Selling players in FM21

[agreed]

every version i seem to struggle to sell players and this year is no different. would love to know how the ai get so much for their players. got a player valued at 26m who has played quite a few games for me this season and done well. offered him out for just his value thinking i'd get that super easy. nothing. just tried 10m and still no offers. does anyone have any tips?

[Dagenham_Dave]

If you're in the first transfer window, it's considerably harder to sell players as the majority of the clubs will have done most of their transfer business when the game starts. For me, the transfer market doesn't really come alive until the summer window after season 1. 

[OleGunnarSolscharl]

Think they've made changes to the market for the first season (maybe longer?) to reflect the effect of Covid on transfers. Means you'll likely find it harder to shift players, and may have to arrange loan-to-buy deals or accept a reduced fee. 

Edited November 12, 2020 by OleGunnarSolscharl

[Muggert]

I often find that whenever I offer a player to clubs I loose all leverage. Which makes sense really. Why should someone pay a premium price for a player you’re trying to get rid of?

I can reject an offer for 30 million and a week later change my mind and offer him out for 20 and I won’t get an offer.

I often only use offer to clubs with the players I just want to get rid of.

[cris182]

If you have a player doing well a team being offered him will think 'Why' as offering out makes you look desperate so they will low ball you or ignore him

Also as said in the first season a lot of players will have new contracts or clubs will have no money to spend 

[Glassy]

Same for me. I have multiple players worth £35+ that I can't get a bid for when I offer them out for £15m. This is something that always happens with new releases and SI never get it right at the start of new games. It's BETA so hopefully they will fix this soon. It's incredibly annoying being stuck with players. Loaning them is the only way to get them out of the club it seems. 

[ajt]

try loaning them out with mandatory future fees 

[Glassy]

14 hours ago, ajt said:

try loaning them out with mandatory future fees 

That's a good idea, hadn't thought of that! Have you tried it with any success?

[ajt]

5 minutes ago, Glassy said:

That's a good idea, hadn't thought of that! Have you tried it with any success?

I was able to get rid of a couple players that way, but it isn't fool proof and you likely won't get a great fee still

[FlorianAlbert9]

Il 12/11/2020 in 11:08 , Muggert ha scritto:

I often find that whenever I offer a player to clubs I loose all leverage. Which makes sense really. Why should someone pay a premium price for a player you’re trying to get rid of?

I can reject an offer for 30 million and a week later change my mind and offer him out for 20 and I won’t get an offer.

I often only use offer to clubs with the players I just want to get rid of.

In my games (at least in the last 3 edition) for most of the time i use "offer to clubs" and i get even 10x the value (and It never depends on the performance, but Always in CA/PA perceived by AI)

That's bother me, cause i will find better to have more bids without offer a player.

I usually play in Hungary,  value and salary are low as team/league reputation, so there Will be a thousand of teams in which my players would love go.

[Fettucine_Alfredo]

This has been a problem for years and years, despite what some people will say. Probably made to be harder, but it would be better to make the game harder through actual difficulty.

[CLOUDBEAST]

Completely agree it's way too hard....got bored of no one bidding for 1 player worth around £25m so offered him out for free and still no takers at all. In real life it would be completely unrealistic for no one to want this player on a free transfer.

Had another older player regressing badly who I did manage to get a bid of £13.5m for which I was delighted with - the board then rejected the selling as they wanted at least £15m. He's 33 and not even getting in my squad as I've already signed replacements yet the board won't back down and no one will pay £15m so I'm stuck paying his massive wages all year. Overall cost to my club around £25m for a guy who will literally never play!

 

[Glassy]

1 hour ago, CLOUDBEAST said:

Completely agree it's way too hard....got bored of no one bidding for 1 player worth around £25m so offered him out for free and still no takers at all. In real life it would be completely unrealistic for no one to want this player on a free transfer.

Had another older player regressing badly who I did manage to get a bid of £13.5m for which I was delighted with - the board then rejected the selling as they wanted at least £15m. He's 33 and not even getting in my squad as I've already signed replacements yet the board won't back down and no one will pay £15m so I'm stuck paying his massive wages all year. Overall cost to my club around £25m for a guy who will literally never play!

 

Yep, they get this wrong every year. You'd have thought they would have learnt by now. 

[jimmyFKing]

They seem to have got this horribly wrong and not achieved what they set out to do

Tried offering a few players like Bailly and Jones for free and even offered to pay all their wages and still couldn't find buyers.  Who wouldn't take free players with their wages paid?

