Do you sign Bosmans purely for investment/short term trading?

It's a fun trading game too, no? I don't trade in massive amounts but maybe just a couple of players a year.

Find high reputation high value players, as young as possible, offer them a high salary to get their siganture (with very low or 0 signing on fee) and flip them to another club? Do you sell them same summer that they join or loan them out for a year? Not caring at all about work permits etc. Sometimes I actually end up keeping a couple cheaper ones as backup.

used to when it was easier to do it fm06 iirc. can't anymore.

Occasionally, although I prefer to stick to a bit of realism.

However, there's nothing wrong with buying players merely for profit. Look at Chelsea and Steve Sidwell...

I rarely sign players on bosmans but have a process of buying in players cheap and making big profits on them. I play in Belarus and every season send my scouts out to Eastern Europe, normally buying in 3/4 of the most promising 17 - 19 year olds. Then normally after a couple seasons other teams start to get interested and i end up selling the ones that don't make the first team. Make a fair bit of money especially if you whack on a 50% sell-on clause.

I rarely sign players on bosmans but have a process of buying in players cheap and making big profits on them. I play in Belarus and every season send my scouts out to Eastern Europe, normally buying in 3/4 of the most promising 17 - 19 year olds. Then normally after a couple seasons other teams start to get interested and i end up selling the ones that don't make the first team. Make a fair bit of money especially if you whack on a 50% sell-on clause.

I've done it too, mass-buying the best youngsters in the lower Spanish divisions. You're right the those 50% sell-on clauses end up being the best part of it..I was in a small division so the players weren't rated at their true value. However when sold on to higher divisions their value skyrocketed and sometimes they were sold on after 1 year for many times more than I was able to sell them.

In the end my small club was the 8th richest in Spain in the end but unable to promote to Primera cause of my tactical incompetence

I don't because it's unrealistic to do so. However, I have had players that I have signed on a bosman and they have had a good season then been sold on because the money was too good to refuse, £20m for Ben Arfa after only 26 games was way too good to turn down.

I get them in,because they're for free

I get them in,because they're for free

I used to do before, and still do. But in FM08 it got a bit harder and I only tend to do it if I believe they can actually be useful for the first team.

The reason for this is that they now ask your for higher wages, and if they have high wages, then other teams don't want to buy them because they can't give them the salary they want. Also, you need to play them at least something for other teams to get interested in them.

So I do it, but essentially when managing lower league teams (signing the players that big teams drop) and being more careful than in previous FM's.

P.S.: I have actually signed GREAT players for my team for a free, but not to trade them. I was playing with a Spanish Segunda B team which I just promoted to Segunda, (I believe this was 2012 or so), and I managed to sign guys like Rubén De la Red, Pedro Mosquera, Miguel Ángel Nieto or Marcos Tébar, all of them on Bosman from Real Madrid, and all of them did great helping my team promote to Primera in 3 seasons. The funny thing is Real Madrid offered me 20M for Pedro Mosquera 2 seasons after dropping him!!

I'll sometimes take a chance, but only as backup players. It's rare someone I really want lets their contract expire.

I don't sign them just to make a profit as I consider that a bit of a cheat. IRL, if you did that once or twice players would cotton on and not want to sign for you... you'd never get another free signing. If I want the money that badly I'll use FMM.

I am always looking for good possibilities on bosmans but not to sell, I have got Cristian Zaccardo for free and I am going to try and unsettle Carlos Tevez at the end of this season.

I usually try and scout free youth (or i try not to spend too much on developing players) that have the potential to make it, but if I have to sell them because they never became good enough thats ok, although never my initial intention!

Definately

Yes, I do this on a large scale, signing many frees each season, but it's quite risky, in that players can be rather hard to offload (even on loan at 0% salary, and we're talking good players too, quite unrealistic) so you risk being stuck with them for at least half a season, if not more. Of course, I still make quite a bit of money each season.

It's also hard to predict WHICH players are hard to offload, it can be quite unpredictable. I've had a 31-year-old Felipe, still with 170+ CA and a rotational player at least for nearly all clubs, attract no takers for free, for example.

In general players with low wages, medium rep (somehow very high rep players are really hard to off-load sometimes, all interested clubs will come back with "do not believe player will be interested"), and with NATIVE EU nationalities seem easier to offload. I say native because I've had very poor luck selling on decent Brazilians even when they have acquired a second EU nationality. Those from non-EU nationalities and also not eligible for work permits are very hard to offload.

