouldn't be playing anyway, so they're just taking up valuable wage bill. I feel like I should have sold 3 or 4 of my stars for about 20-30mil each but the other clubs just don't bother.

So I keep thinking to myself, that these players have been the top assisters in the league... Or voted into team of the season... Maybe they were voted Serie A young player and Serie A player of the year! Its not like its because they don't think they could persuade the player to join... The teams that want them clearly have higher reps because the player will get upset even if its a French club, and the players like i said aren't on stupid wages so that won't put clubs off. But i still see the AI then going and signing other players for around the 30mil mark(give or take 5mil)

I have seen other users on this forum post players they have sold off for millions so its obviously possible. I just want to be able to maybe sell one or two if I get a good deal for them without them getting unhappy... Its not my fault if I say I'm willing to sell for the right price and then the team doesn't follow it up by offering me a figure... Its not like I'm doing a Daniel Levy and trying to block any kind of deal.

If there is a solution that leads to more realistic real world transfer dealing with these types of players (e.g worth a lot to the club they are playing for because it would be very very hard to attract a player of equal calibre for the same wage - since you developed them whilst they weren't so good). Then i would really love to know, because this may help me enjoy my save more.

Many thanks for reading my problem! Hope you can understand what I'm saying here

I think the transfer system in FM11 was broken. I don't know, would love to hear contrary opinions.

I think the transfer system in FM11 was broken. I don't know, would love to hear contrary opinions.

I agree... 5 years into my save and I have only managed to sell one player for his listed "value", yet every player I look to buy is being sold for 3 or 4x what their value is.

I always used to Offer To Clubs.

If I knew a player was unhappy and wanted to leave, or if I felt I could cash in on someone who was not quite what I wanted but probably what someone else wanted, I used to make tonnes of money this way:

1) Firstly you transfer list the player for like a week or so, to gather more interest. If you Offer To Clubs without doing that, it seems less effective for some reason.

2) Offer To Clubs at a price ridiculously high for the player (e.g. 100 Million for a player you hope to get 20/30 Million for).

3) If you get no offers, go down incrementally until you do and get an offer you're happy with.

Sometimes there are no takers, or at least, none that are willing to spend big bucks. I often find trying again in the next transfer window yields different results.

There is a drawback to this: often once you've offered to clubs, there's sometimes no going back - player morale drops and they're annoyed at being "forced out of the club". But you wanted to get rid of them anyway, right?

Here are some of my biggest sales on FM11:

Laurent Koscielny £16.5m (for a crappy defender that ain't bad)

Bakary Sagna £15.5m

Milan Badelj £15.5m

and on my longer term save, several regens:

Dan Waters £23.5m (winger; to Sampdoria, later played for Liverpool)

Juan Manuel Cuevas £22m/£32m (poacher; to Palermo and later to Inter after I bought him back for £24m)

Kenneth Timm £18m (Striker; to Hull of all clubs; after one season sold to west Ham for £7.25m, I did a good deal there...)

Dave George £18m (Goalkeeper I signed for free; to Arsenal)

Jean-Claude Mourey £20m (CB; to Napoli)

Enes El Amrani £22.5m (Striker, to Man City)

and the killer:

Francisco Mohamed £46.5m (to Real Madrid)

I could go on.

Clearly a lot of these players didn't even go to massive clubs - and the majority of them received offers when I offered them at £60/80m. Mohamed when I offered £100m. He was awesome.

So yeah, dunno about FM12 as I haven't taken Boston to the top yet, but for FM11 that's what I used to do.

Thanks for the answers so far.

Yeah I don't really want to start offering them out to clubs because then they feel like they are being forced out or it will cause issues in our relationship . I like having my loyalty to players high

I have had to sell 3 of my star players due to them becoming unhappy because they aren't getting paid enough**. There weren't any offers to test my resolve like I said above... until I offered them out. But then I Didn't really get the price I wanted anyway, but I accepted that because they were unsettled anyway, which isn't the point of this thread.

**Sold willingly

Leoncio for £22mil (Brazilian CB - was on 29kpw for me now on £160kpw for Manchester United)

Idrissi for £18.5mil (Dutch Right winger - Was on 34kpw and went onto £140kpw for AC Milan)

I feel like theres someone else, will have to look on my save again later.

At one point in my save my best CM had loads of people interested (sat there with an asking price of £30m, but not offered out) so I thought to myself, "Maybe I'm not getting a larger offer because his contract is going to run out within 2 years", so I went ahead and gave him a new deal for the max possible(5 years?), and although I knew it wouldn't get me an offer in the closest window I did think maybe something would happen the window after or even the one after that. But Zilch. Then instead one of those interested teams splashed £35 odd mill on a CM that I nearly signed for £15mil a year ago.

