Favoured personnel doesn't mean a thing

I purchased Henri Saivet for my Man City team

Gave him a couple of games here and there then i usually leave contracts to my ass man so i expected him to deal with it but in late December i noticed he had not signed a new deal so i offered him a very good contract better than some of my starters me and some of his team mates are on favoured personnel but he decides to accept a deal from AC Milan which will be a lot less than what i was gonna pay aghhhhh i payed £7.5M for him. Now hes gone at the end of the season and my ass man as well who rejected my very generous contract offer.

And i brought in Del Piero for £500k just to tutour him exclusivly and this is how he repays me

Del Piero now my ass manager FTW

I disagree on it being totally useless. I think in this particular case reputation is probably a lot more important (reputation in game tends to supersede just about everything). However, when things are close I find that having a player with either you or the club in their personal list can make it quite a bit easier to sign them, or be the determining factor in whether they join you or an AI team.

Example - A player may not be willing to join you at all on a transfer regardless of what role you offer him. However, if hes open to a long term loan, you can get him that way. If he enjoys his stay to the point where you or the club, or your players appear on his favored personnel list, it becomes much easier to get him to agree to a transfer (which is realistic i might add). This is still the case regardless of whether the club/player wins the trophies that cause reputation changes.

While I agree its annoying to lose your best players in this way, it is actually becoming more and more realistic. Loyalty in modern football is becoming far less meaningful and I would be surprised if the favorite club/personnel statistics don't become even less meaningful in future versions. I was surprised when I first visited the data forums and noticed that when people were transferred, favorite clubs were almost always changing, but the more I think about it, its probably true. There will still always be players to whom loyalty is important and who will stay at a single club for most of their career, but it is becoming increasingly less common. The game seems to be changing to reflect this.

on a similar note i had a reserve player who i bought in my fm2006 game he wasnt making progress and i got rid of him and he said something like this 'i am very upset about my mentor of selling me' or whatever.

my reputation will be pretty high at the time of leavbing im top of the PL and last season won the CL so it wouldnt be to low

In terms of signings, yes it is useless. I often thought that if you had one player and another was on his favoured personnell list, then it should be easy to sign him. However, that isn't the case even though it should be.

If a player YOU (human manager) are trying to sign has you on his list, then it is much easier to sign them.

It's not completely useless if it's a staff member who likes you, as I've had managers sell me players and state in the press that only their friendship with me had persuaded them to sell