FM24 Feature Blog: Introducing Intermediaries and Offloading Players

[Dan Sheppard]

Whether you’re signing world-class Wonderkids, looking to offload players that no longer make the grade or anything in between, squad building is integral to every Football Manager career.

We’ve heard your feedback in recent years that selling players can prove a frustrating experience – as it often is for many clubs and players during every transfer window. With that in mind, our team considered what extra tools could we have in FM24 for players and AI managers to help with this aspect of the game.

As with so many areas of Football Manager, we leaned on our industry access to better understand how clubs look to solve the problem of offloading players in the professional game and then applied that insight to our game world.

Visit the Football Manager Website to find out more about this feature.

[gunner86]

This certainly looks like it’s going to give us better options when it comes to selling players. I really hope this works the way it sounds like it is meant to because this could be a game changer.

[autohoratio]

Will we finally be able to Declare Interest in other clubs' players for Loan or End of Contract?? The current implementation of the Declare Interest feature treats all of the human manager's interests as for Transfers, whereas AI clubs don't have that limitation.
Correction (I got my features mixed up):

Will we finally be able to Add player to Shortlist for Loan or End of Contract?? The current implementation of the Shortlist feature treats all of the human manager's interests as for Transfers, whereas AI clubs don't have that limitation.

Edited September 22, 2023 by autohoratio

[Dagenham_Dave]

10 minutes ago, autohoratio said:

Will we finally be able to Declare Interest in other clubs' players for Loan

You can do this already, and have been able to since the feature was first implemented. It would be good to add an 'end of contract' option too though. 

[Grez]

Generally sounds OK, my initial impression on Intermediaries is that the decision making process around selecting your intermediary feels a little arbitrary.

Perhaps it'll play-out different in-game, but if you give me a list of 6 intermediaries I'm just going to pick the one that promises the most money (minus fees of course).

I think the selection screen would feel much more meaningful if it contained more details, for example a few ideas:

• More detailed a area knowledge - Is the intermediary a specialist in France or Germany? Perhaps if I have a French player, a French intermediary might be a good option. Just saying "regional" or "continental" feels a bit too vague for me to do anything with.
• Expected player salary - it might affect how likely a player is to leave, or any compensation I need to pay to the player for them to leave
• Expected level of football - for example does the intermediary expect to offer Champions League football, Europa football, a top-5 league, a top-20 league etc - this would affect the players decision and therefore mine
• How long the process will take (if better intermediaries are quicker, give me an estimated timeline or a deadline for each intermediary)
• Intermediary confidence level in making a sale - one Intermediary might think they have a small chance of selling your player for 30m, whereas another intermediary might only expect to get 25m but they're very confident in making it happen. This gives us a real decision to make depending how pressed for time and desperate we are to sell.
• An estimate of the player's chances of wanting to accept a move from this intermediary - similar to above, it gives you a decision to make based on how desperate you are to make a sale (Although maybe you can infer player the chances yourself if you know the regions / salary etc, and skip this column)

If you give us this kind of information, and the outcomes vary significantly enough between intermediaries, it would feel like a meaningful decision. Just seeing a list of prices and fees doesn't feel like a decision, I'll just pick the biggest number. Or maybe I'm wrong, we'll see how it plays out in game.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Grez

[JohnnyP14]

Hoping that we be able to use these things (transfer room) for signing players as well

 

I’m assuming that the Intermediaries will all be agents and not staff already in game (manager or a DoF that might be unemployed)? It could be a way to build relationships with other staff/managers as well

[autohoratio]

34 minutes ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

You can do this already, and have been able to since the feature was first implemented. It would be good to add an 'end of contract' option too though. 

Yeah I got my terms mixed up 😂. I meant Add to Shortlist - there's no Loan or End of Contract Shortlist options

[kandersson]

Looks interesting and useful but also so many extra clicks...

[Iggy Hassan]

1 hour ago, Grez said:

Generally sounds OK, my initial impression on Intermediaries is that the decision making process around selecting your intermediary feels a little arbitrary.

Perhaps it'll play-out different in-game, but if you give me a list of 6 intermediaries I'm just going to pick the one that promises the most money (minus fees of course).

