How would you solve this situation?

[Lucas_26_7]

So I am in the 2026/27 season in my Blackpool save I have this winger called Jose Eduardo, 23 year old Brazilian who I signed when he was 18 while I was in the Championship and has gone on to be my best player as we have managed to become a Champions League side - here is my predicament.

Leading into the 2025/26 season - which was due to be my first season in the Champions League after finishing 2nd the previous year - he came to me asking to leave to Liverpool (who were interested in him and always scouted but never made a formal offer) because he wanted to win silverware. Liverpool had finished 4th the previous season while we had lost the league on goal difference. I was confident we would win something the next season and had already loss two key players, so tried to do the 'if we don't win anything in the next season I will sell you' but then clicked the 'I will sell you next season instead'.

The 2025/26 season was difficult as we finished 6th, but we won silverware and qualified for the UCL again by winning the Europa League (finished 3rd in our Champions League group) and Liverpool finished 5th so I was hopeful I would be able to solve the situation.

Going into the 2026/27 season Liverpool were the only team who wanted him but once again they never made an offer, and Arsenal (who finished 9th) were the only team to make a bid - a non-negotiable 25m even though I would probably be able to get close to 100m from him in normal circumstances.

The issue is, his contract expires at the end of the 2026/27 season, and his promise is still pending so I wasn't able to talk to him about it. Once the promise finished, it came up 'More time to keep Jose Eduardo promise' because of his 'injuries'. Issue is, he had only miss 3 weeks of football in the entire 12 months, the promise extended to the end of the January transfer window by which point a team would be able to get him on a free.

How would you solve this if this were you? I feel like this is kind of unfair that you are unable to speak to a player for over a year and then the promise automatically extends for pretty silly reasons.

[Welshace]

Sell.. you made a promise and as you said, he'll leave on a free.... simple really.. sell him, get someone new in

 

I would attempt to get a sale in with a buy back fee though, worth a go... if you're going into the champions league, the fee you get for him won't be too much of an issue in the long run.

[Lucas_26_7]

1 minute ago, Welshace said:

Sell.. you made a promise and as you said, he'll leave on a free.... simple really.. sell him, get someone new in

 

I would attempt to get a sale in with a buy back fee though, worth a go... if you're going into the champions league, the fee you get for him won't be too much of an issue in the long run.

Thanks for the advice but probably should have mentioned, the window has closed now. I was waiting for the promise to finish which was initially at the end of the European window - I took a risk thinking at least I would be able to talk to him so now I will be going into January with the end of his contract looming

[Welshace]

Then it sounds like there's nothing you can do?  Mistakes were made, call it a learning process, take the hit and move on to someone new.

[sporadicsmiles]

This is a good example of why you should try to keep young players who you want at the club for a long time on long contracts. Obviously it is not help here, but something to remember going forward. With key players, do not wait until there is a year or 18 months left on their contract to get them signed onto a new deal. Try to do it with at least 2 years left. For my very best players I try to keep them always with at least 3 years on their deals. This means they have a high market value because of the long contract. Hence if you are going to sell it will be for a huge fee. It also means you can risk making the player unhappy by rejecting a bid. You are not going to have to worry about losing him for a free transfer due to unhappiness or not signing a new contact. It is highly unlikely he will stay unhappy for 3 consecutive years without any chance to negotiate with him again. The downside, of course, is that you will end up paying them high wages if you are renegotiating often to keep them on a long contract. You have to decide if that is the best for your club (normally when you reach the UCL wages become less of an issue). Once they get towards 30, stop offering them long contracts because they will eventually regress as a player. This is how I handle my best players, and it works very well. It avoids your situation for sure, so bear it in mind for the future.

Other than that sometimes you have to suck it up and sell a player. I am currently playing as Dinamo Zagreb, and we have a superb crop of young players who are able to play at a higher level. For the most part I have kept players on long contracts, but I inherited the squad in 2021 so I did not have full control of this from the start of the game. I have been forced to sell two players for reasons similar to yours. In my case, they simply did not want to sign new contracts because of the interest from higher rep teams. I have managed to make £50 million in total from these players, which is significant for Dinamo and which can be reinvested in the playing squad and the youth facilities.

[Lucas_26_7]

1 hour ago, sporadicsmiles said:

This is a good example of why you should try to keep young players who you want at the club for a long time on long contracts. Obviously it is not help here, but something to remember going forward. With key players, do not wait until there is a year or 18 months left on their contract to get them signed onto a new deal. Try to do it with at least 2 years left. For my very best players I try to keep them always with at least 3 years on their deals. This means they have a high market value because of the long contract. Hence if you are going to sell it will be for a huge fee. It also means you can risk making the player unhappy by rejecting a bid. You are not going to have to worry about losing him for a free transfer due to unhappiness or not signing a new contact. It is highly unlikely he will stay unhappy for 3 consecutive years without any chance to negotiate with him again. The downside, of course, is that you will end up paying them high wages if you are renegotiating often to keep them on a long contract. You have to decide if that is the best for your club (normally when you reach the UCL wages become less of an issue). Once they get towards 30, stop offering them long contracts because they will eventually regress as a player. This is how I handle my best players, and it works very well. It avoids your situation for sure, so bear it in mind for the future.

Other than that sometimes you have to suck it up and sell a player. I am currently playing as Dinamo Zagreb, and we have a superb crop of young players who are able to play at a higher level. For the most part I have kept players on long contracts, but I inherited the squad in 2021 so I did not have full control of this from the start of the game. I have been forced to sell two players for reasons similar to yours. In my case, they simply did not want to sign new contracts because of the interest from higher rep teams. I have managed to make £50 million in total from these players, which is significant for Dinamo and which can be reinvested in the playing squad and the youth facilities.

Yeah definitely stuffed up in that regard on my part - although I tried to offer him one at one point and if I remember rightly negotiated one but he asked for a stupid amount I couldn't afford just before a club became interested in him. So it was probably about 2.5 years from his contract expiring that that happened. IMO this is a flaw in the game, you really should be able to ask players to rethink promises.

[sporadicsmiles]

3 hours ago, Lucas_26_7 said:

IMO this is a flaw in the game, you really should be able to ask players to rethink promises.

It would be nice to have options to discuss with players you made promises to. Either to talk to them about what they think about how you are handling the promises. Or to explain to them if/why you may not be able to keep your promise.