Would you be happy if it were easier to sell buy/sell players on FM09?

As the title suggests, FM is Notoriously difficult to get rid of players, even for free.

Would you like/hope transfer activity is "Upped" for FM09?

I love every aspect of FM, apart from the transfer system and would like to be able to sell players as easily as it is IRL, ie: a money-mad transfer Merry-go-round.

In FM if you put a player up for sale despite how good he is, you may get the odd enquiry about how much you want (even when you've set an asking price) but IRL there would be countless offers for him.

I'd like to be able to sell player as and when I want to, but in FM it's nigh-on impossible...

Transfer List - Check.

"Not Needed" - Check.

Play regularly - Check.

Lower price - Check.

Offer For Free! - Check...

There's just something missing from this part of the game.

Its been mentioned many times recently and we're all hoping that this will be much improved in FM09. We know that changes have been made to the module but just what those will be .....

have you seen the video interview about fm 09?

Yes and No.

Some of the difficulty in offloading players even on transfer list or free is not unusual. For a superstar on huge wages, his wage demands might scare off potential bidders as he might much prefer to sit on his arse collecting his cash.

For an average player, no other club in the division might want him. In addition, he might not want to drop down divisions or he might just be seen as impossible for a club lower down the leagues to contemplate a deal.

Sure, it would be nice to get rid of players you don't want and maybe it is a little bit difficult on the game. However, I believe some of that difficulty in offloading players should still remain.

btw, I believe it is easier to loan out big name players that you don't want and pay part of his wages, and that looks to be very possible within the game.

I want to see an improvement in this area because this and the team talks are my only dissapointments with FM08.

The whole transfer module has been rewritten for FM09, so I suspect buying and selling players will be completely different.

It won't be any different. The buttons you have to press and the options you choose will be exactly the same, as has been repeated over and over

But the internal workings are brand new, so hopefully the buttons and options you choose will work better in achieving their purposes.

I don't exactly know about happy but i am not willing to buy the game if i can not sell immediately all my transfer listed players on 100% of their price , same about AI asking crazy money over a prospect .

I don't exactly know about happy but i am not willing to buy the game if i can not sell immediately all my transfer listed players on 100% of their price , same about AI asking crazy money over a prospect .

But that doesn't happen IRL? There's loads of players up for sale that no-one wants to buy these days.

While I totally agree with Ben82 about the fact there are legitimate reasons for not being able to sell players, I do think it is, in general, far too hard to shift players on.

I have several players that are decent, with good records in their division, that as I upgrade the squad simply fall out of my plans and want to sell simply to balance the budget. But it is almost impossible to even give them away, which kind of defeats the object of selling them.

This makes the kind of wheeler-dealing that some managers indulge in IRL (Redknapp, for example) where players go through a kind of revolving door, very difficult.

So, a qualified yes, I would be happy

I think SI had some problems in getting it to be realistic. If they had made it easy to offload players, surely you can just virtually buy a whole new starting 11, sell the old players, and those whom you could not sell you could "give away" for free, to save salaries. So I think that this is their work-around of that issue... However you can still buy 11 new 1st teamers and play them without any complaints so...

Regarding this I hope that there's a greater/more significant impact on the team when you add several new players to the 1st team squad. The board could at some point state that you have bought enough new players now, and ask you to reserve your money and find a solution in the squad you have. The fans could react if you bench virtually half of the old squad. If you replace 3 or 4 (or more) regular starters with new signings, there should be alot of unhappiness in the squad. Disrupted and bad harmony affects the play much more in real life.

It's a bit too difficult to off-load players, but it is also way too easy to buy players.

Oh well, we will just have to wait 'n see what FM09 brings us. I have faith!

I don't exactly know about happy but i am not willing to buy the game if i can not sell immediately all my transfer listed players on 100% of their price , same about AI asking crazy money over a prospect .

If you have transfer listed them then that means that you don't think they are any good, so why would another manager think they are?

Also why would anyone bid 100% of their price if they are listed? I never bid full wack for listed players as if the club wants rid of them then they should be willing to accept low bids just to see them leave. I regularly accept bids of around 10% of a players value just to see them out of my squad.