I think the selection screen would feel much more meaningful if it contained more details, for example a few ideas:

• More detailed a area knowledge - Is the intermediary a specialist in France or Germany? Perhaps if I have a French player, a French intermediary might be a good option. Just saying "regional" or "continental" feels a bit too vague for me to do anything with.
• Expected player salary - it might affect how likely a player is to leave, or any compensation I need to pay to the player for them to leave
• Expected level of football - for example does the intermediary expect to offer Champions League football, Europa football, a top-5 league, a top-20 league etc - this would affect the players decision and therefore mine
• How long the process will take (if better intermediaries are quicker, give me an estimated timeline or a deadline for each intermediary)
• Intermediary confidence level in making a sale - one Intermediary might think they have a small chance of selling your player for 30m, whereas another intermediary might only expect to get 25m but they're very confident in making it happen. This gives us a real decision to make depending how pressed for time and desperate we are to sell.
• An estimate of the player's chances of wanting to accept a move from this intermediary - similar to above, it gives you a decision to make based on how desperate you are to make a sale (Although maybe you can infer player the chances yourself if you know the regions / salary etc, and skip this column)

If you give us this kind of information, and the outcomes vary significantly enough between intermediaries, it would feel like a meaningful decision. Just seeing a list of prices and fees doesn't feel like a decision, I'll just pick the biggest number. Or maybe I'm wrong, we'll see how it plays out in game.

Jeez, and I thought selling players in FM24 was supposed to be easier...

[Dagenham_Dave]

21 minutes ago, kandersson said:

Looks interesting and useful but also so many extra clicks...

It's a mouse driven game. You want more depth, then there's more clicks, it's the nature of the beast. 

[kandersson]

11 minutes ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

It's a mouse driven game. You want more depth, then there's more clicks, it's the nature of the beast. 

If we can have the option to delegate all the interactions with intemediaries and agents to DoF then I'm on board, especially as this seems the kind of stuff that DoF's - not managers - would deal with IRL.

Edited September 22, 2023 by kandersson

[Dagenham_Dave]

40 minutes ago, kandersson said:

If we can have the option to delegate all the interactions with intemediaries and agents to DoF then I'm on board, especially as this seems the kind of stuff that DoF's - not managers - would deal with IRL.

You should be able to. The functionality is there just now to delegate all transfer activity to your staff. I see no reason why this would change. 

[ryanlion28]

Was a lot of discussion about agents, but would be interested to know how the negotiations work at a lower league where agents aren't involved. Can non league clubs still make use of Intermediaries?

[Iggy Hassan]

1 hour ago, ryanlion28 said:

Was a lot of discussion about agents, but would be interested to know how the negotiations work at a lower league where agents aren't involved. Can non league clubs still make use of Intermediaries?

Good point. Surely negotiating deals at lower league level should in theory be easier without the use of big agents and these so called intermediaries? 

[SergeiG]

It's a nice useful feature but

"Intermediaries can also work for other clubs, meaning that they will come to you directly if someone else is looking to offload a player. In these instances, you’ll receive a Scout Report that includes Agent Feedback outlining a few expected financial details were you to pursue this deal."

As it is I get tons and tons of unless scout reports and suggestions, some weeks I get a 100 reports waiting for me, so if It's going to spam my scout reports even more it could be a problem. I hope there will be a way to turn these off.

[gunner86]

4 hours ago, SergeiG said:

It's a nice useful feature but

"Intermediaries can also work for other clubs, meaning that they will come to you directly if someone else is looking to offload a player. In these instances, you’ll receive a Scout Report that includes Agent Feedback outlining a few expected financial details were you to pursue this deal."

As it is I get tons and tons of unless scout reports and suggestions, some weeks I get a 100 reports waiting for me, so if It's going to spam my scout reports even more it could be a problem. I hope there will be a way to turn these off.

Make your scouting focuses more specific. I made sure that all my focuses have a minimum PA of 3.5 stars, cuts out a LOT of the reports.

I also view the email in list view, makes it easier to quickly dismiss others I know I don’t want.

[XaW]

6 hours ago, SergeiG said:

It's a nice useful feature but

"Intermediaries can also work for other clubs, meaning that they will come to you directly if someone else is looking to offload a player. In these instances, you’ll receive a Scout Report that includes Agent Feedback outlining a few expected financial details were you to pursue this deal."

