Very harsh contract negatiation

[sporadicsmiles]

Just to put at the start, this is not a rant about contracts, money, or complaining things are broken. Rather this is to ask for advice on how better to deal with contract negotiations (because I apparently suck at this in FM 17 so far). Lets keep it as such!

I have noticed in FM 17 that there seems to be a lot less room for negotiation at times when offering a player a contract after having a bid accepted. I will note early that this is not always the case, and I will suggest my thoughts on this later. Here are two examples of contracts I have failed to secure.

The first is for Belloti, a striker for Torino. I am playing as Milan and sold Bacca to Spurs. Hence I am looking for a replacement. This guy fits the bill very nicely; young, italian, good. I negotiate with Torino to obtain an acceptable transfer offer (this was not a problem here, I payed slightly more than I wanted - around 15 million with the add-ons - but I need a replacement and have the Bacca cash to spend). I no longer remember the specific numbers of the contract now, but I offered a decent wage increase (perhaps close to double) plus more bonuses than he was currently getting. The agent returns with a counter offer with everything higher, not terribly unreasonably. It was something like 20k on wages, larger signing bonus, more clauses. However, the top bar is yellow and the agent is apparently not giving me much room to negotiate the offer. I do, I offer middle ground terms in some areas (lower wages and slightly smaller signing bonus) and increase some to compensate (top scorer bonus in particular, I want to motivate the player to score). The contract offer is rejected outright, without even a negotiation.

I shrugged and accepted this, move on to a new target; Moreno or Espanyol. The initial parts proceed as before, I make an offer, it is accepted, I offer a contract. Now this was one of the ass-hats who decides I have to set all the initial terms of the contract. Which I do. First team status, double wages, increase all the bonuses he currently has, and a larger bonus. I get a repeat of the aforementioned negotiation; all things are increased, not too high, but I want to try to get them down a little. Once again the top bar is yellow indicating that they do not want to change much. I proceed as before, and again my offer is flat out rejected. This time I checked the agent to make sure he is not one of those people who just negotiates hard, but apparently he will try to get the best deal for him and his client, even if that means drawn out negotiations. So that rules that out.

My interpretation of this is that the player does not necessarily want to leave the club he is currently at. He will, if he gets the money he wants, but if he is happy where he is he is not very happy to negotiate his terms. How accurate a summary is this? At least if this is the case I understand what is going on and can take steps to counter this (I will start to unsettle targets).

Any tips on how I can better negotiate in such cases?

[louissiscool]

I think you are right in that the players aren't too fussed if they come to you, have you been looking at the scout reports to see what wages they want?

[Cougar2010]

The one thing you haven't mentioned is scouts. They aren't always right but they are usually pretty good at giving you a range for the wages.

It then comes down to how desperate you are for the player and if other clubs are interested in him.  You also have to get a feel for the agent and what he says in opening is important.  The more demanding/aggressive he sounds in the initial statement the higher you'll need to make it & I would expect less opportunity for attempts.

After that its trial & error, stick an opening offer in and see what the response is.  If its orange you really need to improve the offer, anything green you are in the ball park with just tweaks needed.

Remember even if you get a red you could always come back to him later in the window and you'll have more info the 2nd time.

Any of that helpful? probably not

I kinda just go with the flow and work a lot by gut feeling.

[sporadicsmiles]

39 minutes ago, louissiscool said:

I think you are right in that the players aren't too fussed if they come to you, have you been looking at the scout reports to see what wages they want?

Both the wages I initially offered them, and the wages they demanded were within the range that the scout suggested. Which is why I did not think it was particularly a problem of the player having unreasonably demands. They were reasonable, I just wanted to try to talk them down a little. I shall try to unsettle my target next time and see if that helps with the player being more flexible. I quite like this aspect of the game!

 

36 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

The one thing you haven't mentioned is scouts. They aren't always right but they are usually pretty good at giving you a range for the wages.

It then comes down to how desperate you are for the player and if other clubs are interested in him.  You also have to get a feel for the agent and what he says in opening is important.  The more demanding/aggressive he sounds in the initial statement the higher you'll need to make it & I would expect less opportunity for attempts.