I don't exactly know about happy but i am not willing to buy the game if i can not sell immediately all my transfer listed players on 100% of their price , same about AI asking crazy money over a prospect .

Why should a prospect go really cheap? If you had a real prospect in your youth team, you would keep him till he reaches the first team, unless someone paid crazy money to make you sell him early. Theo Walcott cost a lot of money even though he did not even have a full season of league football. Wenger also paid 3 million for Pennant even if he was only 16 (everyone thought he might be good). I know Cassano cost Roma a lot of money when he moved over at 18 or 19. Jenas cost Newcastle 5 million pounds and he was playing for Forest in the championship and not even 20 then (granted he was their young captain). Wayne Rooney cost over 20 million pounds! ok, granted the last one was already an england regular when United got him.

Why should someone pay the full price for someone that you do not want? It is your own fault for tying them down to overly long contracts.

Why should a prospect go really cheap? If you had a real prospect in your youth team, you would keep him till he reaches the first team, unless someone paid crazy money to make you sell him early. Theo Walcott cost a lot of money even though he did not even have a full season of league football. Wenger also paid 3 million for Pennant even if he was only 16 (everyone thought he might be good). I know Cassano cost Roma a lot of money when he moved over at 18 or 19. Jenas cost Newcastle 5 million pounds and he was playing for Forest in the championship and not even 20 then (granted he was their young captain). Wayne Rooney cost over 20 million pounds! ok, granted the last one was already an england regular when United got him.

Why should someone pay the full price for someone that you do not want? It is your own fault for tying them down to overly long contracts.

I agree, although in some cases irl there will be exceptions, such as the Barcelona clown show on how they treated Ronaldinho and Eto'o. Good example is Cassano. He's obviously good but Real Madrid wanted to sell him, no club would have paid his market price when the club was trying to sell him. When a player is on the transfer list you shouldn't usually expect more than 50% of his market price.

The problem I do have is players that are transfer listed by request though. Clubs are too reluctant to pay closer to the full asking price of a player who requested a transfer, they should be more willing to do that as this is representing a player that the club still wants and can play at a good level upon transfer. And the clubs of players who have asked for a transfer refusing to lower the asking price when nobody bids and the player becoming increasingly annoying. And the player having requested a transfer waiting for 2 months and not trying to do anything drastic to force a transfer. Yeah this whole requesting thing is messed up.

A side question: is it only the clubs that get to see the transfer market in real life or is the concept of a transfer market only hypothetical and that the market is created by a network of communicating agents and clubs and that a physical market doesn't actually exist?

I agree, although in some cases irl there will be exceptions, such as the Barcelona clown show on how they treated Ronaldinho and Eto'o. Good example is Cassano. He's obviously good but Real Madrid wanted to sell him, no club would have paid his market price when the club was trying to sell him. When a player is on the transfer list you shouldn't usually expect more than 50% of his market price.

The problem I do have is players that are transfer listed by request though. Clubs are too reluctant to pay closer to the full asking price of a player who requested a transfer, they should be more willing to do that as this is representing a player that the club still wants and can play at a good level upon transfer. And the clubs of players who have asked for a transfer refusing to lower the asking price when nobody bids and the player becoming increasingly annoying. And the player having requested a transfer waiting for 2 months and not trying to do anything drastic to force a transfer. Yeah this whole requesting thing is messed up.

A side question: is it only the clubs that get to see the transfer market in real life or is the concept of a transfer market only hypothetical and that the market is created by a network of communicating agents and clubs and that a physical market doesn't actually exist?

The economist will tell you that a market need not be physical, as long as there are parties willing to do a deal and trade!

But to answer your question more specifically, I don't know whether there is a physical market, probably not though.

In PES there is an option of making transfer activity frequent, average, or low (not sure of the exact naming but basically that is what they mean). Now i'm not saying this is the way that FM should go, but maybe it's something to base it on. I personally think that transfer frequency in the game is spot on, but people play the game how they want at the end of the day. There are people that after losing a game will reload and replay until they win. I don't agree with that way of playing, but it's each to their own, I don't really care about other peoples gaming methods, I only care about my own. It's my leisure time, and thats my only concern whats going off on my screen. So I think it SHOULD definately be easier to ship players out if you want them to go - within reason. If you have a 34 year old injury prone midfielder, then it should always be hard to get them off your books. But a current international worth a couple of million, and you'd be willing to accept half that, then i'm sure there would be some team in the world that could afford AND attract that player.

