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is monthly payments = cheating?


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hey

so i manage in poland, and i never bothered to look into the "monthly payments" transfer feature, but since i did, i won the champions league with a club from poland...

my club is only worth 25 million (http://img4host.net/upload/181818054f8ee93de8e3c.png) i managed to win the champions league last season (http://img4host.net/upload/181819154f8ee98393555.png)

which seems a little bit off for my taste, just because i simply bought the best players on each position avaible to me, just on monthly payments...

are you guys using this feature?

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Wouldnt call it cheating, but its little looser in FM than in real life, and you don get as punished heavily financially in game as you would in real life.

Personally, at most i pay over 24 months, though that's rare, its usually all up front, or occasionally half up front half over 2 years.

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Correct me if I'm wrong on the following points but:

a) I think you can only offer monthly payments if the total purchase price is available in your transfer budget (this is the bit I'm unsure of. If it is I'm surprised SI haven't put something to the effect I mentioned in the earlier sentance

b) The AI manager cheats also if this is a cheat since I've fairly often received transfer offers from AI managers where the finance is spread of multiple months

I suppose in general if you are inclined to cheat then there's always neen the option of:

a) replaying a lost match

b) adding a "human" manager to a AI managed team to buy that player you want at a cheaper price

Self control has always been an issue for some......is that why my long sight is slowly getting worse :D

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like have been mentioned, its very rare that clubs pay full transfer fees upfront irl, so its not unrealistic or cheating or anything like that, however its often to easy to buy players and get good deals on the game, so stuff like this is probably easy to exploit to your benefit

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It is something you have to keep an eye on.

It may seem easy and in some eyes "cheating" but it can really come back and bite you if you do not handle it right.

If you have the chance of a really good player that will add real value too your team then by all means go for it.

If on the other hand you are just blindly buying every player over these monthly payments and your team do not preform in basically all competitions then you could have some real problems.

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As many have already said paying a transfer fee over instalments is perfectly realistic, the feature does have a few things wrong though.

There should be more options than just monthly payments, we should have quarterly, half yearly & yearly payment options.

The full amount agreed should be deducted from that years transfer budget, if I have a £10m budget & agree a transfer of £5m over 4 years I should only have £5m remaining in my budget.

Correct league & FA rules should be applied to the structure of any payments, iirc transfers between English clubs must be paid up with 2 years (1 year if between Premier league clubs) & a similar time limit is in place for transfers between two clubs who are ultimately governed by UEFA.

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As many have already said paying a transfer fee over instalments is perfectly realistic, the feature does have a few things wrong though.

There should be more options than just monthly payments, we should have quarterly, half yearly & yearly payment options.

The full amount agreed should be deducted from that years transfer budget, if I have a £10m budget & agree a transfer of £5m over 4 years I should only have £5m remaining in my budget.

Correct league & FA rules should be applied to the structure of any payments, iirc transfers between English clubs must be paid up with 2 years (1 year if between Premier league clubs) & a similar time limit is in place for transfers between two clubs who are ultimately governed by UEFA.

I could be wrong but surely if a club buys a player at say 10 million but asks for it to be paid over 5 years then the other club would insist on interest on those payments?

I do not think this is in the game but any team these days is run like a bank and surely if you buy a player over 5 years it should been seen as a loan and charged the interest on those payments,that would be more life like and take away a lot of the value of buying players in that method in game.

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I could be wrong but surely if a club buys a player at say 10 million but asks for it to be paid over 5 years then the other club would insist on interest on those payments?

I do not think this is in the game but any team these days is run like a bank and surely if you buy a player over 5 years it should been seen as a loan and charged the interest on those payments,that would be more life like and take away a lot of the value of buying players in that method in game.

I doubt that clubs charge interest as that would probably require them to hold a credit license otherwise it could be considered unauthorised lending, what is more likely is that the transfer fee would be slightly lower if paid in a single payment/more if paid over a few years.

This is just one part of the wider issue relating to transfers in the game, as things stand the whole system is just about satisfactory in that it isn't catastrophically broke but it certainly needs an overhaul.

The pressure on FM13 to be a truly revolutionary leap forward is getting greater & greater.

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I dont think its a cheat, it happens in real life.

My only problem, in terms of personal enjoyment, is if you are at a club where, instead of having real financial trouble, the board just restructure the debt.

This happened to me at peterborough, I had been spending millions on 48 month payments, and there were never any reprecussions, the board just kept restructuring the debt every summer, including enough to give me transfer budget, and I also made some from selling players. So even though i was getting into 40 million debt every year before it got changed to loans, and I had loan debt of around 200 million, nothing bad was happening to me, the board weren't angry and i still had the wage budget i needed to keep the team competetive, even winning the EPL in about the 9th season.

But even though I did that in january, I havent played a game on that file since, because it just feels hollow as the board arent at all bothered by my ridiculous spending.

