Financial issues with Man City

Can anyone else advise me on this.

I'm in the 4th season with Man City, and previous finishes were: 8th (UEFA cup), 4th, 4th, and this season I am top in February. I spent pretty much all my transfer budget the first 2 seasons, but since then I have been more frugal, as at the end of the 2nd season we were 8 million in the red, and Thaksin had to bail us out.

The thing is, I am 500k under my wage budget, and always have been, with the board pestering me to 'attract the players needed for success', the average attendance is 57,000, and I'm through to the knockout stages of the CL, yet I'm still 2 million in the red in February. This will all change when all the money comes in at the end of the season, but surely with me having 16 million in the transfer kitty still, and being way under my wage budget things should be looking more healthy?

Are the boards just stupid? My friend managed to bankrupt Newcastle by spending the money they gave him, despite being under his wage budget. Nowadays I never spend all my transfer budget to avoid the same situation.

Any thoughts?

cant imagine the mess you would be in if you used you budgets up, maybe the clubs isnt gettingenough from merchandise, its the only thing i can think of, try getting a feeder club

Alot of clubs run there budget as per there expectations. Clubs will give you transfer funds related to how they expect your team to perform. If they expect you to win the league they will give you the relevant transfer funds for this, based on the income they expect to recieve over the season, minus any outstading monthly trasnfer payments for that particular season.

Success is necessary!!!! You could bankrupt them easily if you stick to their transfer budget and don't keep an eye on the bank balance. A few chairmen on the game and in particular these foreign owners seem to like providing a bigger transfer budget than actual money available, so if the player spends it all you'll end up in the red. At Roma they always offered me about £7m more for transfers than was in the bank account.

IMO next season don't take any notice of the transfer budget and look at the bank balance to see how much you actually have available without going into the red.

The thing is I'm wet and only ever say I'll qualify for Europe through the league, even though I have offered a 'title challenge' for the last 2 years, so it makes even less sense. I have feeder clubs, and I have Diego, so merchandise shouldn't be a problem.

We did expand the stadium though, and improve the youth academy, maybe that's the issue?

It does seem strange. If I manage Plymouth or someone I can always get them rolling in cash by having a tiny wage bill, clearly not the same with Man City.

I'll just have to win the league I suppose...

Put it this way, I was Bayern Munich 6 league titles in 6 years and 1.2m wage budget of which I was only using 600k. I lost money every month, but due to the finance section in FM being quite limited I don't know what it was being spent on.

All you can really do is limit your spending as much as possible and maintain success as much as possible.

On my Man City file i got given around £70m to spend, spent £91m as i made £21m in sales. Finished 5th in the first season after losing to Pompey who stopped me getting 4th from liverpool on the final day. Won the League Cup though.

The next season I spent £46m and made £33m in sales, won the Uefa Cup but finished 5th again. During that season i was around £18m in debt and Thaskin pumped about £5m into the club for running costs. I was about 500k under the wage budget aswell.

Now In pre-season now the club has around £13m in the bank and he's given me £34m to spend

Not sure if there's an issue with Man City. Perhaps there's a hidden attribute for Chairmen's financial accumen.

I joined them about 4 seasons in, was well within wage and transfer budget, but suddenly whenever the media mentioned the club it was "penniless Man City". I was deep in the red by Christmas and only receiving 10% of my transfer revenue.

I jumped ship after only 8 months in charge and legging it to Tottenham to save them from relegation. Got into Europe. No financial problems.

If you don't have the cash on hand then pay it over 12 or 24 months and wait for the cash flow situation to improve.

At the end of each season you will get your winnings paid to you and if you won something important you have a major influx of cash. The budget is set taking into considering the expectations and the expected cash flow towards the end of the season. if you don't have the cash, but expect it later on, make payments to avoid going in debt.

One thing that i never used to think about what how much bonuses effected my bank balance.

I mean if you've got a player on 10k appearance fee a game or whatever and he plays most of the games thats over 300,000 extra on just one player. It seriously mounts up.

I've never had troble with city im in my 3rd season and im 42million in the black and i've won the league both previous seasons.

I alsomake a healthy profit each month of about 1.2 mil

Originally posted by manc101:

I've never had troble with city im in my 3rd season and im 42million in the black and i've won the league both previous seasons.

That's why you are ok and why success is necessary to survive as a manager of City, Newcastle etc.

im man city and my debts are - 15 mill!! that is a lot of money!

Don't worry guys. I won the CL yesterday, although we choked and came 3rd in the league. Nevertheless, a famous victory over Man Utd in Cardiff has swelled the coffers significantly. Board still only satisfied though, despite me achieving all the objectives in each competition, and winning the cup with the big ears.

On another note, appearance fees do add up, I've realised I'm paying Fred around £5.25 million a year, so he's out the door in the summer. Youth is the way forward.

Hahaha...

In my Derby game I rode my luck all the way to the top. I can't remember a season where I wasn't £10-15 million into debt. Well I can, the first couple of seasons. If I didn't spend I would be saving up some serious cash (which I am now). Now my wage budget is something like £1.9 million (I'm around £600k under it), my transfer budgets are only around £40-50 million. If you're feeling lucky go for broke. If I were to stop winning the title over and over again and didn't do the same in the Champions League I would go bust in a season. However if I were to sit on the side of caution I wouldn't be in my current situation.

All I've got to say is don't touch Genie Scount with a 20' pole, I know someone who uses it... They managed Man U and never won the title. It's probably not because of Genie Scout, but I'm sure it does damage. The key there is getting players that will actually be worth it. For example, you spot someone with a PA of 199 and bid your heart out and end up signing him for £51,000,000. But that doesn't matter because he's amazing, but wait... He's never done well for you and his 5 year £160,000 per week contract is really hurting the club. Hmmm... Maybe he just needs time. 4 years (averaging 6.41 for his average rating) later you sell him for a cool £2.5 million as you get relegated from the Premier League.

The only advice I could ever really give about signings is just, don't go for anyone over £30,000,000... EVER! Never try and sign from big clubs, you will be ripped off. Try and find good players who are unsettled or out of favour at their club (that does sound strange if you're going for the title, but believe me on that). Example A: Genero Zeefuik signed for Liverpool for £22,000,000. Did well in the few matches that he got. However due to a lack of match time he went down as the worst signing of the season. Over the off season I snapped him up for £14,000,000. Went on to be the signing of the season after scoring 37 goals, not my top scorer, but he did his job. Why did I think that a Liverpool dud would be good, because of what I saw him do against me. Another example (which is yet to play itself out): Steffan Nielson, an amazing midfielder, but due to a sudden collapse at Arsenal he's handed in a transfer request. Before then Arsenal wanted £55,000,000 for him, I've signed him for £15,500,000. Though his £98,000 per week contract is a bit worrying.

Originally posted by seamet:

Youth is the way forward.

I'm afraid you're right and if you aren't one of the top teams I feel that you basically turn into a selling/feeder club. Even with Bayern Munich