Even after 2 seasons you can't get rid of anybody really, got a few out the door for low fees but not many.  

 

[majesticeternity]

A couple issues I’ve found is AI clubs have terrible money management. So they often don’t have money to bid near value for players. At the start of my saves, I give everyone but me a huge bank balance(a hierarchy based on reputation), and over time they get bigger transfer budgets and higher wage limits. This means it’s a lot harder to buy players cuz they’ll have good salaries, and clubs don’t need the money so they like to hold on to their players. but it also means it’s easier to sell players for value. 
 

the other issue is there’s a lot of regens, a lot good, so over time there’s so many players and options for clubs, that it’s hard to sell players. So I also, every year at end of season, make quite a regens retire (based on my criteria). This way there are less players, game runs faster in processing, and clubs need to buy players from you more often. 
 

overall, while AI club finances are not realistic, transfers are much more. I can sell players, it’s harder to poach players, it’s harder to get amazing free agents, and I have to work and scout heavily to find a good player, but also can sell my castoffs easily. 

Edited November 14, 2020 by majesticeternity

[Scotcher1985]

Try playing with a small database, I used always struggle with selling players until I loaded more leagues and played with a small database now I have no issues even with the beta 

[mhaffy]

41 minutes ago, Scotcher1985 said:

Try playing with a small database, I used always struggle with selling players until I loaded more leagues and played with a small database now I have no issues even with the beta 

I normally play with 13 nations with 28 playable leagues and a large database of circa 66k players at the start and have also had problems selling players. I have always used playable leagues rather than view only as I understand that the transfer market activity is better with playable leagues. If I kept the same nations and leagues but switched to a small database, my player count would drop to 60k (10% lower) and with fewer players but the same number of playable leagues/clubs there would presumably be an increased chance in me being able to sell my players?

Would be interested in feedback on whether such a switch would be beneficial re transfer activity - processing speed should definitely improve with lower player count.

Seriously thinking about switching to small database for long term FM21 career save.

[Gee_Simpson]

1 hour ago, mhaffy said:

Seriously thinking about switching to small database for long term FM21 career save.

I know @Brother Ben and @oche balboa are fans of this approach also. 

[Gee_Simpson]

Considering it myself but really undecided on it, I think it's probably a smaller minority that believe it works this way, would be good if someone from SI could comment on this. Is it worth loading loads of leagues for example (30+) but then picking a small database? 

[swansongs]

5 hours ago, jimmyFKing said:

They seem to have got this horribly wrong and not achieved what they set out to do

Tried offering a few players like Bailly and Jones for free and even offered to pay all their wages and still couldn't find buyers.  Who wouldn't take free players with their wages paid?

Even after 2 seasons you can't get rid of anybody really, got a few out the door for low fees but not many.  

 

Well it is Phil Jones...

When you offer to pay a player's wages it's only up to the end of their contract with you, if the player demands a 4 year deal at his new club but the contract with yours ends after two that's a whole lot of money on a "free" player when all is said and done.

I've had no problems offloading unwanted players. Often it ends up being a loan simply to free up wages but that's realistic. Loads of clubs get stuck with players that won't sell irl.

[CLOUDBEAST]

34 minutes ago, swansongs said:

When you offer to pay a player's wages it's only up to the end of their contract with you, if the player demands a 4 year deal at his new club but the contract with yours ends after two that's a whole lot of money on a "free" player when all is said and done.

This is all 100% true up to a point yet I still don't think it cuts it for what happens on the game. The players will demand less once their current contract is up if they know they don't stand a chance of getting the same amount again. My example of not a single bit of interest on a free transfer was Umtiti which I just don't think is at all plausible.

[Fritz13]

Last years version seems to crack it with teams offering the exact player value as the mandatory when making a loan offer.

 so it was all good as long as you didn’t need the money immediately 

[yezzko]

Don't forget players ambition, Umtiti is playing at one of the most reputale clubs in the world, there's only 3-4 clubs he would go if forced to leave. And if they don't need another CB...

[BartleyGreenBaggie]

In the beta I struggle to sell because the board keep veto'ing all my transfers saying they think I should get more money for the player.

[ajt]

8 hours ago, Gee_Simpson said:

Considering it myself but really undecided on it, I think it's probably a smaller minority that believe it works this way, would be good if someone from SI could comment on this. Is it worth loading loads of leagues for example (30+) but then picking a small database? 

