AI Negotiating a Transfer Listed Player

Is this right? I've just never seen this before.

Lille place an unhappy Eden Hazard on the transfer list at at asking price of 25 million pounds. I table an offer at their asking price. They come back and say they want 43 million.

I thought if I met their price it went straight to a contract offer?

if football was that simple..

Actually I've noticed this as well, Sochaux put a unhappy youngster on the transfer list (a very talented unhappy youngster) with an 8 mil asking price, which was slightly above his market value. My scouts also reported this is what they would want for the player, but when I made an offer, they all of a sudden changed their minds and wanted more than €20 mil for the player. Then they also increased their asking price iirc, but only after my initial offer and without any other teams becoming interested, let alone making an offer.

Turned out fine for me anyway, I'm now getting the lad on a free

if one of the terms of the offer is not what they'd like i suspect they jack the offer way up. what i do is reset to the original offer and improve it slightly, taking note as to whether they'd want a sell-on, etc. i've noticed this for all negotiations including contracts. there are some terms they'll be inflexible about, some they'll be flexible about, and some agents are unwilling to negotiate for very long. can be difficult to find the sweet spot without overpaying or having negotiations break down but i think that's intentional, even when the player's listed. perhaps it's simulating the idea that a team can list a player at the player's request without really wanting to sell the player (Tevez before the shenanigans for example).