Quick progression but lack of funds

I have always been an FM fan, but never felt the need to post on here, but on FM14, I took York City from League 2 to League 1 in my first season. Consolidated in League 1 on my second season, and got them up to the Championship in my third season.

However, my squad is minuscule. I don't even have enough players to fill my last substitute place. I cannot buy a player as I have no transfer budget, I cannot get a free in as I have no money to spend on wages, and I can't seem to get a loan in due to every loan offer (even listed for loan) requires a percentage of their wage, which I cannot do. Nothing in my youth available either.

Now, I have asked for more money from the board but this was rejected, but they have accepted my request for a parent club, so I am awaiting the results of this as it can take a month. If this is rejected, I really feel like I am going to have to play the season with a squad with no room for fatigue or injury.

Anyone any ideas on how I can persuade the board to give me a little more, despite the club having 2mil debt?

Appreciated

You are paying too much to each player in wages is the bottom line.

Your wage budget should cover around 22-25 senior players + youth team.

Your only option at this stage is to promote some of your youth team to fill out the main squad.

EDIT

The club is also £2m in debt yet you've been in charge for 3 seasons, has it got worse, better or stayed at a similar level during this time.

Well I didn't think my wages were generally too high, but the average is £3300 p/w. I didn't think that was too high, but maybe it is then? The club has not always had the debt, however they built a new stadium after promotion to League 1, and after promotion to the Championship, they were obliged to add 3000 seats, at a cost of course.

I hope I don't have to use the youth as that will be curtains for York in the Championship I feel. I have my fingers crossed on a parent club.

Cheers for your input Cougar

Hmmm you are stuck between a rock and a hard place it seems paying the price for promoting before the club is really ready.

Not much you can do except try to pick up enough points to survive, if not you hopefully keep your job for another go at League 1 the following season.

You are not wrong there at all, and maybe it is a case of progressing too fast. York are a small club (no disrespect to York fans as I have grown to like the Minstermen) so maybe another season in League 1 would have been fine. Will see how things go and will hope for survival. If successful, I would think I would have a bit more cash next time around.

In lower leagues there is only one solution as I see it, sell sell sell. Don't get attached to players, if one can go for 1million + even if he is your star send him on his way, and recycle the cash all in the wage budget with free transfers or loans with %ages. There's a massive turnover of players at that level, play the game.

I play in South America which is extremely restrictive wage wise, playing with a miniscule budget with a team that like you, I took from 3rd to 1st division in three years and you have to be a merciless wheeler-dealer. Just finished the second season comfortably in mid-table, with a total of 575k players bought and 12 million players sold, just to break even and not sink in debt!! Of course, the brilliant talent in that region helps to sell youngsters but to give an example, I am currently in the process of selling my captain and goalkeeper for 2 million, and bringing in a pretty decent replacement for 500k. The extra cash will go in bulking up a few positions with little cover.

As said above all you can really do is sell players, I am managing Barnsley at the moment and need to keep selling lots of players to bring more in, I can only put the transfers back into wages, only way to improve the squad.

Is not easy to manage!

You should be raking in some decent TV money in the Championship so unless you are really OTT on wages you should make a nice profit this year.

Obviously if you get relegated it will only be a short term boost. If you stay up and have made a nice profit you should get a bigger budget next year.

If you've used all your wage budget and you dont have enough players then you must have mis-managed this part of the game. Too many key players on high salaries.

I'm pushing Tonbridge thru the leagues and management of finances/salary takes a lot of thought and planning.

I had exactly the same situation with you, but worse: identical to your progress, but when I got in the Championship I was immediately promoted to the Premier League. I then got midtable thanks to a couple of loan signings. Transfer budgets and wages are tough because, at least in FM 07, TV money simply matches the wages of your squad once you've signed top players you need.

And if you're over your wage budget, loans are the way to go. Make sure you're loaning someone you need though. For example, my squad needed strikers so I loaned 2 (the max you can have in the Premier League). They got enough goals to help us.

If things are dire, you'll have to sacrifice one or two top earners and likely safety if you don't want such a small squad. Question is, would that be a short term fix or allow you to build?

1. Play at as high a level of football as is possible. Its all good "developing" teams etc but, the truth is, financially, if playing in the lower leagues, you need to get promoted sharpish. The money you make in doing so is worth it even if you drop back down the next season.Though I find that in FM14 its well neigh impossible to actually drop back down once promoted (game is too forgiving in this respect).

2.The higher up your respective country's league system you go, the more money you will make as: prize money, gate receipts, higher valued players etc.

3. DO NOT buy what you cannot afford. Look at your balance sheets and esp whether your club has (large) debts to repay. Resist the temptation to go on a spending frenzy UNLESS you are sure in your ability to win at least one of the cups (even with a low team). You CAN develop a club, build a squad slowly and prudently AND win things from the get go all at the same time. You "just" need to get everything else right: tactics, training, man management etc. Instalments are helpful but dont overdo it. Use them only sparingly and to bring in players who will help accelerate your growth (who will not necessarily be young). One way to decrease the initial transfer fee of a player is to use the Favoured Personnel mechanism.

