[[England] (Official) League Specific Issues]

3 minutes ago, agoran said:

So, in editor that we can erase? So i must buy all the players before august?

I am sure you can remove it in the editor, but I wouldn't know how. For question two, that was the real life example. In FM it will treat the full salary of all players bought to count towards the salary cap.

[[England] (Official) League Specific Issues]

21 hours ago, agoran said:

I start to play in SKY bet league one with Sunderland, and there is funny rule of 53 000 € per week. Is this in real world? Where can i change this in editor? this is stupid. Other temas have bigger wage to and nothing... please help

 

And example Grigg have wage 11000p/w and when I remove him my wage from 53000pw drop to 51000pw and not like it mus be 42000p/w

 

This is actually by design - League One and Two implemented Salary Caps this year. For League one the cap should be £2.5 million per year (approx £48,000 per week, i guess EUR 53,000 is the approx currency conversion). To allow for clubs that would have players on significantly higher wages any contract signed before the cap came in (early august 2020) would only count as £2,000 per week towards the cap. Therefore Grigg on 11,000 per week will only count for 2,000 towards the cap.

It's going to be a nightmare in real life come the end of this season when clubs like Sunderland, Hull, Charlton, Portsmouth .etc, who all have significantly higher wage bills, are forced to attribute the entire salary of their players towards the cap. Also please note that any U21 players do not count at all towards the cap.

["Must sign replacement player before selling" - Potential Bug]

Hi Team,

I think I've experienced a bug in FM21, however this may be design - if it is a bug I should be able to provide a save game.

Facts;

• I am playing as Charlton, the game is at the start of the 2021/22 season.
• I accepted a bid from Wycombe for Ben Purrington, however I negotiated a condition that I'd sign a replacement D (L) (Bens only natural position) before selling.
• Throughout the course of two weeks I negotiated and accepted a deal for Cameron John from Doncaster, who is natural at both Central and Left defence, D (LC)
• The game doesn't recognise that he's a direct replacement for Ben, and thus his transfer to Wycombe cannot be completed. And I'm now left with two players!

Let me know if you need any further information

 

[[England EFL League One] Data Issues]

1 hour ago, Dean Gripton said:

If he's put £12m to cover running costs, that is just that, to cover running costs, not to allow people playing Fm to have a £12m transfer budget.

This is a football management game, not a convoluted high finance capitalism sim. 

So, the figures we need to deal with are still missing, amongst a lot of words that don't really do anything to uncloud the issue.

What debts are there? Someone, somewhere is owed money by the entity that is Charlton Athletic. Not that's either Duchatelet, previous owners, Elliott or Sandgaard himself. Who is owed money, and how much?

Apologies if the comment RE 12 million wasn't clear but that entire paragraph was referring to that being in the bank balance, not the Transfer balance. It'd be ridiculous for Charlton to have a 12 million transfer budget, there could be arguments made that they don't deserve any transfer budget as they've already brought in 12 players, but the finances should be in a better state. We won't have access to the financial statements until next year so we can only go off of what the owners are saying in the press. What we do know is that Sandgaard has put that amount in to cover running costs, to try and alleviate the financial burden on the club in these tough times.

I was asked to make a suggestion for Charlton's Finances by Mr Pompey - my first suggestion would be that the starting bank balance is increased to reflect the money Sandgaard has put in to cover running costs. (If setting it to 12 Mil unbalances the game, set it to less? But the current 2 Mil seems quite low.)

With regards to the debt; there are a number of ex director loans that are repayable once the club enters the Premier league. These are accurately reflected in FM. There is an inaccurate debt reflected in FM for 44 Million - this is the debt that ESI negotiated with Duchatalet for an obligation to buy the training ground in 5 years to the tune of 44 Million (which allowed them to purchase the club for 1 pound.. you'd think the EFL could stop something like that, but here we are). Sandgaard has removed this obligation of payment to Duchatalet, however the rental payments for the training ground and stadium are "higher than the 200,000 under ESI". Sandgaard is on record confirming that this debt is gone; https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/exclusive-interview-with-new-charlton-owner-thomas-sandgaard-addicks-were-days-away-from-administration/ - Actual quote:

"But he has revealed that there is no longer any commitment to acquire both pieces of land off Duchatelet.