I dont know if it is at every club that they dont care, or if peterborugh has an underwriter chairman or what, but it just spoiled it for me.

I want punished!

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I doubt that clubs charge interest as that would probably require them to hold a credit license otherwise it could be considered unauthorised lending

But they do.

There are many players that are loaned out and have in there contract "for games played","extra payment for promotion","extra payment after "X" amount of games".

The list goes on but I am sure every professional team has a credit license of some sort.

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Correct me if I'm wrong on the following points but:

a) I think you can only offer monthly payments if the total purchase price is available in your transfer budget (this is the bit I'm unsure of. If it is I'm surprised SI haven't put something to the effect I mentioned in the earlier sentance

I think it is half the installments.

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As many have already said paying a transfer fee over instalments is perfectly realistic, the feature does have a few things wrong though.

There should be more options than just monthly payments, we should have quarterly, half yearly & yearly payment options.

The full amount agreed should be deducted from that years transfer budget, if I have a £10m budget & agree a transfer of £5m over 4 years I should only have £5m remaining in my budget.

Correct league & FA rules should be applied to the structure of any payments, iirc transfers between English clubs must be paid up with 2 years (1 year if between Premier league clubs) & a similar time limit is in place for transfers between two clubs who are ultimately governed by UEFA.

I would prefer that any money due to be paid out in installments for a given year should be taken deducted from that year's budget.

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I've only ever used monthly payments once, and that was before I realised it all comes out of the budget at the time of the transfer and not in controlled bursts. I don't like continuing expenditure (over and above wages) on a transfer, so I try to just pay up front (and try to negotiate incoming fees to be up front too as selling a player for 500K when 400K is over 30 months is a false economy). It might mean I have to sell before I can buy but it also means that boards trust me with their money a bit more so it sort of evens itself out really.

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But they do.

There are many players that are loaned out and have in there contract "for games played","extra payment for promotion","extra payment after "X" amount of games".

The list goes on but I am sure every professional team has a credit license of some sort.

Those are performances related clauses rather than a 15% interest charge for paying over 4 months.

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Those are performances related clauses rather than a 15% interest charge for paying over 4 months.

I wouldn't think interest would be added to the payment spread over multiple months. Any financial factoring would be included in the total sum soread over that period. The monthly payment would be exactly that..the monthly payment agreed by the months agreed

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Those are performances related clauses rather than a 15% interest charge for paying over 4 months.
I wouldn't think interest would be added to the payment spread over multiple months. Any financial factoring would be included in the total sum soread over that period. The monthly payment would be exactly that..the monthly payment agreed by the months agreed

Yeah this is what I was trying to say(maybe making a pretty poor job at it).

If a team agrees to buy a player for say 4 million but they want to pay it over 4 years then I am sure the other team sits down with them and says "no problem but if we had 4 million in our account for 4 years it would give us a total of 4.4 million with the interest(just a wild guess)so you will have to pay 4.4 million over 4 years with a fixed monthly sum".

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Definitely not cheating, happens all the time IRL. Also makes all the financial sense in the world, particularly if you are doing this as a lower league, rising, club.

Think about it. The sort of transfer fees you are taking on board (in advance) at the time of player purchase, are values for a team in the lower division. If your strategy is successful and you move up the leagues fairly rapidly, by the time these tranfer fees become due they will likely be very manageable since you will have a Premiership (or equivilent) transfer budget & turnover in the club.

Danger is more if you use this strategy whilst you're at the top.

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I use it all the time and it makes the game far too easy the way it's implemented currenlty.

On a 18m budget I bought 66m worth of players. Next season I was given a budget of 118m! So I bought a new team, totally nearly 300m.

They are mostly 24 or younger so I shouldn't have to buy any new players for at least 8 years. 48months is only 4 years.

The youngsters should be good enough by then, and on relatively low wages. So I reckon I won't be buying players for another decade at least, and if I do it will mostly be youngsters.

As long as I'm reaching Semi-Finals, and Finals and getting Champs League spots, the money will be fine.

Basically in 2 seasons - I bought a new team over the course of 4 years - which should last me 8 - 12 years.

With the odd buy for youngsters aged between 14-18 every season to keep the youth team and reserves going. I should be spending about €10m every season on youth - and nothing else for the next decade.

*Note - this is nothing new. This is how I play the game ALL the time. No matter what league, what division etc.

To add to the *Note - The above was done with Leeds! Promotion to Prem League. Next season = Champions League spot. Next Season = Champions League Finalists (along with League Cup and FA Cup).

I will also add the I won the League Cup with Leeds in my 1st Season and got to the Semi-Final of the FA Cup.

All thanks to 48 month deals!

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Since I've done my fair share of payments over time in my current save, this is what I've observed:

1 - All the payments for the current year comes out of your current transfer budget, so 12 / (total months) times the total transfer comes out of your budget.