So the only players I have really had offers for without trying is Rossi - Italian regen left winger who had a £20mil release clause and had won Serie B player of the year, Serie A young player of the year, and Serie A player of the year(same year as young player). That was an offer from Manchester United but he rejected them because he loves the club and loved me, obviously has high loyalty

The other player was Matao - Brazilian monster CB who also could play LB with 13 dribbling , I love him, but I forgot he had a £15mil release clause and Fiorentina snapped him up and when I tried to give him a new deal he just wanted so much I couldn't afford it(I could offer it, but I knew it was too much, atleast twice my highest earner) Thus making Fiorentina even stronger - they have now won the league 6 times in a row, they are amazing. Finished 2nd to them last 2 years. This year they bought a striker for £30mil who scored 46 in 39 games with average rating of 7.9

The challenge continues to overturn them.

I have received an offer for a player I had not transfer listed once since FM11, a world-class Italian poacher I had in my Las Palmas game. He was valued 20+ millions and Real Madrid (or was it Barcelona?) bid 36 millions for him but he had a Release Clause of 50 and when I told them that's what I wanted they withdrew.

10 seasons with Las Palmas

5 seasons with Milan, Juventus and Schalke in three different saves

two seasons with Sunderland

plus several other saves two or less seasons

FM12 two seasons with Bradford and half a season with Roma

One bid for a player not being forced out.

Don't hold your breath...

I get continuously frustrated at the AI only usually offering you a player's value whereas to buy a player from the AI you usually have to pay at least 50% on top of the asking price, it always seems a bit biased to me in favour of the AI. Whenever I offer a player out I struggle to get more than his value, yet sometimes even players the AI has t/listed they still fetch more than the value.

I'm not particularly holding my breath because i have now experienced it for a few game years lol. I'm just hoping. I swear it was someone like dafuge who would post screenshots of all his players he has sold whenever somebody complains that the transfer window is unrealistic. Maybe he will pop in and do it again

What are his secrets!

In the Danish Superliga I was able to sell players for up to 6 times their value (because of low rep league the value isn't as high as it would be in a higher rep league and so I could get a better deal).

In high rep leagues you can get 2-3 times the value of a player depending on age and quality.

If you offer players out and there aren't many clubs interested already quite often you will only get his value. You have shown the player isn't that important to you. So if you want to offer a player out and want 2-3 times his value, then make sure several clubs (at least 10 is my experience) are interested in that player.

If a club bids for a player of yours and that player is important to you (plays a lot and plays well) then you can try to negotiate and offer the player to the bidding club for 3-5 times his value. In a high rep league eventually you can squeeze an offer up to 2-3 times the players value from the bidding club. Off course you can't expect to sell your £36m star striker for £108m and should settle for a deal worth 1½ - 2 times his value.

This is all my experience from FM11, anyways.

On FM11 i would often sell players above their price using the offer to clubs option, keep in mind that this is largely based on reputation as your club gets more sucessful it's easier to have substantial bids for your players.

Always capitalize on the AI's interest of a player IMO, if a player is wanted by several teams just place a high asking price and when you decide it's time to sell them just offer him out.

My strategy was always put very high prices on players to stop the AI bidding as much as possible, then when either the player got unhappy or i wanted to move him on i would offer out but make sure to untick the box that puts them onto the transfer list and changes their squad status. I very rarely in FM11 only got the onscreen asking price using this method and made huge sums of money signing young kids for peanuts and selling them on 4-5 years later for easily 10 or 20 times what i paid for them.

I get continuously frustrated at the AI only usually offering you a player's value whereas to buy a player from the AI you usually have to pay at least 50% on top of the asking price, it always seems a bit biased to me in favour of the AI. Whenever I offer a player out I struggle to get more than his value, yet sometimes even players the AI has t/listed they still fetch more than the value.

In my experiance there is a difference between offering players to clubs while in their personal 'transfer status' screen and while in the 'squad screen'. In the former you can offer them off for whatever value you choose. In the latter their value sets to a default dependent on your selections in team policy.

in a save the i had i once had,chelsea i think,were interested in phil jones,i had bought him the past year for 20 mil,and i didn't need the money so i rejected it,they kept leveling the offer,it eventually got something 36,5/46,5m before they stopped offering more money,the funny thing is when i tried to renegotiate to that value they'd never accept,

once with benfica A.C Milan wanted Nemanja Matic,they offered 5 m,but because i knew it would be more expensive to get another decent back-up i rejected it,they slowly went all the way to 15 m(partly in monthly payments) and 15% next sale profit,probably should've accepted it

I didnt find this on FM 2011, I remember been offered 80 million for 1 striker, sold a few defenders for 40 million, I think if you force a player out then you wont get the big prices, let people come for them, lower wages help I think as I always run a strictish wage structure

My strategy was always put very high prices on players to stop the AI bidding as much as possible, then when either the player got unhappy or i wanted to move him on i would offer out but make sure to untick the box that puts them onto the transfer list and changes their squad status. I very rarely in FM11 only got the onscreen asking price using this method and made huge sums of money signing young kids for peanuts and selling them on 4-5 years later for easily 10 or 20 times what i paid for them.

