Accidental Bankrupcy

Considering my usual level of financial management in previous versions this was slightly stupid of me.

Having scraped Swindon up two season in a row to the Premiership I thought I would ask my board for enough fund to win the title. Optomistic but unlikely. They gave me enough to sign some good players and I snapped a few bargains up from expired contracts.

The first transfer window closes and I still have some money left and I'm performing well in the league. Naturally bigger clubs start taking an interest in my players.

In the meantime, I start snapping up foriegn youngsters on overpayed contracts and ask the board for more money which stupidly they provide.

Then I accepted a few good offers for my players to sell at the end of the season. I presumed by then I would have done well and could get better players.

The upside being I could now afford more players from the improved transfer kitty. So I now start bidding for players to sign in January on money I won't get until July. Why did I not see this coming?

So January comes round and I have a massive squad with a wage bill my tin pot income can't compete with and I slip further into the red (which I didn't start too far from that season).

By March I had been deducted 9 points and gone into adminstration twice! Eventually we my chairman put us up for sale having pumped in a few million to bail us out.

On the positive side...I went on to win the Premiership and while the takeover lasted until the end of July, I ended up with a tycoon chairman from the Ukraine who kindly gave me £150m for players and improved my facilities.

In all my years of CM/FM enjoyment (14 I think?) this is possibly the most fun/stressed/stupid situation I have been in.

Anyone got any similar memories?

im normally quite good with my pennies but lets face it...you won the league and ended up with £150 million to spend....not a bad days work

I once went bankrupt on one of the v old games when i signed a player on 25,000 a week, but for some reason he ended up with 250,000 a week, (this was a while back).

im normally quite good with my pennies but lets face it...you won the league and ended up with £150 million to spend....not a bad days work

And I hated my chairman anyway. I did lose my wonderkid for peanuts thanks to my administrators.

I once went bankrupt on one of the v old games when i signed a player on 25,000 a week, but for some reason he ended up with 250,000 a week, (this was a while back).

david beckham?

david beckham?

Someone somewhere in LA is trying to figure out how that happened...

somehow I find it hard to believe you won the league in your first season in the premier with swindon..

somehow I find it hard to believe you won the league in your first season in the premier with swindon..

This is the most paranoid forum I've ever seen.

Don't listen to Jim Little, he's not a Ukrainian billionaire!

That is a tremendous tale, SparkoVanBasten!

I'm quite amused at the mental image .. can't imagine how stressed you must have been watching the money bleed away, administrators selling your un-sold players, and the threat of sacking via board takeover looming over your head as you raced to win the title before the axe fell.

It does bring up a point, however - shouldn't your chairman have been smart enough to see this coming before the club fell into the red?

It seems to me like the sort of situation where he has a couple of options, including a "bridge loan", e.g., taking out a loan for the five months' of operating costs from Feb 1st to July 1st, interest due monthly, repayment of the balance due July 2nd. He could tell that the club were "good for it" by looking forward to the July 1st transfers-out.

If he performed that kind of "look ahead" a bit earlier, say prior to the close of the January window, he might have declared that the club needed to put some veterans up for sale in the January window to trim the wage budget and raise capital; I'd strongly prefer to see my chairman selling players for that reason than for the typical "offer too good to refuse" comment (esp. when we have plenty in the bank).

. . .

One of my favorite saves involved a team with crippling loan payments struggling in the then-Conference ... it took me two injections of capital from my board, a lucky F.A. Cup Third Round tie vs Premier league opposition, and three times having the damned-if-I-do, damned-if-I-don't choice of selling my most promising young players for less than I knew they were worth but enough to keep my club afloat for another couple months ...

Four seasons of that before I finally earned promotion in the fifth, it was one of the most stressful games I'd ever played .. and at the same time, remains far more enjoyable to me than a game where I'm free and clear, just working my way up the football pyramid!

I accidentally a football team.

dunno why the new board didn't sack you seeing you brought upon the financial difficulties that caused the old board to sell the club

That is a tremendous tale, SparkoVanBasten!

I'm quite amused at the mental image .. can't imagine how stressed you must have been watching the money bleed away, administrators selling your un-sold players, and the threat of sacking via board takeover looming over your head as you raced to win the title before the axe fell.

It does bring up a point, however - shouldn't your chairman have been smart enough to see this coming before the club fell into the red?

It seems to me like the sort of situation where he has a couple of options, including a "bridge loan", e.g., taking out a loan for the five months' of operating costs from Feb 1st to July 1st, interest due monthly, repayment of the balance due July 2nd. He could tell that the club were "good for it" by looking forward to the July 1st transfers-out.

If he performed that kind of "look ahead" a bit earlier, say prior to the close of the January window, he might have declared that the club needed to put some veterans up for sale in the January window to trim the wage budget and raise capital; I'd strongly prefer to see my chairman selling players for that reason than for the typical "offer too good to refuse" comment (esp. when we have plenty in the bank).

. . .

One of my favorite saves involved a team with crippling loan payments struggling in the then-Conference ... it took me two injections of capital from my board, a lucky F.A. Cup Third Round tie vs Premier league opposition, and three times having the damned-if-I-do, damned-if-I-don't choice of selling my most promising young players for less than I knew they were worth but enough to keep my club afloat for another couple months ...

Four seasons of that before I finally earned promotion in the fifth, it was one of the most stressful games I'd ever played .. and at the same time, remains far more enjoyable to me than a game where I'm free and clear, just working my way up the football pyramid!

The bridging loan is quite a good idea. At one point he chipped in with some money but that was to be repaid over the next 10 years.

I can really criticise my chairman for his lack of foresight as I am as much to blame.

dunno why the new board didn't sack you seeing you brought upon the financial difficulties that caused the old board to sell the club

Why sack him? He brought success to the club and that's what mattered. The financial issues are surely down to the board of the club. THe manager asks, the board either agree or disagree. In this case they agreed without looking at the whole picture and so went bankrupt!

Essentially not his fault!