Caning the Days

Use team reports to discover prospective loanees from bigger clubs. You can usually only sign them from clubs three divisions above in England. This doesn't appear to cost much and is a quick way to find and sign players. If you have money in the bank (or don't care about going into the red) but no wage budget then offer a monthly fee instead of whatever the club wants as a wage contribution. This frees up loads of wage budget for permanent signings. Aslo pre-season friendlies against big clubs bring in money. Doing a league enables you to play 3 games in 3 days so you can make more money.

Welcome to a lifetime of frustration with the occasional moment of pure joy! My advice would be not to rush too much. Try to enjoy the challenge of staying up in your first season. Offloading too many players can disrupt the team anyway. Some players who look garbage way actually be quite handy if you give them a chance. Once you finish the first season it should be easier to move players on and free up some of that wage budget. Also, I would only look at free transfers and convert most of any transfer budget you have into your wage budget. Also, have a look at renegotaiating some exisiting contracts. You might be able to reduce their weekly wage by increasing appearance bonuses, or reduce the length of their contract in return for a small payrise. If you want to get some cheap players on loan, do some team reports for continental teams with top youth systems, the big guns like Real, Barca etc will often loan you a decent prospect for next to nothing.

You only have to pay their wages for the remainder of their contract with you, so it can be a useful way to reduce your wage bill even if they offer a £0 fee. Example: If you have a player you don't want and won't play = You are paying the player £500k per week and he has 12 months left on his contract, selling him for free while paying 50% of his wages means you only pay him £3million instead of £6million. If you like you could look at it as selling him for £3million instead of a free. Although this only works if you definitely wouldn't otherwise use the player. This happens very regularly in real life so I think is justified in the game. Be careful offering those big, long contracts basically. My suggestion would be to try to loan them out on 100% wages if possible.

I have seen at least one woman managing a club. I think it was at Newport County but forget who it was. She was doing a good job.

Get your AMR to man mark their DL. This has worked so well for me it almost seems like gaming the system now. It doesn't necessarily mean your AMR tracks back all the way, but it mostly prevents the DL becoming an outlet in the first place and seems to discourage them from venturing forwards. I do it on both sides. Make sure you switch this to man mark WBL on the rare occasions when facing wing backs.

Thanks for all these suggestions. Charlton went up behind me in the playoffs and currently have nearly double the sponsorship depsite their immediate relegation to the Championship this season so it feels frustrating. I think the player rep thing could be the key, and a bit of patience

Facilities are about the highest they can go. In terms of tours do you know where is most lucrative? I think my problem is not signing high rep players as you suggested.

Really struggling to match even the lowliest Premier League clubs levels of sponsorship. In my second year in the Prem with Birmingham after winning the Championship 2 years ago. I have reached a cup final (lost) and finished mid table, but I am still way behind in sponsorship than many Championship clubs that I would argue are a lot smaller. I have affiliates in Japan, Australia and Bulgaria (maybe need to change the last one) but don't seem to be able to get any more. Got a young Japanese player to raise my profile there. Any ideas how long it takes to catch up to the likes of a Bournemouth or a Brighton who are more than double my current sponsorship value? I am at about £4.5 mill per season and the next lowest is around the £13m mark. Any tips or info appreciated

I only know it because I once thought like you so had to ask! Over the years I turned down loads of good offers that in hindsight may have been worth taking up. I am still a bit obsessed with working out exactly which of the offers would be better... higher fee and higher wage contribution, or lower fee lower contribution. Maybe it tells you a summary somewhere but I haven't noticed it. That might be a nice addition if it's not there

The salary contribution is only until the end of his contract with you. So whatever they are paying you are saving in relation to what it would cost if you kept him that long. So it's worth it if you really aren't gonna use him. In this instance you would save £301,500. It's not great but if you wouldn't play him at all and he left on a free at the end this offer would be preferable. They are still cheeky b*stards though

Yeah i think there is an issue with the sponsorship levels in this game and the speed it takes to catch up when rising through the divisions. There are factors which would take a long time to improve if a small made it to the Prem (such as attendances and some infrastructure), but sponsorship would be pretty quick to at least come up to near the lower reaches of the other teams I would have thought. Mine went down after three consecutive promotions and was lowest from all the 5 lowest divisions in the English League.

Are Blyth Spartans now playing at Burnley's ground on your game? That's miles away from Blyth if so!

Unfortunately I can't as this is happening in an online game.

Can you tell me exactly how to do this, as I can't seem to make it work? I have added a page I want to be directed to in 'Custom Screen Flow' but it doesn't seem to change anything

Me too. Consecutive promotions with Curzon Ashton from the National league North to National League to League 2 yielded yearly decreases in the already tiny sponsorship revenue.