Tightening the Purse Strings

Has anyone had any problems with losing money like nobodys business? Im with Carlisle and after the first season there were concerns regarding the amount of money that was lost in one year, £1.1 million! started the game with £1.6 million and even though I was slighty over my wage budget at the end of the season and only spent 150k on transfers I couldn't keep control of the finances.

I'm now entering 2nd year and think that there is a distinct possbility I may well go belly up in the not too distant future, anyone got any ideas of keeping control of finances other than through wages? I could sell players but I have already released a lot and their transfer value would only supply a short term solution....

Man Utd are pretty bad, because of the ridiculous bank loans, most the the time you lose £7m per month.

Staff wages? Also, just because you are withing your 'wage budget', doesnt mean you're not overspending.

I dont manage in lower leagues reallly, so cant offer too much advise, thats all I could think at the moment.

Have a look at your finances in detail and see what you are spending and have coming in, to see if anything jumps out as obvious.

Thanks for that, I will have a lok into it

Your allowed wage budget doesnt come into it, that is set by the board, if you are under what they set it is irrelevant! Rule of thumb i try to use make sure your actual wages you spend is less than gate receipts coming in. That way you should start turning a profit!

Does the club have any loans? Unfortunately there is nothing you can do to encourage the board to pay these off early. This is one thing that can really destroy your finances. The only real way to fix this I think is to be successful and win competitions and get promoted into the top league asap. Playing regularly in europe will also help.

I've played some LL in 2008, so I have some ideas.

1/ Sell players for cash and buy for free, play like you have no transfer budget, only loan players if you don't have to pay wages.

2/ Keep your squad small, you have no need for a reserve squad or a large youth squad.

3/ Try not to release players if you have to pay. If you really want to, then you should first offer the player a shorter contract than what he is on (even if you have to pay slightly more money in his wages/bonuses), then release him for less compensation. This is a little bit of a cheat, but sounds like your finances are desperate.

4/ Get a parent club for the money and to loan players more easily without paying wages.

5/ Never offer signing on fees and always lower the wages and bonuses when negotiating contracts. Always offer 1 yr deals, so it's easy to offload dead wood.

6/ Sell star players if you get a good offer, at LL level, they are usually easy to replace cheaply.

7/ You have no need for more than 1 physio or multiple coaches, they cost money for little effect.

8/ Stay well below your wage budget, it always seems to be set too high

I won back to back promotions into the CCL2 sticking to these principles and was never in the red.

No need to have a large reserve squad if you have it, just terminate contracts of people you dont need, you will lose money in the short term, but will gain in the long term.

If you can get some friendlies against famous teams in the books that helps enormously - if you offer them a small cut of the proceeds it should be enough to get them to agree. At 200k-300k net profit a game - and say 5-7 games, thats a whole seasons worth of proceeds !

I used to put some in during the season as well in fm08, although it was often difficult to get them to agree - ***SI take note: an indication of whether the team is even remotely likely to accept a friendly suggestion before clicking through and advancing a day would be nice !!! ***

Has anyone had any problems with losing money like nobodys business? Im with Carlisle and after the first season there were concerns regarding the amount of money that was lost in one year, £1.1 million! started the game with £1.6 million and even though I was slighty over my wage budget at the end of the season and only spent 150k on transfers I couldn't keep control of the finances.

I'm now entering 2nd year and think that there is a distinct possbility I may well go belly up in the not too distant future, anyone got any ideas of keeping control of finances other than through wages? I could sell players but I have already released a lot and their transfer value would only supply a short term solution....

i'm in my 2nd season at Wrexham, after promotion from the BSQP to League Two!

the players wage budget has increased a good bit, and there are more coaches allowed, so I guess they are eating into our finances!

just passed the Jan'2010 transfer window, and finally got the wage budget under the boards required level....

not really making any cash from fixtures/attendances this season at all - barely breaking even!

had good cup runs in the BSQP last year, so that helped - this season, knocked out early doors!

nobody has bought any players either, so I cannot bring anyone in, except on frees

been swapping players with other clubs though, as there has been no transfer cash....

I managed to swap out 3 players I didn't need, for 1 decent back-up full-back, for no cash, so was able to save 66% of the combined wages - brought me nicely under this seasons playing budget, but has taken me until January to get shot of them!

have to keep an eye on the playing budget, to ensure that the playing budget remains in good nick, and ensure that the coaches,scout and physio staff do not increase past the board suggested levels (9 coaches, 5 scouts, 2 physios or whatever)....

I'm really struggling for money with Perugia but that represents real life football to a good extent. It's also great because it makes it more of a challenge to compete.

If your 'only' losing 1 million a year just sell one decent player a season im doing that with my barnet team, i tend to have a very large squad but most of them are badly paid, so i sell a decent player and get the best of my reserve or youth team to replace him. If you do a lot of scouting or if you check all your opponents players you can find decent players for a low level squad and replace the decent players you sell. Ive worried that selling ,my good players will effect my squad badly but it hasnt the players i replace them with are nearly as good but they cost a lot less. my fm2006 barnet team has just been promoted to the championship i hope i can carry on progressing!

there was something posted about things like this a few days ago, main thing to watch is whether the matchday revenue is higher than the wages you spend (nothing to do with how under budget you are apparently, thats just to keep the board happy)

In the same situation mate, and so naturally:

Administration

First time I have seen this :o

Cheers guys, I missed out on promotion to Championship in playoffs, i reckon that would have helped with income, but i suppose money would have been leaving just as quickly. I will give plenty of free transfers and terminate reserve contracts, I will let you know how i get on.

Oh and by the way my income from gate reciepts is far higher than the wages each week, so not sure about that...

whats chelsea financial situation like

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In the same situation mate, and so naturally:

Administration

First time I have seen this :o

Tranmere have just been docked points on my game.