2 - Clubs will ask for noticeably more money when paying over time as opposed to paying up front. Depending on the price, sometimes up to 50% more than projected by scouting.

3 - While transfer budgets in future years do not seem to be directly affected in a visible manner, the compounding of multiple payments over time affects your balance which will affect your budget. This also directly affects the salaries you can offer on new contracts.

4 - It's incredibly easy to get carried away with this and mess up your finances.

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iam more like with tyson on this, iam paying ridicoulus amount of monthly payments, but as long you keep playing in champions league and getting the money for the wins and stuff, its fine to keep everything at 0 at the end of the month pretty much

anyway kinda lost interest in my save after winning the champions league with such a low club, i feel like i kinda defeated the game lol no more motivation to play

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If you are a bigger club then I think it is better to pay up front. I always manage to do it and although most other teams buy my players in monthly installments it does keep me going financially a bit better over the season.

However when you are at a club that gives you less than 5m a season it sometimes needs to be done. Most other clubs with the same sort of financial situation will often offer in installments which leaves me short of money to buy the 4 or 5 players that I need to improve my squad. This in turn creates a knock on effect because I either have to pay the same way that I am receiving my money or simply go without.

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I think it works out to be the equivalent number of months in that period comes out of your budget.

So;

£14mil player transfer paid up front out of a £15mil transfer budget leaves £1mil. The balance is then reduced by £14mil immediately.

£14mil player transfer paid over 36 months reduces the budget by £4.6mil (The equivalent of 12months worth). The balance is then reduced by £388,888 every month for the next 36 months.

This gives people a false sense that the finances are still stable and continue to buy multiple players on monthly payments. Along with the other running expenses of a club (wages, etc), you will be making significant losses each month. If each year the balances evens out; (make loss over the entire year, but then TV revenue, prize money and season tickets bring the balance back to an acceptable level) then the monthly payments can be maintained.

I'm sure in real life if a manager had a transfer kitty of £15mil and bought a £14mil player on monthly payments almost all of it would be taken out of the budget. It's really only there for clubs that suffer cash flow problems and don't have the finances currently available to purchase outright. For instance, Corinthians bids for Tevez last season included payments over 3-4 years as they didn't have the finances currently available.

I find it useful for selling players as a constant stream of money into the club each month helps to cover running costs and wages. Therefore, for a long term solo club save the balance will continue to rise steadily and keep the club financially secure. If monthly payments are used to purchase players, the outgoings should be exceeded by the incomings and the period of months left should be noted. (eg. Don't have £3mil p/m incoming over 24 months covering £3mil p/m outgoings over 48 months.)

With the top leagues it's very easy to do the monthly payments as TV, prize money and season ticket income is far greater than the low leagues. For example, if you try doing massive monthly deals in the SPL your finances will get crippled unless you offset them with players sold.

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I quite often sell players in monthly instalments but prefer to buy upfront, as the regular income helps make my bank balance more stable across the year.

It would only be cheating if you were doing a challenge or playing a game against a friend in a one-season-only game.

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I was shrewd in the transfer market for years, and now my club has a bank balance of 800m, and my feeder club (Sevilla) has a bank balance of $300m. So I think its safe to say I managed the finances very well, and I can do whatever the hell I want for atleast a decade or more! I only accepted monthly payments if it increased the total transfer fee received. I used monthly payments all the time, but my average transfer (coming in, after 2+ decades) is for about $5m, and my transfer fee received on average is 9m. Having a financially stable club was one of my primary goals, primarily because of the mess Inter has gone through in recent years. And I also don't like feeling like I am spending the board or chairman's money! I am spending the money I made for the club! Period!

It is a good feeling, though, to know I don't HAVE to haggle with agents any more, but most of the time, I still do! So for the people who felt there was no challenge (after spending huge sums), I fear you have avoided the long-term repercussions of your actions. If you have instant success of course it means your team will likely not suffer financially from your decisions, and I can see how people would get tired of their board just bailing them out, without incident, year after year. But for me, when the board gave me $40m upon first joining the club, I promise myself that I will pay that money back within 5 years. Meaning, the club has to generate at leat $40m profit over the next couple years, whether it is from transfers, prize money, sponsors, doesn't matter.

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My opinion is that it is not cheating, but it does make the game too easy and as such I very rarely use it and if I do it's never for more than 50% of the total fee.

I agree that clubs do structure their transfers like this IRL, but the difference I think is that IRL clubs transfer budgets are more fluid and less tied to an individual season. This means that heavy spending on installments in one season will have much more of an effect on future transfer funds than currently programmed into the game.

I don't want to knock people who use installments as it to a degree helps them 'live the dream' of buying all the top stars and thats fine. Personally, I like to run a tight ship and buy bargains. ;)

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