As it is I get tons and tons of unless scout reports and suggestions, some weeks I get a 100 reports waiting for me, so if It's going to spam my scout reports even more it could be a problem. I hope there will be a way to turn these off.

You can do this already in game, by removing the types of suggestions you don't want, so I would image the intermediary reports would be another on/off tick for the setup.

[toolkit68]

This has to be the most unnecessary feature ever - seriously.

There are currently 3 Director positions with each their speciality - Director of Football, Technical Director and Loan Manager. The offloading of players is and has to be a job to be fulfilled by the DoF as it is one of his particular jobs. He is already m,aking suggestions if one is unsure whom to sign for certain positions  So instead of creating yet another sub-sub-sub-feature somewhere else the Director of Football interface and setup should be set up properly for this. In real life a club without their own knowledge about market prices and trends is doomed to fail so using an outsider without knowing those people seems to be the more unprofessional option than making sure that the DoF gets a proper makeover!

Edit: I would like to emphasize the existing features once more - the Director of Football is responsible by default for the 'Unwanted list' - this is exactly what it means to offload players. The current system is at best sub-par what it could be. So please SI - dont introduce yet another extra feature that is already in the game but fix the existing problem!

Edited September 24, 2023 by toolkit68

[Grez]

On 22/09/2023 at 18:11, Iggy Hassan said:

Jeez, and I thought selling players in FM24 was supposed to be easier...

I think the wording they used was "less frustrating".

I don't think having a bit more information would make it particularly hard / difficult, it just turns a fairly arbitrary decision into an informed decision, which I think is better game-play.

I think if you have 6 intermediaries and very little information about any of them, you're just going to pick the highest price unless it's the deadline day and need it done quickly. I just don't see a lot of point in presenting the player with that decision, it's not very meaningful.

Edited September 24, 2023 by Grez

[Iggy Hassan]

2 hours ago, Grez said:

I think the wording they used was "less frustrating".

I don't think having a bit more information would make it particularly hard / difficult, it just turns a fairly arbitrary decision into an informed decision, which I think is better game-play.

I think if you have 6 intermediaries and very little information about any of them, you're just going to pick the highest price unless it's the deadline day and need it done quickly. I just don't see a lot of point in presenting the player with that decision, it's not very meaningful.

I completely agree my friend. Like others have mentioned, how is this going to work with lower league teams will be interesting. 

I love the idea of involving transfer room though.

I had no idea that, 'Intermediaries' existed in modern football until this announcement. Just seems like another pointless add-on to me like sports scientists, performance & recruitment analysts...

I don't doubt that they are essential in real football, but they bring very little to football manager. 

Edited September 24, 2023 by Iggy Hassan

[TioPatinhax]

will agents have their real names on the game?

[decapitated]

3 minutes ago, TioPatinhax said:

will agents have their real names on the game?

Probably not, as all agents in FM games since they've been introduced have been randomly generated newgens.

[Dagenham_Dave]

On 24/09/2023 at 07:21, toolkit68 said:

Edit: I would like to emphasize the existing features once more - the Director of Football is responsible by default for the 'Unwanted list' - this is exactly what it means to offload players. 

Yes, and that isn't changing. The new additions have been brought in to help with players that the DoF is unable to shift to another club. The involvement of intermediaries/agents is absolutely a thing that happens in real life, moreseo at the bigger clubs admittedly, but it's there. You won't have to go through that process every time you want to sell a player, it's only for those who you've tried to get of, or have been on the Unwanted list with no movement. 

I get the feeling some people are thinking this is replacing the existing tranferring out process. It's not. 

[gunner86]

2 hours ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

Yes, and that isn't changing. The new additions have been brought in to help with players that the DoF is unable to shift to another club. The involvement of intermediaries/agents is absolutely a thing that happens in real life, moreseo at the bigger clubs admittedly, but it's there. You won't have to go through that process every time you want to sell a player, it's only for those who you've tried to get of, or have been on the Unwanted list with no movement. 

I get the feeling some people are thinking this is replacing the existing tranferring out process. It's not. 