I don't know what SI will say, but I have always used a small database for this very reason no matter how many leagues I use, otherwise there are just far too many players in the game compared to the amount of clubs.

I have to say I'm not personally finding it difficult to find clubs to buy my players, especially as I offer them out for less than their current value.

The problem I have like Cloudbeast and Bartley say is that the board often reject the bids and I have to pray that they will accept the "this player isn't in my future plans" conversation option.

Edited November 15, 2020 by ajt

[Glassy]

SI do the same thing every year. I've complained about this issue with every release and they get it wrong every year. Swansongs is defending it above by saying "Well it is Phil Jones". If Manu put Jones up for £15m this summer there would be plenty of clubs that came in for him. Anyone that thinks other than that really hasn't got a clue what they are talking about. SI will have the same attitude as Swan though which is why it will remain in the game. 

Edited November 15, 2020 by Glassy

[woodsy1983]

1 hour ago, Glassy said:

SI do the same thing every year. I've complained about this issue with every release and they get it wrong every year. Swansongs is defending it above by saying "Well it is Phil Jones". If Manu put Jones up for £15m this summer there would be plenty of clubs that came in for him. Anyone that thinks other than that really hasn't got a clue what they are talking about. SI will have the same attitude as Swan though which is why it will remain in the game. 

Would be interested to hear which clubs you think would pay 15 mill for Phil jones then 100k in wages. None of the top teams would want him and none of the mid table/lower teams could afford his wages. You also have to take into account would she want to move as AI teams have a general idea of whether a player it’s interested.

Why hasn’t he moved on in real life if so many clubs would want him? The best bet would be someone taking him on loan with united paying most of his wages.

[Glassy]

Plenty of clubs would come after Jones. Clubs like Palace, Newcastle, West Ham, Burnley etc would. 

Put it this way, I've stopped playing the Beta because of this. I consider it a bug personally. I resigned from Spurs because I was getting no offers for a number of players I didn't want. Dier, Grealish, Henrique amongst others. They were all valued £50m+ and I couldn't get interest in any of them even though I was offering them out for £20m. All in their mid 20's. I couldn't raise money for players I needed because I'm stuck with £200m+ (AI value) of players I can't sell. 

I then took the job at PSG and it's even worse there. I have Isco valued at £59m and I can't even get an offer for £10m. Ampadu valued at £29.5m, can't get an offer for £10m. Umtiti valued at £39m, can't get an offer for £10m. Calanoglu(sp) valued at £59, can't get an offer for £20m!!! This is a game breaking bug. I understand this is a beta, so there is time to fix it. However, this is an AI issue in my opinion. The AI shouldn't be buying expensive players, big wages that the clubs are then stuck with. PSG are in a right mess because I'm unable to sell players that I don't need as there are too many of that type. This is even worse than when FM20 first came out. 

[woodsy1983]

49 minutes ago, Glassy said:

Plenty of clubs would come after Jones. Clubs like Palace, Newcastle, West Ham, Burnley etc would. 

Put it this way, I've stopped playing the Beta because of this. I consider it a bug personally. I resigned from Spurs because I was getting no offers for a number of players I didn't want. Dier, Grealish, Henrique amongst others. They were all valued £50m+ and I couldn't get interest in any of them even though I was offering them out for £20m. All in their mid 20's. I couldn't raise money for players I needed because I'm stuck with £200m+ (AI value) of players I can't sell. 

I then took the job at PSG and it's even worse there. I have Isco valued at £59m and I can't even get an offer for £10m. Ampadu valued at £29.5m, can't get an offer for £10m. Umtiti valued at £39m, can't get an offer for £10m. Calanoglu(sp) valued at £59, can't get an offer for £20m!!! This is a game breaking bug. I understand this is a beta, so there is time to fix it. However, this is an AI issue in my opinion. The AI shouldn't be buying expensive players, big wages that the clubs are then stuck with. PSG are in a right mess because I'm unable to sell players that I don't need as there are too many of that type. This is even worse than when FM20 first came out. 

Let’s look at those clubs you’ve listed, palace and Burnley are no way spending £100k a week, especially Burnley who already have two good centre backs. West Ham and Newcastle maybe but is he better than what they’ve got? West have diop, ogbonnq and the Argentinian lad I can’t remember just for starters. Newcastle may not have the budget, a lot of their transfers this summer we’re done cheap. There’s also jones himself, does he want to drop down the table, clubs will generally know if a player will be interested in joining so won’t bother bidding.

