Negotiating Contracts etc.

I'm interested to know what people feel about the level of detail in contract negotiations, particularly in terms of realism.

Do people enjoy this aspect of the game or find it a chore?

Should you be able to hand this responsibility over to your board or chairman or something? Or delegate staff to take care of it?

I remember watching an interview with Harry Redknapp some time ago and he suggested that he didn't have a clue what some of his players were earning. He said it was all done by the chairman, if I recall correctly. Personally, I honestly imagine most real life managers don't get involved in the level of detail present in FM currently. I imagine they have some knowledge of a set budget and an idea of which players fit into which bracket but other than that I see the detail of negotiations currently in the game as beyond their remit as a football manager. I could be totally wrong but this is my opinion!

Personally, I would like to be able to hand discussions over to the chairman or a member of the board but also I would like to be able to say , for example, 'this player is a key player and will fit into the top bracket in terms of wages' or something instructive like that. In other words, I will tell them the value of the player in football terms, then they do the negotiations, and I just have an idea of how the budget is doing. I feel like that would be quite a realistic way of doing things, again, in my opinion.

Sure, my manager loves to get a bargain and sign up cheap unwanted players to make them into a success but he also definitely isn't an accountant and he basically just wants to sign up some players and then get on with the football coaching/tactics/strategy bit, which is the bit that he is good at!

I asked some people on the excellent FMCU forum (check it out if you haven't already) *blatant plug* and I got some interesting replies. Actually, they were totally the opposite to what I was expecting! A lot of people seemed to enjoy being football accountants (!) rather than old fashioned, no nonsense football men like myself.

I should add some information about my own biases in here. I'm not a big fan of the addition of agents in this game and, in general, I'm never that keen on fiddling with the contracts etc. For what it's worth though, I like the new system of negotiating on the spot as opposed to the older system of sending off an offer and waiting a few days and so on. I just have a dislike of agents, which I suppose most real life football managers also have! But it's also that I'm just not all that interested in the numbers or the finances though.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I love raiding the transfer market for a good bargain. I also love the feeling of getting together a good squad on a low budget and overachieving. But I just feel like my kind of manager (perhaps even most managers) wouldn't be getting into this level of detail with numbers and other aspects of contracts. My manager is too busy with coaching, tactics, overall club footballing strategy, squad building and so on and so forth! You know, the proper footballing stuff!

This whole subject does bring me on to another topic, which is that I wonder whether or not the game in general almost needs more 'role playing' aspects, so that you can better define your manager in the game. Are you a spendthrift manager, a coach who is strongest in training and squad building, a tactical genius, an old fashioned and no nonsense manager, primarily a motivator, or perhaps a mix of these or even an all rounder! If this could then reflect the way that the footballing world reacts to you more, that would be pretty special in my opinion. But anyway, I digress, and this is probably a subject for another thread.

To get back on topic here, we're really talking about the contracts specifically and the level of detail. How realistic is it and should the level of detail currently present in the game be part of the manager's job in your opinion? And do you perhaps even enjoy these aspects or maybe hate them? I thought I would visit GD to see what the general consensus is so let me know your thoughts.

I wouldn't mind an option to delegate transfer talks, but the board AI needs to be able to negotiate for it to work. With their current intelligence level they'd probably bankrupt your club within a week.

It's not particularly realistic that we negotiate contracts, but personally I feel the game would be less enjoyable if you took this away from the game. I prefer to be in control of the club, what players it signs, how highly they're valued etc. If you were to take it a step further, managers probably don't discuss the fees for players either. Other things, such as training, scouting, squad building etc. aren't anywhere near in depth enough to fulfill the void that would be left if you essentially removed the transfer market.

I guess you wouldn't have to 'remove' the transfer market - the manager could still set targets and have control over every sell/buy (depending on the board this could vary) - you'd just delegate the financial part. I.e it wouldn't be you - the manager - that would be dealing with agents and such but rather the chairman or director of football or whoever. I'd quite like that if it's done well.

Kain, just to say that I'm not suggesting we remove anything. I'm just questioning how realistic it is in its current format and, more importantly, I'm talking about the idea that some of us don't want to be football accounts. Also, there must be some way of a middle ground here to make it so that my manager can have a say and influence the financial side of things like contract negotiations without having to move outside of footballing language and the football manager job. I want to be able to say, this is my transfer target, this is what I think he is worth in footballing terms, this is how much of the budget he should take up, and that kind of thing, but have my chairman or board take on the messy business of managing the numbers. Of course, for those FMers who love dabbling in signing on fees and negotiating clauses, that option should be there and I'm not trying to say anything should be taken away.

I guess you wouldn't have to 'remove' the transfer market - the manager could still set targets and have control over every sell/buy (depending on the board this could vary) - you'd just delegate the financial part. I.e it wouldn't be you - the manager - that would be dealing with agents and such but rather the chairman or director of football or whoever. I'd quite like that if it's done well.

Yes, I think that's a good summary of what I'm arguing for here.

It can be irritating to do a whole load of contract renewals in one go, but in general I much prefer doing it rather then the option to myself to leaving it the computer. In general I don't trust the AI to anything that is important. Though I have seen a new manager come into a club I left and manage to keep the entire squad that were running out of contract and cut the wage budget signifcantly inclunding the top scorer accepting a 90% wage cut , but that may of been my low reputation causing problems.

In general I can cut down most players wage demands quite easily by reducing unimportant clauses like release clauses. I've had players request £50k a week with a £130m release clause and I can reduce that to about £20k with a £30m release clause which is never going to activated for a player worth at best £2m-£3m.

One of the common complaints is that the AI is horrible at squad management and renewing contracts so that would need to improve a lot more before considering this option.

I agree that it's not really realistic for a manager to be dealing with contracts,etc, the director of football is normally in charge of those deals.

Contracts and dealing with agents is one of the more enjoyable parts of the game for me.

And besides, for a DoF system to work, AI squad management needs to work...and it doesn't right now.