I also think an option should be utilised more. The option I mean is where the selling team pays so much of the departing players wages. If i'm absolutely desperate to get shut of a player I may be willing to pay 50% of the players wages for the remainder of his current contract - providing all other avenues have been explored in trying to offload them. At least it's a step short of paying them up, which can be really costly, this would still cost the club, but only half of what paying them up would, and spread over a longer period.

But the long and short of it is if I want a high turnover of players, it's my game, it's my decisions, I wanna play my way. But if there are people out there than don't want that, they won't have it. If you list a player it's obvious you want them to leave. If you don't want them to leave you don't list them - end of.

If you have transfer listed them then that means that you don't think they are any good, so why would another manager think they are?

*Because it is a game and it sucks when the game ignores you

*Because the player i don't need in my Red Star team can play in Hungary or Bulgaria

*Because if clubs without full squads don't need him that means SUPER GREYS will still be around

Why should a prospect go really cheap?

I didn't say "for cheap" but if AI asks 20m for a 19 years old player how much will it ask for a developed one? 100m ? so we are going back to 08 issues .

I'm hoping that by "re-writing" the transfer module, they have just turned up the level of activity for '09. I find transfer windows a bit deflating at the minute; I can't sell players I want rid of, and (decent/good) players I want to buy the AI wants deals "starting" at £60Million.

Just to say, just because you have transfer listed a player doesnt mean he is automatically rubbish and no one should want him.

For example, I had three target men on the books, all played well and scored goals, but then a youth player surprised me when I played him up front and his development encouraged me to not use a target man. So I decided one of them could go, to allow me to strengthen elsewhere. The one I decided to let go had a value of £2.5mn, and had an average rating over 7 in the premiership and had scored 7 goals in around 24 appearances. The reason I decided to let him go was simply he wasn't quite as good as the other target men I had, but I couldnt get ANY interest him at all. In real life, if you made available an established prem player that could score maybe 1 in 3/4 consistently then there should be some interest in acquiring his services, maybe from promoted teams desperate for firepower.

Ok, maybe there wouldnt be anyone willing to pay full price, but there should definitely be some interest if he is offered for zero. It just isnt realistic.

i find i can sell players well one game and not the next.

my current game i got rid of benayoun for 4.5, kewell for 750k and pennant for 5mill (i was impressed with the pennant sale)

i do tend to keep players squad status to back up or rotation even if they are transfer listed though as i find teams dont tend to want them otherwise.

i also make sure then when accepting a bid i tick the 'not in my plans' radio button which seems to make the player want to leave as well. otherwise they'll keep rejecting the offer from the other club.

That's an interesting point Postie, I may try that.

The in-game hints tell you to set status as "not needed" to increase the chances of selling him, and that's normally what I do.

Maybe I'll set it to "Important 1st team player" to drum up interest...

To be honest, I would be delighted if the transfer process went through the same evaluation that you'd expect a human to go through:

a) Will this player add to my squad?

b) Will this player fit into my system?

c) Who else can I buy for the transfer fee?

d) Who else can I get for the wages?

I don't think it should be easy to get rid of expensive deadwood and I'd feel cheated if the revamped system made it easy.

But it's annoying at the beginning of a new game when you inherit a load of players you have no intention of keeping, yet are unable to shift them...

*Because it is a game and it sucks when the game ignores you

*Because the player i don't need in my Red Star team can play in Hungary or Bulgaria

*Because if clubs without full squads don't need him that means SUPER GREYS will still be around

I didn't say "for cheap" but if AI asks 20m for a 19 years old player how much will it ask for a developed one? 100m ? so we are going back to 08 issues .

Themistofelis,

Shandiar is correct. If you consider your transfer listed players as excess, why would another club bid full value, knowing that you dont want the player at your club any longer. No one bids top dollar for rejects.

I hope that the transfer market reflect not only british standard but also take in account the spanish and italian (very different) one.

