Player demanding money to leave

In my current Liverpool save, one of my midfielders had been moaning whole season asking for first team football, though on off I did play him in some games depending on tactics and players availability. End of season an offer from Arsenal came in for him, although its a rival club, I reluctantly accepted as I do not want to keep an unhappy player and hamper his playing opportunity. But now he demanded money to pay him for him to leave until his contract with the club ends. What the hell? He wants to play regular football, so I am willing to let him go, and he now wants me to pay him to play for my rival club !!!

I am going to cancel the offer and just let him rot in my reserves

Yep. Pretty much what I would do.

I tend to agree, depending on how long you have to pay him. The fee you'll be paying will usually be less than his wages. You want to pay as little as possible for players you're not using anyway, so yeah, even though it feels incredibly wrong, I tend to go with paying them off

I tend to pay them off - at least I get some income that way and reduce the wages.

If he were to rot in the reserves I'd get no money at all and would be paying his full contract.

Its a cut off your nose to spite your face situation. Why you would rather let him sit in the reserves, getting full pay, rather than sell him and have to pay a fraction of his wages is beyond me.

Its a cut off your nose to spite your face situation. Why you would rather let him sit in the reserves, getting full pay, rather than sell him and have to pay a fraction of his wages is beyond me.

For me a blanket rule is impossible, the decision must be made on a case-by-case basis.

If you are selling a useless £100 kpw player who wants £16.75 kpw for another year, then of course you sell without a second thought.

If you are selling £175 kpw Fernando Torres for £0 and he wants £110 kpw for another couple of years, the temptation is to keep him, not to punish him but in the hopes that in another window you may be able to negotiate either a sale for bigger than £0 or for him to demand a lower wage continuation.

It has to be case-by-case, and in my second scenario you can never know if you got it right

There is very little chance of you ever getting a better bid for a player you have relegated to the reserves and dont play, infact, your more likely to have to pay more to get rid of him, and the very real chance you will have to see him through to the end of his contract.

For me, there is never a reason not to accept this kinda thing and get rid of a player you no longer want.

Its a cut off your nose to spite your face situation. Why you would rather let him sit in the reserves, getting full pay, rather than sell him and have to pay a fraction of his wages is beyond me.

Did you miss the bit about the rival club?

I'd do the same, but I guess it depends on your finances and desperation.

Did you miss the bit about the rival club?

I'd do the same, but I guess it depends on your finances and desperation.

Even better then if a rival club is taking a player off you, who you dont play. Weakens their squad compared to yours. I'd happily pay for that to happen

Even better then if a rival club is taking a player off you, who you dont play. Weakens their squad compared to yours. I'd happily pay for that to happen

Why would it weaken their squad? Signing a player strengthens their squad. Losing a player weakens your squad, even if they are a backup.

It's fair to assume that a player you never field, isn't your strongest player. Ergo if a player that's not good enough for your squad signs for your rivals, it weakens them. If it strengthens them, they weren't even on your level.

Yeah exactly.

Just selling a player doesnt weakend your squad, if he never played and was never good enough, he was just a drain of resources. If your rival is buying him, they either are not good enough compared to you, or they are buying a poor player who wont really strengthen their line up. Either way, you come out on top.

It's fair to assume that a player you never field, isn't your strongest player. Ergo if a player that's not good enough for your squad signs for your rivals, it weakens them. If it strengthens them, they weren't even on your level.

It doesn't necessarily weaken the club that is trying to sign him - if that was the case, why are they trying to sign him in the first place? The only way I can see this being the case is if you can guarantee he will be disruptive and rubbish enough to actually hurt Arsenal - but nobody has a crystal ball, and the impression I'm getting from the OP is that he's not being sold because he is Joey Barton reincarnated.

To be honest, if we use my Torres example above, the reason I didn't sell him for zero and mega wages was that he did make 2 sub appearances for me after I turned down the offer, including 1 goal. (I realise this is different from the discussion's never).

I then in the next window sold him to Everton for £100k and only £70 kpw help. I can't be bothered doing the maths, and given his wages I probably did still lose out financially than if I had accepted the first offer, but I'm happy with the way I conducted business and used the case-by-case model.

Perhaps I've just not seen it, but the only annoying thing about this scenario is that you never get it in reverse, ie you never see a player you're about to sign ask his former club to pay half his wages, it's only when you're the selling club.

Perhaps I've just not seen it, but the only annoying thing about this scenario is that you never get it in reverse, ie you never see a player you're about to sign ask his former club to pay half his wages, it's only when you're the selling club.

I think I have seen one screenshot on here of it happening, but not totally sure. But I have absolutely never seen it in game in hundreds/thousands of purchases.

What about a player just signing the lower contract with the other team even after you reject helping out? I feel like I've seen a screen of that once, but again not myself and not sure

It wouldn't surprise me as the AI has (and has always had) a massive advantage over the human player in terms of contracts. I've lost count of the amount of players who I couldn't stretch my budget to sign, only to find him subsequently sign for an inferior team at a fraction of the weekly wage. It's the single most annoying 'feature' of FM for me, and it stretches back several versions. Ruins the immersion somewhat.

