Finances - how bad can they get?

[stopazricky]

Hey guys, I can provide screenshots if needed but it's all in Italian (and switching to English cause problems on one of my savefiles, so I'm not going to do that again lol).

I'm managing Atalanta in Serie A, and after six seasons I'm the absolute best team in Serie A by a mile (record points, winning all national competitions, winning Coppa Italia every year since 2022 etc.). I'm struggling a bit in UCL but that's the kind of level I'm at, and now my wage budget is triple what I initially had: it's now around €150m per year.
However, I'm still earning a third of what Inter and Juve are in terms of all Serie A revenue. With a 20m 1st place prize and around 60m from TV and such, it's very much unsustainable. 
Two years ago, I ended the season with a loss of 34m, with bank balance being as low as 20m at some point. Last season, I saw the apocalypse coming and cashed out on a wonderkid: I sold him for almost 100m, spent less than half of it, and ended the season with a positive 30 m revenue. 

Now, I'm november and I'm almost 10m a month in the red. This is not looking good. So:

1) How does Financial Fair Play work? To my understanding, if I'm 5 millions in the red at any time throughout a season, I'm out of UCL, but is it the case? Also, every year I'm told that we have no problem because we've had 130+m revenue when only breaking even was enough. But no way I'm making that much money lol it's just not true, I get it FM is realistic and Atalanta is an Italian club, but something doesn't add up here lol

2) How can I increase my club's commercial revenues? I should be making at least a comparable amount of money to Juventus given that they've been consistently 3rd or 4th for a few years now. As of now, I'm pretty much relying on huge profits from buying cheap and selling crazy expensive, but I don't feel it's sustainable in the long run while also investing in actual players I'm going to use as regular starters.

[phnompenhandy]

That's all down to the chairman and the board. Your only financial responsibility is to stick within the wage budget. Otherwise, all you can do is win matches, cups, titles.

What can happen in FM is the club goes into admin, you get a new board and the debts are wiped or reduced. They might sack you though, although it rarely happens if you're being successful at your end of the bargain.

[XaW]

Pretty bad, I'd say...

[stopazricky]

8 hours ago, phnompenhandy said:

That's all down to the chairman and the board. Your only financial responsibility is to stick within the wage budget. Otherwise, all you can do is win matches, cups, titles.

What can happen in FM is the club goes into admin, you get a new board and the debts are wiped or reduced. They might sack you though, although it rarely happens if you're being successful at your end of the bargain.

Thanks! So you're saying I shouldn't worry about it, right?

8 hours ago, XaW said:

Pretty bad, I'd say...

Oh jeez! Luckily I've never seen any of that yet

[XaW]

4 minutes ago, stopazricky said:

Oh jeez! Luckily I've never seen any of that yet

Don't worry, the board took out a loan to pay for the loans the club cannot pay. I expect this to go well...! 

Anyway, if you haven't seen messages like that before, you are not that close to trouble.

[Daveincid]

vor 6 Minuten schrieb XaW:

the board took out a loan to pay for the loans the club cannot pay. I expect this to go well...! 

haha I've seen this so many times! Especially in custom league files. In some cases the financial parameters were wrong or left out completely. This was leading to bad financial behaviour. Once the club is in the reds, it gets worse and worse. Thanks to the "invention" of compound interest

[XaW]

1 minute ago, Daveincid said:

haha I've seen this so many times! Especially in custom league files. In some cases the financial parameters were wrong or left out completely. This was leading to bad financial behaviour. Once the club is in the reds, it gets worse and worse. Thanks to the "invention" of compound interest

This is in the vanilla game, but the mysterious "other" expenditure is VERY high... I expect its caviar and champagne to the chairman, I mean, we are in Siberia in Russia... Novokuznetsk is FAR from anywhere, so he needs some luxury!

[Daveincid]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb XaW:

This is in the vanilla game, but the mysterious "other" expenditure is VERY high... I expect its caviar and champagne to the chairman, I mean, we are in Siberia in Russia... Novokuznetsk is FAR from anywhere, so he needs some luxury!

haha fair point Would be cool to keep us updated how you get out (or not) of this situation

[XaW]

2 minutes ago, Daveincid said:

haha fair point Would be cool to keep us updated how you get out (or not) of this situation

Will do, currently they took up a loan to cover us (for now!), but with us losing money we'll see how it goes...