This is pretty much what I'm doing. I suppose I'll just keep them till it gets to the point where I think they are getting a little too old or not good enough for the team then offer them out. I'd just rather they didn't keep using the media to persuade them without actually following it up with offers...

FM2011

Playing as Aston Villa at the top end of the Prem, I don't set asking prices for players, and am constantly turning down offers for them from other clubs, Barcelona went as high as 44M for a 16M rated DM I had.

Also, I tried to "offer to clubs" a 17M rated striker for 30M and sold him to Juventus for exactly 30M.

I'll do some screenshots in the next window if people are interested, I've no doubt there will be more clubs sniffing around my squad.

My biggest gripe is with clubs not paying attention when I refuse other clubs. I turned down 20M from Man City for a 10M fullback, within three weeks Man Utd were offering 10M for him. Cretins.

I'll agree with AjaxNo1 about the wages, I keep my players wages VERY low.

So what I do for these players is set a price I would be willing to accept, and still the 'Wnt' symbols remain... Yet... I'm still getting no bids?

What is the listed value of these players? If the price you set is much higher than the listed value the other clubs will make no bids. AI will consider only buying a player for at most about x2.5 or x3 his listed value. (At least that is how it was in FM2011, don't have FM2012 jet.)

This is bad as it can be gamed, for example you can set the price for every player at 100 million and no club will ever bother you, making it easy for you to hold on to all your players even if you are a very small club and they world class players.

You should actually get more bids if you do not set a price, however, then the AI will be sending in laughably low offers which is also bad.

Transfer system is broken.Should be partly fixed with a patch.Encourage other teams to bid more and negotiate even with P/Ex.Plus more installment offers just like in real life.

Well I've resorted to putting some players prices now to unspecified on people who are wanted. 1st example is my Italian ST worth £8.5mil. Now I did previously set a price of £20mil of how much I would accept but never got any bids. Straight away the next day I got a bid of 8.5mil, so I negotiated to £20mil and they then came back a few days later with an offer of £20m. What gives lol?

In the end he rejected them anyway so didn't make a difference to me lol. But very weird.

How do YOU deal with the sale of your star players?

Boats n' Hoes

I don't deal with it. I weep uncontrollably as my sack of sheet B-Team fail to live up to expectations.

This year, I've managed Wrexham to the Premiership and signed some fantastic players along the way. I resigned, and within 2 years and 2 managers, the entire team that I had built up had been decimated. Granted, one of those was me raiding the club for their best striker at a cost of £15.25 million, but I resisted all offers whilst I was in charge! I refuse to sell my best players unless a ridiculous amount of money is on offer.

Only ever sold one player in FM11. Simon Kjaer. Signed him after he got young player of the year for 22m. Barcelona submitted a bid for 28m after 1 season with me, I rejected but it unsettled him and he demanded a move to barcelona.

Sooo I said screw you both, 65m and you can go. Barcelona offered 60m I said yes.

Sell them and then put them back in your team using FMRTE........ cheating I know but it's a great way to bring up ur balance plus you get your star player back!!! great bit of business Harry rednapp would be proud!

I do what I can to keep a hold of key players. They're not always easy to replace, especially if you're playing LLM and bouncing between divisions.

PLEASE NOTE : I play using "fake" players, I don't believe this has any effect on the transfer market, but you never know.

FM2011, last patch.

Thabiso Ndlovu is the previously mentioned 17M striker, Angel Somoza is a player I raided my previous club for (Mainz, for 20M), he was in the 12-15M range when Barcelona decided they wanted him and would not take no for an answer, I gave up eventually as Angel was starting to get annoyed.

Marcelo and Alessio were both great players, with the bad habit of not playing well in big matches, so I offered them. They were both just under 20M when offered, I asked for 20M upfront, 20M over 48 months, and 10M spread over their first 50 league games. The offers I got (4 for Marcelo, 2 for Alessio) all accepted the last two conditions, but varied in their upfront sums offered.

And as for unsolicited offers, here's my 3rd and 4th choice DCs and 3rd choice fullback being chased by other clubs.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v396/Vurogj/janmaatoffer.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v396/Vurogj/baranovoffer.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v396/Vurogj/greenwoodoffer.png

As I mentioned before, unless I'm offering players out, I don't set values on them. I just say no a lot.

Cry?..........