Do not fall in the usual trap of thinking that the only way to go forward is to buy only young players. The best way to go forward esp with low league/rep teams is actually to win stuff and you win stuff by having mainly developed older players.

4. If in lower leagues buy more older players than you otherwise would. Players such as Pinga would be far more helpful to Spanish Segunda teams than, say CARLOS FIERRO, in that they cost less and deliver stuff quicker.

5. To get players cheaper try to make friends. Praise other managers as often as you can as, this way they may well accept a lower transfer fee for one oftheir players.

6. Sell players at the right time. Look at your squad and divide it into: players you will never sell cos they are young, players you dont mind not making any money out of (ie oldies who are there to help you win stuff -eg Cristian Danalache at Blackburn first season- tutor your players, have much better stats than your youths), and players who have good value but who you are willing to make some money from cos their value will soon start to drop/keep getting injured/dont fit in your formation etc). Also, remember that older players with the right stats (eg high determination) can be used to develop youngsters by tutoring.

7. If a player isn't playing first team football, he's likely to depreciate in value, so you should be looking to offload him.

8. Dont get emotionally attached to players. If you receive big offers then sell. But ONLY if you have first identified a BETTER player who would cost LESS than what you will receive by selling. Once you accept a bid make a bid of your own for the said player and, only when you are sure you will pay less for him than the money you receive allow the sale of your player to proceed.

9. Negotiate to your advantage. Try to offer lower wages with higher appearance fees, esp for the more injury-prone players in the squad, as well as the backup and rotation players. Before you start negotiating for new contracts for your own players/new players, have a look at the agent's stats to see how patient he is and use it to your advantage. DO NOT FORGET IF YOU VE ALLOWED STUFF SUCH AS MIN RELEASE CLAUSES IN CONTRACTS AS YOU MAY FIND YOURSELF DEVELOPING A PLAYER ONLY TO LOSE HIM EASILY

10. When buying a player refer to the scout report and particularly at the wage range suggestion. Keep to it. Do NOT EVER offer match highest earner clauses and try to avoid percentage increases (of more than 15%). Offer useless bonuses such as score at least 25 goals to a cb. You know he ll never do that but apparently he doesnt and gets swayed by such things.

11. Use the principles in 9 and 10 above to construct incentive-based contracts. The easiest way to get a player to accept lower wages especially one you dont plan to sell (any time soon) is to offer him a high sell on (profit) percentage plus perhaps a high loyalty fee.

12.If at a low league team, organise home friendlies against the big teams. Whilst these are often expensive to organise, the revenue generated will more than make up for it, provided you have a big enough stadium. Also/alternatively organise away friendlies to bigger teams (choose which by the fee offered). This is a handy way to increase revenue whatever level your team is at. Do it IN season as well and either use youth/reserve teams if you must or blood in players.

13. Remember you re the boss! Be strict. Dont sell a player UNLESS YOU WANT TO. Even if a player is unhappy/wants to leave/makes a transfer request dont budge if he s somebody you dont want to lose. Keep playing him as you d normally do and sooner rather than later he ll come round. Dont worry about performances - ive routinely had unhappy players score goals get 7.00+ ratings etc.

14. If you are a lower league club or a club that is poor and/or who is in one of the 2/3*** leagues, try to find parent clubs. Choose wisely (look at the reserve/youth teams to see if there are nice players to loan) AND remember the parent club will also pay you an annual fee.

15. With lower league teams there's no need to go overboard with the number of scouts. Have 3/4 only and utilise wisely. Use the search engine extensively to find players.

16. Forget about youth coaches. Your coaching allocation will be low with lower league teams so bring in vanilla coaches only. Also, no need to make people head scouts and head physios as they command bigger salaries. Dont skim on fitness/physiotherapy though especially if you have a small squad cos you dont need to be having too many injuries. No need to have more than one coach fo reach area and sometimes even one for two at first.

17. Get players in on frees with the intention to sell them asap.

18. From the staff responsibilities page go to personal assistant and have the offer player for 200% of his value chosen. On the first day of each transfer window offer the players you want to sell with this in use and you willsurprise how many players you will sell for double/near it of their value. Google RAIKAN's guide of how to sell players (in FMBASE forum)- it really DOES help in FM14 also.

19. Win stuff. Especially cup matches or even cups. ASAP. This will mean you will be participating in Europe which means more money.

20. Dont feel you need to spend all the transfer budget. Remember that in FM14 team cohesion is paramount and that bringing in more than 3/4 players at a time will mean team will take much longer to gel and the results will suffer. Also,small squads perform better in FM14. Balance is the key based on how many trophies you ll be competing for.

21. If you have any transfer budget left then put it all on wages as you seem to get interest this way.