On top of this, for most people, the process is offer out a player with lower and lower asking prices until you get a negotiable bid. And this should be less clicks than that…

[toolkit68]

5 hours ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

Yes, and that isn't changing. The new additions have been brought in to help with players that the DoF is unable to shift to another club. The involvement of intermediaries/agents is absolutely a thing that happens in real life, moreseo at the bigger clubs admittedly, but it's there. You won't have to go through that process every time you want to sell a player, it's only for those who you've tried to get of, or have been on the Unwanted list with no movement. 

I get the feeling some people are thinking this is replacing the existing tranferring out process. It's not. 

You misunderstand the point:

The offloading of players falls into a certain responsibility area which is usually lead by the Director of Football (some call them Director of Sports, Technical Director and so on but for the FM argument this is what the DoF is for).

The usage of intermediaries is not questioned in general but the implementation is. At best this feature is a sub-button on the DoF UI when you place players on the 'unwanted' list - it is not a major feature as SI makes it out to be. Instead of fixing the bugged offloading this feature is promoted like it is the real solution to a problem - which it isnt.

Edited September 25, 2023 by toolkit68

[-Jef-]

2 minutes ago, toolkit68 said:

You misunderstand the point:

The offloading of players falls into a certain responsibility area which is usually lead by the Director of Football (some call them Director of Sports, Technical Director and so on but for the FM argument this is what the DoF is for).

The usage of intermediaries is not questioned in general but the implementation is. At best this feature is a sub-button on the DoF UI when you place players on the 'unwanted' list - it is not a major feature as SI makes it out to be. Instead of fixing the bugged offloading this feature is promoted like it is the real solution to a problem - which it isnt.

Ooooooooooor this is just another tool that AI can use as well to offload players?

[toolkit68]

6 minutes ago, -Jef- said:

Ooooooooooor this is just another tool that AI can use as well to offload players?

I dont know if the AI will be able to use this as well. The current DoF is heavily bugged in a way that if you dont micromanage things yourself and offer those players to clubs for example, they will sit there and all you get is a message about the DoF not being able to offload. This is a programming problem that hasnt been fixed for a while now. Simply said it looks like the hooks that are meant to trigger certain activities are simply not working unless the player actively does something once in a while to refresh those triggers - like offering them manually out to clubs.

Edited September 25, 2023 by toolkit68

[Dagenham_Dave]

People always love to see the negative in everything! 

Getting more help for offloading players has been wanted for years. We now get this, and people are still moaning. 

[fc.cadoni]

4 minutes ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

People always love to see the negative in everything! 

Getting more help for offloading players has been wanted for years. We now get this, and people are still moaning. 

Will be always moan 

[toolkit68]

12 hours ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

People always love to see the negative in everything! 

Getting more help for offloading players has been wanted for years. We now get this, and people are still moaning. 

People dont moan about getting help but about the feature itself. It is like handing a crutch to a player with a torn hamstring instead of sending them to a specialist. Sure it helps but does it really solve the problem itself? Probably not. As long as we have had the different types of Directors and their specialities they have never worked as advertised/described/promised (use your favourite word here). If a problem persists and is covered by offering solutions that are at best hotfixes or work-arounds then people moan. PLus - this new version costs new money and the old features that dont work will probably still not work.

[grade]

17 hours ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

People always love to see the negative in everything! 

Getting more help for offloading players has been wanted for years. We now get this, and people are still moaning. 

Can't wait for the feature, where we can bribe referees and league officials for games to go my way. So if happens in real life, it should be included in game, regardless gameplay got it. 

I'm being sarcastic about the situation, but these features do feel we are jumping an extra hoops. This is feature I won't use (consider moaning if you want), because I'm financially responsible in the game (also the game helps in that regard), I don't have any issues of putting my unsellable players into the reserve teams, until either get a offer or his contract ends.

I hope the feature works for those that want to use it, as described in this blog post, but since I like (sarcasm) to reading moaning comments, I would love to see people complain about it, once the game is release. 

Edited September 26, 2023 by grade

[phnompenhandy]

On 25/09/2023 at 16:57, TioPatinhax said:

will agents have their real names on the game?

Dunno if there are licensing restrictions there, but there are fan-created mods to add real names into a save.

[sverige91]

On 25/09/2023 at 17:58, Dagenham_Dave said:

People always love to see the negative in everything! 

Getting more help for offloading players has been wanted for years. We now get this, and people are still moaning. 

