Sale Money

I've not really got into FM09 yet - got it installed and all and started a go just yesterday - but this question comes from playing FM08 and i assume is relevant to the newest version.

When you sell a player, how come you get so little of it to re-invest? Most of it just gets guzzled up by the club and a tiny fraction is added to your transfer budget. Which seems odd, as it gets to the point where i see no purpose whatsoever to sell a player, other than just to get him off my books. I would never think "oh, i could sell my star man and buy three or four good players with the money", for example. Because the money wouldn't be there to re-invest.

I was playing in the Norwegian league and sold a player for i think it was £90k, and only £18k went into my transfer budget. That's a fifth i have available to re-spend. In reality that would equate to Liverpool selling Torres for £40m, and having £8m left to replace him with.

I appreciate not all the money from transfer sales goes directly back into the manager's pockets, but the proprortion seems unrealistic. There is no reason to sell other than if you want to get rid of someone from the wage bill. And the worst thing is, when players demand to leave, you're left in a terrible position because you have so little to re-invest with. A lot is also lost from the possible "wheeler dealer" approach, taking bargains on at the right time, using them for a season or two and then selling them on for their actual price. Or taking young players on, improving them and selling them on.

The only thing that would make sense is that it's relative to the financial state of your club, and that if your club is struggling to manage their books they would need to take larger chunks of transfer income and leave you with little to re-spend. That's realistic, that would happen in real life. Then if you're at a big club whose doing well financially, you'll get a larger portion of it into your transfer budget because they can afford to hand you larger budgets.

Is there a reason for this that i'm missing?

If you thought you could sell the player, it might be the view that you deem him uneeded. Therefore the board will hoard the money to ensure the long term financial stability of the club.

pretty sure its proportionate to how your balance is doing, in my game if ive spent my budget and am close to or in the red for balance then they give me less to spend if i sell a player than if i sold him when i had 50m balance, u can check how much ur going to get in finances

It is depending on the clubs financial status and its not new ,,it was in last years game. I went unemployed in last years game and took the job at Sparta Rotterdam,, had NO transfer budget for about 2 seasons and whenever I sold a player the Board said thankyou and took the cash.

And it does happen in real life,,take for eg when Rangers sold Allan Hutton to Spurs ,, Walter Smith didnt get 8/9 mil back to spend. not sure what we got for cuellar but that probably paid for this years players so in effect the board kept the money for Hutton or a good proportion,,,Same i remember when we sold Boumsong for 8mil ,,its a annoying but realistic part of football management

It depends on the club and their current finances.

For example in my current Sunderland game the board is in good shape, about £15 million in the bank after the first season and while I was not given a huge transfer budget, only about £7 million, about 80% of my sale funds are going into my transfer budget.

The contrast would be my first game with Bristol City, I screwed up for the first 2 seasons, paying way too much for player wages and selling a few players at a loss. 3rd season came round with the team about £10 million in debt (which for a championship club is quite a lot) and as such I was only getting about 15% of my sale fees for transfers.