[phnompenhandy]

6 hours ago, XaW said:

This is in the vanilla game, but the mysterious "other" expenditure is VERY high... I expect its caviar and champagne to the chairman, I mean, we are in Siberia in Russia... Novokuznetsk is FAR from anywhere, so he needs some luxury!

Do the travelling expenses look a tad worrisome? The ol' team bus must take a bit of a battering!

[XaW]

3 hours ago, phnompenhandy said:

Do the travelling expenses look a tad worrisome? The ol' team bus must take a bit of a battering!

Yeah, they are quite high, almost as high as "other"!

[XaW]

More loans!

Can't see any future problems with this, no siree...

[Impacto]

One of the bad aspects of the game - pretty much nothing happens! A new board comes in, wipes all the debt and it's all good. There are very little consequences for running a club badly in the game. 

In previous games, it was more severe. I've seen facilities being sold, stadiums reduced, point deductions, local chairmans with no money coming in and forced player sales. Now it still happens, but you almost have to delibirately try to destroy a club for it to trigger. 

[XaW]

8 minutes ago, Impacto said:

One of the bad aspects of the game - pretty much nothing happens! A new board comes in, wipes all the debt and it's all good. There are very little consequences for running a club badly in the game. 

In previous games, it was more severe. I've seen facilities being sold, stadiums reduced, point deductions, local chairmans with no money coming in and forced player sales. Now it still happens, but you almost have to delibirately try to destroy a club for it to trigger. 

Well, I'm experiencing it now. I don't have any facilities since they were sold! The board takes up new loans all the time. I had a takeover from a businessman who promised to clear the debt (of about £1m at the time). He pumped in £5k! So now my club has close to £4m in debt and we are losing money. There has been rumours about administration if things doesn't change.

Just to let you know, I'm playing a youth only challenge, so I haven't spent any money, and I have have a VERY small wage cost (less than a 10th of the top team in the division, and almost half of the 2nd lowest), so I haven't tried anything to go this way, I've simply slowly lost money for each season and now I'm in this pickle. I did get promoted last season, so I have a higher revenue this season, but we are still losing about £80k p/m, and there is no payouts here.

So, it still happens, believe me!

[kentonizking]

40 minutes ago, XaW said:

Well, I'm experiencing it now. I don't have any facilities since they were sold! The board takes up new loans all the time. I had a takeover from a businessman who promised to clear the debt (of about £1m at the time). He pumped in £5k! So now my club has close to £4m in debt and we are losing money. There has been rumours about administration if things doesn't change.

Just to let you know, I'm playing a youth only challenge, so I haven't spent any money, and I have have a VERY small wage cost (less than a 10th of the top team in the division, and almost half of the 2nd lowest), so I haven't tried anything to go this way, I've simply slowly lost money for each season and now I'm in this pickle. I did get promoted last season, so I have a higher revenue this season, but we are still losing about £80k p/m, and there is no payouts here.

So, it still happens, believe me!

Keep us updated, this is very interesting 

[XaW]

1 minute ago, kentonizking said:

Keep us updated, this is very interesting 

Will do, perhaps I've made some progress just being promoted though, so perhaps things will improve based on that. 12 years in the Russian 3rd tier is quite enough for me!

[XaW]

Can it get worse? Apparently, league regulations says yes...

[Daveincid]

vor 43 Minuten schrieb XaW:

Can it get worse? Apparently, league regulations says yes...

 I don't know what to say  My logical reaction would be: "this seems like a bug, it's unrealistic...no club would act like this in such a situation" but.....there are so many stories IRL of clubs having huge debts but they still buy players for 100+ millions

[XaW]

Just now, Daveincid said:

 I don't know what to say  My logical reaction would be: "this seems like a bug, it's unrealistic...no club would act like this in such a situation" but.....there are so many stories IRL of clubs having huge debts but they still buy players for 100+ millions

Not really in this one, it's league regulations after all... So I doubt there were any way around it. I think (hope!) that we will get some more money in now after the promotion, but I also need to stay up to keep improving. At least our reputation went from 1 to 1,5 stars and the new sponsorship was better!