People complain because they have seen how new features in the game work. It has been several years, but 'Club Vision' still doesn't work well. We have seen how effective the 'Technical Director' is at recruiting staff for the club. What about the 'Director of Football' role? Instead of improving the current staff, they introduce a new function. Who says it will work if the others didn't? - People have a right to be skeptical.

The only new feature that currently looks promising is Interactions and Objectives

[Mars_Blackmon]

 

On 25/09/2023 at 11:38, toolkit68 said:

You misunderstand the point:

The offloading of players falls into a certain responsibility area which is usually lead by the Director of Football (some call them Director of Sports, Technical Director and so on but for the FM argument this is what the DoF is for).

The usage of intermediaries is not questioned in general but the implementation is. At best this feature is a sub-button on the DoF UI when you place players on the 'unwanted' list - it is not a major feature as SI makes it out to be. Instead of fixing the bugged offloading this feature is promoted like it is the real solution to a problem - which it isnt.

Source?

[toolkit68]

2 hours ago, Mars_Blackmon said:

 

Source?

Source of what? Maybe try two or three words in a row? It is called sentence for a reason

[Mars_Blackmon]

57 minutes ago, toolkit68 said:

Source of what? Maybe try two or three words in a row? It is called sentence for a reason

Can you provide sources for your post? Your statement sounds very authoritative and factual rather than being just an opinion. If I didn't see  your name, I would have assumed that you were a developer.

[toolkit68]

28 minutes ago, Mars_Blackmon said:

Can you provide sources for your post? Your statement sounds very authoritative and factual rather than being just an opinion. If I didn't see  your name, I would have assumed that you were a developer.

Everything in my posts is based on SI's own descriptions in the manual , in dev posts, tooltips ingame, descriptions both in game and so on. The roles of all directors is shown in tutorials, in tooltips and so on. Have you ever read anything in the game actualllay, because your question for a source feels like you have not.

Edit: And if you make an assumption based of my post that i am a developer you are both right and wrong at the same time. I do develop software but I do not work for SI. I post as a normal player who has been playing the different versions of FM for years now.

Edited September 29, 2023 by toolkit68

[Mars_Blackmon]

5 hours ago, toolkit68 said:

Everything in my posts is based on SI's own descriptions in the manual , in dev posts, tooltips ingame, descriptions both in game and so on. The roles of all directors is shown in tutorials, in tooltips and so on. Have you ever read anything in the game actualllay, because your question for a source feels like you have not.

Edit: And if you make an assumption based of my post that i am a developer you are both right and wrong at the same time. I do develop software but I do not work for SI. I post as a normal player who has been playing the different versions of FM for years now.

This doesn't explain your commentary on the last part of your original statement. Seem more speculation. 

[toolkit68]

4 hours ago, Mars_Blackmon said:

This doesn't explain your commentary on the last part of your original statement. Seem more speculation. 

Mate - if a specific wording or sentence flips you of be so polite to use quotes and dont just use 'words' or 'statements' - this is the internet! You can link to someone else's rubbish directly, marvellous isnt it?

That is my original statement by the way. If you related to anything else please use the quote function.

[Mars_Blackmon]

7 hours ago, toolkit68 said:

Mate - if a specific wording or sentence flips you of be so polite to use quotes and dont just use 'words' or 'statements' - this is the internet! You can link to someone else's rubbish directly, marvellous isnt it?

That is my original statement by the way. If you related to anything else please use the quote function.

No need. You know what I am referring to; don't be coy. But thank you anyway for clarifying that you have no clue and are just giving an opinion.

I also appreciate the lesson on internet etiquette.

But as a fellow developer, seeing the lack of a growth mindset is discouraging. You completely dismissed this feature without trying or giving constructive criticism, 

Edited September 30, 2023 by Mars_Blackmon

[Vladson]

Hello.

I have a problem (may be not?) with selling via intermediaries.

I started the game and wanted to sell a player. First i used the option to talk to the agent, he said there are no interested sides. Then I decided to try an intermediary, who told me that there are no interested clubs also. But I`m curious isn`t it supposed to be a job of intermediary to find interested club for a fee?

The screen bellow is from https://www.footballmanager.com/features/introducing-intermediaries-and-offloading-players

I have never received the offers in the way pictured by the screen.

Is it a bug or am I doing smth not right?