It can take many tries and more than one transfer window to finally get rid of someone, and others will just be stuck with you for their entire contract without being able to attract a taker. Then when they leave on a free, suddenly 20 clubs are interested in them.

It's safest and most realistic to only acquire Bosmans if you have at least a slight inclination to play them, but I just can't resist something for free hah.

I buy youth players that are a tad substandard but that I know others will be interested in. Defour I bought for peanuts an sold fo 24 million. Didnt play him once. Didn't even pay his wages. Just loaned him out for 2 seasons. I love doing it on a grand scale and have earned hundreds of millions doing it, although it does demand alot of effort.

I try and get every half decent looking player under 20 I can.

See how they progress and if they don't make the grade I sell them with a large sell on fee.

I sign players who I think can make it at the club, safe in knowledge that if worst comes to the worst I can make a bit of money on 'em. I must admit that I have been guilty of signing players purely for their (monetary) value not first-team worth but I try not too these days. Always will do it with smaller clubs though because it's a sure-fire way to boost the coffers.

I got someone on a bosman like this merely because he was good for me in FM06 lol. I couldn't scout him because he was in Sweden so I just took a gamble. Needless to say I've just had to terminate his contract because, he just wasn't good enough. I've learn't my lesson well and truely

I look around for Bosmans, but never sign them purely to try and sell on for a profit. Countless times my January enthusiasm for a "free" player has gone over the top though and I have signed up a few Bosman players only to find when they actually arrive in the Summer that they aren't quite so good as I thought and will only warm the bench at best, but that is just bad judgement on my part, not a carefully planned plot to go profiteering at a player's expense!

Yes, I do this on a large scale, signing many frees each season, but it's quite risky, in that players can be rather hard to offload (even on loan at 0% salary, and we're talking good players too, quite unrealistic) so you risk being stuck with them for at least half a season, if not more. Of course, I still make quite a bit of money each season.

It's also hard to predict WHICH players are hard to offload, it can be quite unpredictable. I've had a 31-year-old Felipe, still with 170+ CA and a rotational player at least for nearly all clubs, attract no takers for free, for example.

In general players with low wages, medium rep (somehow very high rep players are really hard to off-load sometimes, all interested clubs will come back with "do not believe player will be interested"), and with NATIVE EU nationalities seem easier to offload. I say native because I've had very poor luck selling on decent Brazilians even when they have acquired a second EU nationality. Those from non-EU nationalities and also not eligible for work permits are very hard to offload.

I usually go for younger players up to 25 years old that won't demand a huge salary. They tend to be easier to offload, especially if they have a high rep and decent PA-CA difference. Loaning them out at full salary is easier too (I find that if I offer them out at 50% wages I tend to get counter-offers where they in fact want to pay full 100%...weird).

I haven't really checked this carefully but with young guys if I loan them for 1-2 seasons before offloading, they might improve quite a bit too. I wonder if loaning out to clubs in leagues that I'm not running has any disadvantages in terms of player improvement?

Sign Sahin on free and sold him after one season for around 15mil

I signed a young Argentinian for £6k and sold him to Preston for £5m plus 50% sell on fee. I did intend on keeping him as he was quite good but Liverpool declared intrest in him and he wanted to move so I flogged him to the team expected to be relegated out of the Prem in the hope he'll leave after they go down and I can buy him back for cheap.

For me it depends. There are less and less top players available on bosmans with every new edition of FM (which is realistic). Normally if I've just started at a club and I really really need some squad depth and there are some ok players going free I'll get them on short term deals with the aim of gradually replacing them with younger, and better, talent.

Obviously if there is a big star going and I can fit them into my team, then yeah. But for short term selling...generally it takes time to get into a position to be able to do that (i.e. not being desperate for every penny of wages etc. to bring in guaranteed first-teamers). Something that I'm not in a position to be able to do that often.

For me it depends. There are less and less top players available on bosmans with every new edition of FM (which is realistic). Normally if I've just started at a club and I really really need some squad depth and there are some ok players going free I'll get them on short term deals with the aim of gradually replacing them with younger, and better, talent.

If you mean world class rep players, you're probably right. Although I signed Pato for free for example, instantly creating €35m in value, even more if sold (I kept him as backup). There's still plenty of Continental rep guys available each season.