[Daveincid]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb XaW:

Not really in this one, it's league regulations after all... So I doubt there were any way around it. I think (hope!) that we will get some more money in now after the promotion, but I also need to stay up to keep improving. At least our reputation went from 1 to 1,5 stars and the new sponsorship was better!

ooh I missed that point! So it's a rule about a minimum of seated places in the stadium?

[XaW]

1 minute ago, Daveincid said:

ooh I missed that point! So it's a rule about a minimum of seated places in the stadium?

Yeah, nothing much to do about that, really!

[phnompenhandy]

I'm doing a lower league youth challenge. My chairman agreed to build a new stadium, but the maximum capacity is 4000. It takes 2 years to build; if we get promoted twice, by the time it opens it will be below the minimum capacity for the league we'll be in!

[Daveincid]

vor 3 Minuten schrieb phnompenhandy:

if we get promoted twice

no pressure

[stopazricky]

On 14/04/2021 at 13:51, stopazricky said:

2) How can I increase my club's commercial revenues? I should be making at least a comparable amount of money to Juventus given that they've been consistently 3rd or 4th for a few years now. As of now, I'm pretty much relying on huge profits from buying cheap and selling crazy expensive, but I don't feel it's sustainable in the long run while also investing in actual players I'm going to use as regular starters.

Hey guys, I'm upping the thread because this part is still concerning to me.
How can I get better sponsorship deals? Better TV money etc.?

[Daveincid]

vor 9 Minuten schrieb stopazricky:

Hey guys, I'm upping the thread because this part is still concerning to me.
How can I get better sponsorship deals? Better TV money etc.?

Be as successful as possible and hope, that the other teams in your league perfoming good in international competitions too. It's also helpful to sign players with a high reputation to increase the overall revenue of your club.

Cheers

Daveincid

 

[Heywood JaBlowme]

Two words: Florentino Perez

[XaW]

For anyone who wanted to see how bad I could get, I have to inform you that after the promotion, we've started to actually make money so the finances are improving now. Still have to pay off a few million in debt, but we can maintain it now, and the projection are looking good. So great for my game, but bad for the interest in this thread.

[Sharkn20]

On 18/04/2021 at 19:57, Impacto said:

One of the bad aspects of the game - pretty much nothing happens! A new board comes in, wipes all the debt and it's all good. There are very little consequences for running a club badly in the game. 

In previous games, it was more severe. I've seen facilities being sold, stadiums reduced, point deductions, local chairmans with no money coming in and forced player sales. Now it still happens, but you almost have to delibirately try to destroy a club for it to trigger. 

That's incorrect, my facilities just got sold when I was demoted and unable to keep up with the financial pressure.

[Etebaer]

Am 15.4.2021 um 22:25 schrieb XaW:

This is in the vanilla game, but the mysterious "other" expenditure is VERY high... I expect its caviar and champagne to the chairman, I mean, we are in Siberia in Russia... Novokuznetsk is FAR from anywhere, so he needs some luxury!

 

For a small Club in a lower league "Other" can be ultimate ruin.

I for one stopped doing language courses when i found out one such course is 15k to 50k and my whole yearly budget is maybe 100k to 200k until i reach Tier 3 in germany.

Adminisitration starts somewhere beyond a debt of 300k and 5 of the more expensive language courses can easily make you go broke.

Edited April 23, 2021 by Etebaer

[XaW]

2 hours ago, Etebaer said:

For a small Club in a lower league "Other" can be ultimate ruin.

I for one stopped doing language courses when i found out one such course is 15k to 50k and my whole yearly budget is maybe 100k to 200k until i reach Tier 3 in germany.

Adminisitration starts somewhere beyond a debt of 300k and 5 of the more expensive language courses can easily make you go broke.

Well, I'm playing a youth-only save, so I didn't send anyone on any of those courses, but still had massive costs.