After that its trial & error, stick an opening offer in and see what the response is.  If its orange you really need to improve the offer, anything green you are in the ball park with just tweaks needed.

Remember even if you get a red you could always come back to him later in the window and you'll have more info the 2nd time.

Any of that helpful? probably not

I kinda just go with the flow and work a lot by gut feeling.

I think you are right in that I was a bit too soft with the opening offer, and it probably annoyed them a bit. I will try to adjust that accordingly, especially when i am trying to sign a player I actually need! As you say, it is all trial and error (and a little bit of advice from the community never goes amiss). I will give them another go later in the window (although Torino will no longer accept my offer, which I guess is them playing hard ball. Since I came back after being rejected I must want the player, so lets charge them more!).

[phd_angel]

I recall late nineties FM (then called Premier Manager), I could offer a car and even a house in my contract negotiations... 

[Ellis_D]

On 29/10/2016 at 16:53, phd_angel said:

I recall late nineties FM (then called Premier Manager), I could offer a car and even a house in my contract negotiations... 

I remember that too, but Premier Manager and Football Manager are completely different games made by completely different people; Football Manager was never called Premier Manager, it used to be called Championship Manager back then, but Premier Manager was the one where you could offer a house and a car.

[sporadicsmiles]

To complete this story, I did manage to sign Belloti in the end, after he became unsettled and was willing to talk to me again. 

The problem was that my initial offer was too far from what they wanted initially, so the did not want to negotiate too much because they felt it was unlikely I would do a deal. After realising this, I made sure my initial offer was much higher, and after that I was able to negotiate more sensibly with him over several steps of negotiation with no problem (I had to do this twice since just before he signed initially I had a possible board takeover that cancelled the deal, I was fuming! The deal collapsed 2 days later -_-).

Anyway, the moral of this story is that you really have to pay attention to scout reports, and to offer what you think is a fair deal that the other party will accept. I actually felt like I learnt a lot from this incident, I now know a lot more about signing players. He also has scored 2 goals in 2 games, so it was worth the effort.

[bryn23]

6 hours ago, Ellis_D said:

I remember that too, but Premier Manager and Football Manager are completely different games made by completely different people; Football Manager was never called Premier Manager, it used to be called Championship Manager back then, but Premier Manager was the one where you could offer a house and a car.

You could also select your sponsorship deals in Premier Manager, i liked that option

I still have the game, although i don't have a 3.5 inch floppy on my Macbook Pro

[Ellis_D]

Yeah I liked loads about Premier Manager, it was a brilliant game in its day. I think Premier Manager 2 for the Amiga was, for its time, one of the best games ever. Then Premier Manager 3 came out which gave you the data editor and that changed everything! Brilliant days on those games.

I loved the fact you could build your own ground, select which stands, etc to build, undersoil heating, roofing, etc. Ultimate Soccer Manager came out after, and that was even better. Unfortunately the manager being able to decide which stands to build is unrealistic, though I do think perhaps FM could occasionally give managers a say on stadium developments for managers who have been at clubs for a long time, like Ferguson at Man Utd and Wenger at Arsenal.

[rimisark]

4 hours ago, Ellis_D said:

Yeah I liked loads about Premier Manager, it was a brilliant game in its day. I think Premier Manager 2 for the Amiga was, for its time, one of the best games ever. Then Premier Manager 3 came out which gave you the data editor and that changed everything! Brilliant days on those games.

I loved the fact you could build your own ground, select which stands, etc to build, undersoil heating, roofing, etc. Ultimate Soccer Manager came out after, and that was even better. Unfortunately the manager being able to decide which stands to build is unrealistic, though I do think perhaps FM could occasionally give managers a say on stadium developments for managers who have been at clubs for a long time, like Ferguson at Man Utd and Wenger at Arsenal.

USM had option before game, only manager or manager+director. Brilliant game for its time, I think there is veru good ideas, whih can be implement in FM.

[phd_angel]

You could even set the price for sandwiches, soups and drinks!  What else in heavens can I ask for?...