English clubs are rich, but not every other club are.

So exchange of player and loan with buy clause must be much more effective now.

Also co-ownership need a revamp. In FM 08 is better than 07 but we aren't spot on for now.

It's not so easy to sell player IRL especially for top league teams who concede too much money in wages, so why someone want to be easy?

But it not be impossible either, i think that it's perfect if it's slightly easier than 8.0.2 FM 08.

Two thing that i want :

- More transfer activity for lower division and division not played. Many times clubs of a nation or division not runned in a savegame end only with grey players.

They should try to buy players, not play with grays and let their nation market die.

- Stop ridiculous amount requested by teams for players.

It's not realistic to ask 30+ million for a rotation player whose price is 7 million.

And for first team players it's even worse...

- More transfer activity for lower division and division not played. Many times clubs of a nation or division not runned in a savegame end only with grey players.

They should try to buy players, not play with grays and let their nation market die.

This is the main thing I'm hoping for. For anyone with a relatively low-spec computer, and can only run leagues in about 3 countries, European (or the continental equivalent) competitions become rather uninteresting when 80% of the teams in there have almost no contracted players.

Certainly agree with your last couple of point there DMaster2.

The problem for me is the AI never wants to meet your valuation but you're always expected to meet their inflated valuation. Whatever the squad-status. That isn't just in interacting with you, they seem to do this to each other as well. This harms AI teams, even the 'big clubs' from staying as footballing powerhouses, even with the mega budgets they end up with.

This becomes an issue in the long term games when the AI is not competitive enough in acquiring top players to remain a challenge for you. Leagues end up with you always finishing first with 20 point leads with the rest of the teams showing very erratic league performances. Man U runner up one season then finishes 10th another, even after I pumped them with £100million so they would have funds to get top quality.

This may be linked to the module that handles newgens and regens where very few players actually end up as influential as the real, well rounded, players we start the game with.

I think there should be a limit your chairman will allow you to pay for certain player. That will give you less AI club demanding huge prices for players without making it too easy to buy players.

Well said Ranbir

But it's annoying at the beginning of a new game when you inherit a load of players you have no intention of keeping, yet are unable to shift them...

That's just life isn't it?

Themistofelis,

Shandiar is correct. If you consider your transfer listed players as excess, why would another club bid full value, knowing that you dont want the player at your club any longer. No one bids top dollar for rejects.

Let's say i am playing Liege and i have a Belgian player 120/130 , he is obviously not good enough to play for me and his value is around 1.5m , he can play in Austria , Poland , Bulgaria even Denmark , 1.5m is not that big , even Cypriot clubs pay that money ...

The thing is that the clubs from non active leagues will not bid for him unless you open the editor and tick "sugar daddy" in all of them ...

Last year Olympiakos bought the "reject" LuaLua from Portsmouth paying his full price (3m+2.5m if the club wins the league) , he was not good enough for the Premiership but he was good for the Greek league ( very good to say the truth) , due to some discipline problems he was sold to an Arabic team (UAE or something) for like 5m ...again full price.

As a bottom comment i have to say again the same thing, make all grey players CA 1 and then we will see if the market gets alive or not .

rules have changed a lot. fa's positions towards player-club negotiations keep on changing. it gets harder to get rid of players in real life too, high compensations are on the table most of the time. but a rarely playing unhappy player would be more lenient for mutual termination.

new game is said to feature better transfer module. let's wait and see...

What I'd like is since we can sign our greyed players the other clubs should be able to do the same and I play a 'Super' League with all the best teams in 1 league and i find after say 15 years all the other countries end up having no players and i find it stupid they don't produce any players or buy any when i am using a large database, so i think that should be fixed.

That's an interesting point Postie, I may try that.

The in-game hints tell you to set status as "not needed" to increase the chances of selling him, and that's normally what I do.

Maybe I'll set it to "Important 1st team player" to drum up interest...

yeah i spotted that in the in game hints as well.

i dont do everything at the same time though. i findn if i trasnfer list someone, drop their status to not needed and offer them around all at the same time i get no offers.

offer player out.

then transfer list and offer

then drop squad status to back up and offer

then drop squad status to not needed and offer