Saving lower league club financially

[Rick87]

Hi all, I'm currently using a lower league expansion to play as a custom team I created in England's level 10 divisions. (You can read my progress so far HERE)

Now this club has hemorrhaged money and at the start of season two we are almost £60k in debt despite only having non-contract players, basic staff and basic facilities. 

This division has an automatic 10-point deduction for clubs entering administration, I was wondering, at what point does a club enter admin? What is the financial threshold for it?

And is there anything I can do to help save the club? I've asked the chairman to find a senior affiliate to gain some income and hopefully a decent loan player or two but he keeps rejecting the request as he cannot see the financial benefits!? He's also scaled back our youth recruitment and junior coaching (which were poor to begin with)

[phnompenhandy]

Look for opportunities to book a lucrative friendly. If any club comes in for one of your players, arrange to play a friendly. Any of your players hoovering up too much appearance money or bonuses?

[Rick87]

4 hours ago, phnompenhandy said:

Look for opportunities to book a lucrative friendly. If any club comes in for one of your players, arrange to play a friendly. Any of your players hoovering up too much appearance money or bonuses?

Yeah, I have a few friendlies against clubs bigger than ourselves, a couple of Northern Irish Prem teams, which is quite a big deal to a level 10 outfit. After taking away fees we make a net of about £1k from each game which I suppose eats away at the debt a little. I've pretty much converted save into a youth academy challenge now as I can't offer what players want in appearance fees.

[Brasilia88]

There isn't that much you can do:

Stay under wage budget and look for end of contract players. Preferentially, young players with potential who might earn you some money and also can be either kept at the club for development or to be sold. When selling a player, add profit 50%, since that might make you some good money. 

Do well in cup games and be lucky with the draw. Drew Liverpool in the 3rd round and netted 800k in TV money. That was my budget for an entire season... Surely, we lost the game, but we got a ton of money out of it. 

Doing well in the league (getting promoted mostly) leads to bigger crowds and more sponsorship. It won't make you rich, but it will do with your projected income. 

Senior affiliate is a must have as mentioned by phnom. 

The rest is out of your control... until League 2 you'll be hovering between no money and some money. 

 

[Etebaer]

Reduce your paid staff to the minimum.

Hire u19 staff as they are cheaper (look for u19 staff that works for ~100 Euro per week and after agreeing to a contract change it to first team staff while they are still pondering over it).

Give staff a secondary job.

Do never do language courses!

Get rid of all youth players that can not play in the first team!

Do not spend any money on youth improvements!

Stop the paid scouting package outside the transfer windows (set it to zero and probably only pay for that in the first transferwindow month of each summer!

You can have a few cheap scouts (30 to 50 Euro per week) or some of the age 50+ Football Directors (that will do the scout role for 100 to 150 Euro per week).

Edited January 10 by Etebaer

[Rick87]

Thank you all for your advice 👌 

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Ok you don't want any reserve or youth players or staff at all. Even your main staff you want minimum. Abs no help to you that far down. 

You have almost 0 chance at senior affiliate your reputation is too low unless you made it high in editor. 

If you want to cheese system you can arrange 2-3 friendlies per week against English prem u21 teams. You might have to ask all of them but if they have opening in schedule they will accept. 

You use random trialists to play in the matches. You do this for the entire season. It's a pain ass as it takes long to setup but depending on your stadium these games are 20-80k in profit. 

At some point you need a cup run. 

Loans won't help cause your semi pro at max. Affiliate forget about it. 

You won't even be able to really sell until league 2 or 1. You will just run at a deficit unless you have a good cup run every season or cheese the u21 friendlies