If Administration starts at £300k, then I got really lucky, at the worst we had about £4m in loan debt and were about £1.5m in the red balance with no more facilities to sell and with several messages of potential administration!

[Etebaer]

Well, it may different for each Club, i had it once at around 330k debt.

I do not do any youth development in the lower leagues bcs it is to expensive, increasing the youth recruitment quality for science i had at some time a 400k expense only for youth recruitment at a 200k seasonal income...it only worked out bcs i had a streak of amateur cup wins so i was qualified for the Professional Cup Competition and made between 250 to 1,5m 4 times in 5 years.

And i did not get a single good youth player so i stopped doing so - it filter the market for good youth prospects and transfer them in and they develop while playing first team matches.

Reputation plays a to big role in youth recruitment...usually youth prospects would not know their value until they have proven it to themself and their teams they are in at which point a race for talent starts.

In FM the race for talent starts b4 that...

Edited April 23, 2021 by Etebaer

[phd_angel]

On 15/04/2021 at 06:39, phnompenhandy said:

That's all down to the chairman and the board. Your only financial responsibility is to stick within the wage budget. Otherwise, all you can do is win matches, cups, titles.

What can happen in FM is the club goes into admin, you get a new board and the debts are wiped or reduced. They might sack you though, although it rarely happens if you're being successful at your end of the bargain.

Agree overall, but if you spend well below your wage budget, and save most of your transfer funds, this will also do wonders to the club's treasury. So, if Atalanta is doing so much better "by far", as @stopazricky says in the opening post, it makes me wonder if you've spent all your transfer funds, plus wages/bonuses, bringing in some super stars...

 

[stopazricky]

12 hours ago, phd_angel said:

Agree overall, but if you spend well below your wage budget, and save most of your transfer funds, this will also do wonders to the club's treasury. So, if Atalanta is doing so much better "by far", as @stopazricky says in the opening post, it makes me wonder if you've spent all your transfer funds, plus wages/bonuses, bringing in some super stars...

 

Well, I kinda did, but in a responsible way.
While my annual wage spend tripled in the span of four years (from 50mil to 150mil), I did that by constantly using transfer funds to increase my wage budget, I never actually went in the red. This is because I'm making a huge amount of money from transfers, which in a way is part of the problem.

As I said, when during the last season I sold Gnonto to Man City for 97mil, I reinvested only around half of that, and that caused the club to profit for over 30 million euros that season. But as soon as the current season started, the bank balance was going down unreasonably fast. That prompted me to sell Alenà for 66 mi (bought first season for 5 millions), and I'm only gonna spend around a third of that, so that's gonna fix everything... for a while.
But the point is, I spend like a top European club and I have revenues like, well, Atalanta. So in order to even keep the club going I'm constantly hunting down talent, buying for cheap, and sell for crazy expensive a couple years later. But I doubt I'll be able to keep it going forever.

[Sharkn20]

8 hours ago, stopazricky said:

Well, I kinda did, but in a responsible way.
While my annual wage spend tripled in the span of four years (from 50mil to 150mil), I did that by constantly using transfer funds to increase my wage budget, I never actually went in the red. This is because I'm making a huge amount of money from transfers, which in a way is part of the problem.

As I said, when during the last season I sold Gnonto to Man City for 97mil, I reinvested only around half of that, and that caused the club to profit for over 30 million euros that season. But as soon as the current season started, the bank balance was going down unreasonably fast. That prompted me to sell Alenà for 66 mi (bought first season for 5 millions), and I'm only gonna spend around a third of that, so that's gonna fix everything... for a while.
But the point is, I spend like a top European club and I have revenues like, well, Atalanta. So in order to even keep the club going I'm constantly hunting down talent, buying for cheap, and sell for crazy expensive a couple years later. But I doubt I'll be able to keep it going forever.

And that's the problem that big clubs are facing at the moment in Europe, they can't keep up with the salaries. And the Pandemy is only making things worst.

That's why they wanted a Superleague.

Welcome to the Top tier of competitive European football! Big Stars asking for too much money, sponsorship / TV money is not enough!