Your second set about PSG, the work is needed as you say on why the AI are buying these players as you’re rarely going to shift players earning 200k+ a week as those who can afford them are unlikely to need them. That’s the AI buying rather than you being able to sell.

I never have an issue selling players and there’s usually a logical explanation if you think about it. Maybe try a small database if you don’t already as this is regularly overlooked as you need a good players to playable clubs ratio.

[jimmyFKing]

14 hours ago, swansongs said:

Well it is Phil Jones...

When you offer to pay a player's wages it's only up to the end of their contract with you, if the player demands a 4 year deal at his new club but the contract with yours ends after two that's a whole lot of money on a "free" player when all is said and done.

I've had no problems offloading unwanted players. Often it ends up being a loan simply to free up wages but that's realistic. Loads of clubs get stuck with players that won't sell irl.

So what happened in the end with Phil Jones?

He agreed to mutually terminate his contract for £0, losing out on over £11M in wages.

He then joined New York RB on 15k a week.

This is realistic?

For those struggling to sell, the ability to shift players in mine turned on like a light at the start of July '22.  

[swansongs]

2 minutes ago, jimmyFKing said:

So what happened in the end with Phil Jones?

He agreed to mutually terminate his contract for £0, losing out on over £11M in wages.

He then joined New York RB on 15k a week.

This is realistic?

For those struggling to sell, the ability to shift players in mine turned on like a light at the start of July '22.  

Phil Jones agreeing to cancel his contract for nothing is definitely a bug worth raising.

The ability to sell for significant fees is supposed to get easier over time as teams recover from covid's financial impact.

[jimmyFKing]

2 minutes ago, swansongs said:

Phil Jones agreeing to cancel his contract for nothing is definitely a bug worth raising.

The ability to sell for significant fees is supposed to get easier over time as teams recover from covid's financial impact.

Yes I understand that, I think they just overcooked it as there would still be some market for some of these players.  Not literally nothing for good Premiership midfielders like Henrique on modest wages 

[Freakiie]

A bunch to add to this.

Database: Personally, I play small or medium databases at most. The more players there are in the world, the more options clubs have and the lower the odds that the high wage player that's not good enough for your side is going to be the best option out there for other clubs. So yeah, bigger databases will make it harder to move players since there's simply way more options out there.

Value: One of the stats in FM that's a definite candidate for "most meaningless stat ingame". It gets massively inflated by league rep (because league rep is God in FM), which is especially noticeable in the Premiership as it tends to be #1 in league rep and as such the only 4.5* national league in the game. So yes, some back up of yours at United might be worth 25 million, but considering his actual ability that's not the price anyone is going to pay for them. Especially if you're actively offering him out and that's not even taking into consideration that they generally will have pretty fat contracts. Just try playing some lower reputation leagues and see how much the values of your players jump up when you gain half a star reputation (and then drop when the season after your league rep drops again because the other clubs in your league don't score points in Europe).

Contracts: Unfortunately players aren't that great at looking forwards, so yes, there is generally a massive difference in their demands when they still have a contract (even if it's literally for one more day) and once their contract expires. They'll basically have a massive reflection moment the second it runs out and they realize "wait, I'm jobless?!". Obviously players on massive contracts casually accepting a mutual termination for free is a bug and should be reported.

Generally what I've found the most successful way for offloading unwanted players is offering them out with an unspecified asking price and just letting AI clubs offer what they think the player is worth. I rarely have issues with getting rid of extras, but I also accept that I'm not going to get rich from selling some reserve that I think isn't good enough for my squad.

[Glassy]

59 minutes ago, woodsy1983 said:

Let’s look at those clubs you’ve listed, palace and Burnley are no way spending £100k a week, especially Burnley who already have two good centre backs. West Ham and Newcastle maybe but is he better than what they’ve got? West have diop, ogbonnq and the Argentinian lad I can’t remember just for starters. Newcastle may not have the budget, a lot of their transfers this summer we’re done cheap. There’s also jones himself, does he want to drop down the table, clubs will generally know if a player will be interested in joining so won’t bother bidding.

Your second set about PSG, the work is needed as you say on why the AI are buying these players as you’re rarely going to shift players earning 200k+ a week as those who can afford them are unlikely to need them. That’s the AI buying rather than you being able to sell.

