SUGGESTION- Exchange rates

If a mod would kindly add one of those bubble/cloud/idea things that look like pencils...

I conviently have this quote to add here:

is the current exchange rates going to put in the next patch? not much difference between € and £ now

Personally, that should be something obvious to add. However, what about fluncating exchange rates?

Situations when this could add to the game:

• Fees between countries with differenturating exchange rates (obviously).
  
• If a currency is doing relatively poorly, clubs will look for domestic transfers (or at least, transfers from countries that use the same currency) rather than spreading their wings and buying big from abroad.
  
• Likewise, if a currency is doing relatively well, it will take lower bids to secure players from weaker currencies. Robinho, for example, would now set City back for £42m according to an article by the Times from Friday (I think it was Friday, at least). That's a second greatest sum in the history of football if I remember correctly, though that's not taking inflation and the strengths of all four currencies concerned (Zidane's fee would be converted from Italian coinage to French Francs to the Sterling Pound, Robinho's has been reported in pounds and Euros with the strong Euro pulling up the fee).
  
• Player's wage demands would change accordingly- Shevchenko would probably be on a much higher amount if he signed for Chelsea now, for example. If Lampard wanted an improved contract now instead of a year ago, then Chelsea would have to offer significantly more to ward off Barcelona. However, it shouldn't affect the wage demands of players in the lower leagues who have spent their careers in England.
  
• Prize money. Champions League money is paid in Swiss cash (the name of which escapes me), and as the Swiss economy is getting weaker faster than the British and European markets, the amounts received are actually going up. However, most other prize money is paid in the country's currency, so that shouldn't be affected by inflation.
  
• Money raised from sales of the "brand" abroad. Having a Japanese player should be worth more or less depending on the relative economies, for example, and the same for feeder clubs.
  
• Sponsorship. Manchester United, West Ham and West Brom have had sponsors go bust recently. I'm against sponsors going bust, but perhaps the investment given by new sponsors should be reduced at times of financial hardship?
  
• Likewise, maybe the chance of being taken over by a rich new owner could be reduced during a "credit crunch"? If you do get taken over, perhaps the amounts invested should be reduced?
  
• Those both work both ways- during times when a certain currency is strong, sponsorship and new ownership could be easier to come by and more rewarding.
  

Any other suggestions?

Oh, and test:

although i think the idea is good. i don't think we need another factor in the finance model at the moment. As it is the finance model is not great and anymore complication will just make it more complex and less accessible.

Well reasoned and worded post

I was thinking about this the other day, and agree that exchange rates should fluctuate. However, whilst I would enjoy it, this may make the game too financial for some players who just want to manage, so I'd suggest this could be a tick-box option when starting a game, like "enable first window" and "enable player attribute masking", etc.

I'm not too sure if the credit crunch should be factored in though, it's too unpredictable, and it looks like it's not preventing too many clubs atm (eg Man City, Man Utd and Tottenham have all spent over 12 mil already)

I wasn't suggesting factoring in the credit crunch, I just got bored of saying "economic hardship" and such repeatedly.

I can't help but think it would just complicate things. I don't think we need a finance simulator included

Tbh I don't think there is much need for this. The Finance system works good enough as it does already.

Swiss Francs for the record.

It's a brilliantly structured idea, but as mentioned would make things far less accessible for many users. I couldn't imagine wanting to waste time trying to factor in inflation and exchange rates of each country when weighing up possible transfer targets, took me long enough to work out the training schedules

While I agree with the principals of the OP I think there are bigger issues for Si to deal with before they look at including this in the game.

This makes some sense, but how would it work? How would the game decide on how the rates fluctuate against each other over time? Would it be random, or follow some sort of historical trend?

In reality transactions between any two companies or clubs that operate in different currencies can take a number of forms - it could be in either clubs currency, or even in a third one. It's an oversimplification to say a British club buying a player from a European team would necessarily be more expensive for them now. In any case, this kind of thing is way above the manager's station, they're hardly going to care.

For what it's worth though, it would be interesting to see a more dynamic finance system, with prize money, tv income etc going up and down. You can be fairly sure, for example, that the next Premiership TV deal will be significantly less than the current one. Would be very complex to implement realistically though...

This is the sort of suggestion I would love to see for long-term games ..

.. but I suspect its a bit "out of scope" for SI's target audience. I mean, if the average save-game only lasts three to five seasons, then it really wouldn't feel "realistic" to see large changes in the economic landscape.

But, for a fifty-year save-game, it feels really odd that there hasn't been any form of inflation, and that economic conditions are still the same across the globe!

This is the sort of suggestion I would love to see for long-term games ..

.. but I suspect its a bit "out of scope" for SI's target audience. I mean, if the average save-game only lasts three to five seasons, then it really wouldn't feel "realistic" to see large changes in the economic landscape.

But, for a fifty-year save-game, it feels really odd that there hasn't been any form of inflation, and that economic conditions are still the same across the globe!

I disagree. Look at how much the economy has changed in the last 18 months. So even for short term games it's pretty plausable.

Sure. But if FM 2006 had included the possibility for such wild economic swings as we've seen in the last 18 months, people would have been complaining that it was "horribly broken"!

How about NO

This is the sort of suggestion I would love to see for long-term games ..

.. but I suspect its a bit "out of scope" for SI's target audience. I mean, if the average save-game only lasts three to five seasons, then it really wouldn't feel "realistic" to see large changes in the economic landscape.

But, for a fifty-year save-game, it feels really odd that there hasn't been any form of inflation, and that economic conditions are still the same across the globe!

I quite like the fact that even 50 years from now, Fm still represents what we have in the game today.

For me, this would make it unrealistic, even thought it wouldn't if you get my drift. What I mean is that I want my football game represent what happens today, the day that Si start adding features which, effectively, forecast the future is the day I will probably lose my interest in long term saves.

Excellent and well written first post, congrats to the OP!

Basically, as Riz says, there have been so many financial "experts" in the past 18 months predicting how the economy etc is going to go that have been shot down in flames, because they got it wrong. Now SI are a software company, so how would they have a chance of predicting/modelling whats going to happen to global finances in the future.

It would be hard to implement i guess too, and therefore could result in throwing up conflicts with other parts of the game, and IMO is just another thing that could cause problems. The finance module seems pretty ok ATM and there are other things that could be sorted out first (sliders )

It makes a change though to have good ideas and constructive discussion about something!

Stupid pointless idea, hope its never implemented