It wouldn't surprise me as the AI has (and has always had) a massive advantage over the human player in terms of contracts. I've lost count of the amount of players who I couldn't stretch my budget to sign, only to find him subsequently sign for an inferior team at a fraction of the weekly wage. It's the single most annoying 'feature' of FM for me, and it stretches back several versions. Ruins the immersion somewhat.

Found this as well. Even more annoying is sometimes I have my sights set on a player and his club just won't sell for anything less than an astronomical fee. Then suddenly an AI club comes along & they're willing to sell for a reasonable fee.

Now I get why a player would rather sign for club A than club B, but why a club (from a different league, mind) wouldn't want to sell a player to me for double what Barca offers (to just give an example) is beyond me.

It's fair to assume that a player you never field, isn't your strongest player. Ergo if a player that's not good enough for your squad signs for your rivals, it weakens them. If it strengthens them, they weren't even on your level.

What if you've got 3 world class strikers and one continental class striker and decide to sell the 4th choice to your rivals, who have a better defence and midfield than you but a weaker attack? This player could be the missing link needed strengthen their squad.

Why else would they be buying him if he doesn't strengthen them?

Because its the FM AI, it couldnt spot a good player to save its life most of the time, which is why after two seasons of no league games, Scott Sinclair still gets in every single England squad, and plays. The AI doesnt always buy players because they are better than what they have.

Perhaps I've just not seen it, but the only annoying thing about this scenario is that you never get it in reverse, ie you never see a player you're about to sign ask his former club to pay half his wages, it's only when you're the selling club.

It happens, I had screenshots from a previous version when it happened to me.

The reason human users don't encounter it as often is:

A) Because they tend to buy from smaller clubs in general and therefore are already increasing a players wage.

&

B) They give into players demands on average more than AI clubs do to secure the signing.

Because its the FM AI, it couldnt spot a good player to save its life most of the time, which is why after two seasons of no league games, Scott Sinclair still gets in every single England squad, and plays. The AI doesnt always buy players because they are better than what they have.

I see this a great deal. The worst being that Lukaku wasn't played for two full seasons (well, seven total appearances, and he wasn't injured), so I kept my eye on him for when he'd complain about playing time and demand to be transferred, and then I got a notice about him signing a four-year mega-deal. He sat on the bench the following season, too. Of course I'm not implying Lukaku is crap, just that the AI has no smarts about who to sign. If it did, it surely wouldn't have signed a player to a huge deal after averaging 3.5 appearances per year.

Because its the FM AI, it couldnt spot a good player to save its life most of the time, which is why after two seasons of no league games, Scott Sinclair still gets in every single England squad, and plays. The AI doesnt always buy players because they are better than what they have.

But it does sometimes and maybe this is just one of those occasions.

Perhaps I've just not seen it, but the only annoying thing about this scenario is that you never get it in reverse, ie you never see a player you're about to sign ask his former club to pay half his wages, it's only when you're the selling club.

You would never get a message about. The selling club doesn't pay the wages at his new club. The selling club merely pays the difference between his old wage and his new, lower wage.

If you sign back-up players and pay them less than their current contract, odds are that he's getting paid by his former club as well.

You would never get a message about. The selling club doesn't pay the wages at his new club. The selling club merely pays the difference between his old wage and his new, lower wage.

If you sign back-up players and pay them less than their current contract, odds are that he's getting paid by his former club as well.

You get a message 100%.

Its included when you sign a player it confirms how much his previous club is paying.

Sorry for the silence, just got home to turn on PC.

Ok, first thing first, the player in question here is James Ward-Prowse. I know, he is one of the highly-rated players in FM, which is why I signed him 4 seasons ago in my save. Now I have a rather big squad and I can't possibly play him week-in-week-out, especially when the current first eleven are playing well. As I said, I have no intention to sell him and he didn't put in any transfer request either. I don't need the money, I have 80 million pound sitting in the transfer budget not spent and I am way below the wage budget. Its just that he moaned for first team football whole season and so happen during the recent window Arsenal came in for him. So I thought why not, must as well cash in. I would have expected him to grab the opportunity of playing for Arsenal with both hands and a big Thank you to me for letting him go. Never had thought that he would demand money to leave. As some one mentioned above, why would Arsenal want to sign a player that doesn't strengthen their squad, So why should I be paying for a player that are going to play for my rival club and may even become their key player?

Anyway, I had since sold him to Celtic and he had my blessings:D

For me a blanket rule is impossible, the decision must be made on a case-by-case basis.

If you are selling a useless £100 kpw player who wants £16.75 kpw for another year, then of course you sell without a second thought.

If you are selling £175 kpw Fernando Torres for £0 and he wants £110 kpw for another couple of years, the temptation is to keep him, not to punish him but in the hopes that in another window you may be able to negotiate either a sale for bigger than £0 or for him to demand a lower wage continuation.

It has to be case-by-case, and in my second scenario you can never know if you got it right

Case by case for sure.

I'll generally try to avoid selling to a rival, but if, for example, that player is an inconsistent performer on the field and a moaner off it, I don't care how good his attributes are, I'll sell him to my rival and happily pay part of his wage to make him their problem. It's like planting a mole

I'm describing specific transfer here, but won't name drop.