I never have an issue selling players and there’s usually a logical explanation if you think about it. Maybe try a small database if you don’t already as this is regularly overlooked as you need a good players to playable clubs ratio.

Have you seen Phil Jones in FM21? He's decent. More than good enough to get £15-£20m for. As you can above he had to let him go on a free. It needs some work. like I said though, it's a beta. Let's hope they sort this before the release because its a bug. 

[Glassy]

10 minutes ago, Freakiie said:

A bunch to add to this.

Database: Personally, I play small or medium databases at most. The more players there are in the world, the more options clubs have and the lower the odds that the high wage player that's not good enough for your side is going to be the best option out there for other clubs. So yeah, bigger databases will make it harder to move players since there's simply way more options out there.

Value: One of the stats in FM that's a definite candidate for "most meaningless stat ingame". It gets massively inflated by league rep (because league rep is God in FM), which is especially noticeable in the Premiership as it tends to be #1 in league rep and as such the only 4.5* national league in the game. So yes, some back up of yours at United might be worth 25 million, but considering his actual ability that's not the price anyone is going to pay for them. Especially if you're actively offering him out and that's not even taking into consideration that they generally will have pretty fat contracts. Just try playing some lower reputation leagues and see how much the values of your players jump up when you gain half a star reputation (and then drop when the season after your league rep drops again because the other clubs in your league don't score points in Europe).

Contracts: Unfortunately players aren't that great at looking forwards, so yes, there is generally a massive difference in their demands when they still have a contract (even if it's literally for one more day) and once their contract expires. They'll basically have a massive reflection moment the second it runs out and they realize "wait, I'm jobless?!". Obviously players on massive contracts casually accepting a mutual termination for free is a bug and should be reported.

Generally what I've found the most successful way for offloading unwanted players is offering them out with an unspecified asking price and just letting AI clubs offer what they think the player is worth. I rarely have issues with getting rid of extras, but I also accept that I'm not going to get rich from selling some reserve that I think isn't good enough for my squad.

Tried the "unspecified" approach with 3 players with the value of around £160m and not a single offer. Where is the best place to record bugs for the game on here?

[Freakiie]

2 minutes ago, Glassy said:

Tried the "unspecified" approach with 3 players with the value of around £160m and not a single offer. Where is the best place to record bugs for the game on here?

https://community.sigames.com/forum/804-transfers-contracts-scouting-recruitment-meetings-and-staff-responsibilities/

 

[Freakiie]

So, I've offered out my entire Bayern squad, without putting them on the transfer list. The result was a bunch of offers for some players and no offers for these guys

So that's my 3 aging team leaders on big contracts; Neuer, Müller and Lewandowski. 2 players who are about to leave on a free transfer; Martínez and Choupo-Moting and a bunch of new signings that only moved 6-12 months ago and probably don't want to leave the club that quickly. Only exception is Goretzka. Whom, after I offered him out a second time now that he's unhappy instantly attracted an offer from United. Now most of these offers are garbage, but again that'd be too expected.

 

Then, repeating the entire endeavor, after transfer listing them first this time, I actually got more offers and much better offers. Still no offers I'd actually sell any of these players for, but still.

Surprisingly, nobody came in for Coman this time around, transfer listing him and then offering him out actually did not annoy him, in comparison to offering him out without transfer listing him. So his wage demands as a result of that are probably higher than what they'd be if he was unhappy. But again, majority of my players are attracting at least some interest, but considering this is only the end of the first season budgets aren't going to be quite what they were before corona. Now of course, do mind that these are players from a CL winning team, where most got a decent amount of play time throughout the season and performed decently. If you're trying to offload a bunch of overpaid reserves that have played like 50 minutes of football in the entire season, you're going to have a much harder time.

If you're gonna try to offload a bunch of stuff on day 1... tough luck, there's barely any clubs that have any kind of budget whatsoever at the start of FM21.

[tmaxwell8383]

Played through a few seasons, but transfer listed all players I knew I wouldn't want on day 1 first, and then offered them out regularly throughout. Sometimes I get bids, often times not. And in more instances than not, if I get a bid the player rejects the move.

Started a game with a different club, resigned immediately, and then went on holiday for 2 seasons. Came back and 75% of the players I wanted to sell were sold by the AI for good money and with no wage contributions (I took over the club and checked the clauses).

Why can the computer sell players easily yet I find it impossible?