“ESI’s deal came with a £44m balloon payment which forced them to buy the whole thing within five years,” explained Sandgaard. “My deal means I pay much higher rent for the stadium and training ground – many times higher. But, in return for that, I got all these weird side deals eliminated."

My second suggestion would therefore be that this 44 mil debt is removed completely from FM21 and some sort of "rental payment" implemented to reflect that new agreement.

Removal of that debt will probably resolve a lot of the financial problems we're currently seeing with the club in the beta.

P.S. Thanks for all the great work you're all doing, I don't want any of this to come across as ungrateful for the game that's being put out! Just trying to help.

 

[[England EFL League One] Data Issues]

I'll make a couple of suggestions below, but I want to caveat it that I don't fully understand how everything intertwines in the back end and I don't want to create an unbalanced scenario - it should be tough to get out of League 1 and while Charlton should be financially stable, they're aren't in a position where they walk the league. And a transfer budget of £300,000 (which i believe it currently is) seems reasonable, the team has been bloated with 12 new players over summer, good players, so the user shouldn't have capacity to bring in loads more, but at the same time there is evidence that a 6 figure bid was put in for Boreham Wood Winger Sorba Thomas (https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/charlton-athletic-target-sorba-thomas-placed-on-transfer-list-by-boreham-wood/ - second line of the article) towards the window, confirming there was at least some money in the bank. And in fact, they were prepared to pay an even larger fee a couple of weeks earlier for FC Midtjylland’s Ronnie Schwarz (https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/charlton-athletic-dof-steve-gallen-on-failed-move-for-ronnie-schwartz-attempts-to-land-clarke-harris-and-arsenal-youngster/ - fourth paragraph)

I think the finances on the wage budget may be a bit off - Director of Football Steve Gallen ('SG') is on record suggesting we're approx £100,000 per year (~£4,000 per week) under the salary cap at the moment (https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/exclusive-charlton-athletic-transfer-chief-outlines-budget-and-signing-plans-for-january-window/, 11th paragraph down.), however when I load up the game we're approx £15,000 per week under the salary cap. But on the flipside, the total wage budget is approx £90,000, which nets out at 4,680,000 per year. However in this article (https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/in-depth-with-steve-gallen-charltons-director-of-football-on-the-last-transfer-window-and-one-of-the-toughest-periods-he-has-had-in-the-game/ - paragraph 15) - SG suggests our yearly wage cost is approx £3,000,000 (obviously that is above salary cap levels, and would be a problem in season 2 in League 1, but at the moment any players who came down with us would have their salary cap contribution capped). I think that's causing some of the financial crippling that I've observed in game and i think a lot of it is to do with the wages for players not being scaled back appropriately between FM20 and FM21 to reflect the relegation.  I also think the wages we're paying on the loans could be a bit high (compared to real life), as SG suggests in those articles that we're paying less for Shinnie and Smyth than we were for Lapslie and Oztumer), and while it's not material Dylan Levitt's wage contribution can be max £1,300 as he was signed whilst we were under a total embargo (in game it's £1,500). Why wages are therefore a problem; in game I am unable to extend the contracts of any of my players, or sign up players on "pre-contract" signings, as we approach the end of the first season as I am crippled (approx 2 Million in the Red on the balance sheet), and only a couple of thousand left in the wage budget).

The balance sheet for the club should be improved also - TS is on record at the following link (https://talksport.com/football/efl/791240/charlton-athletic-thomas-sandgaard-dismisses-paul-elliott-claims/ - Paragraph 18) as stating he has already put £12 Million into the clubs bank account to cover running costs for the next 12 months, on top of which we will have received transfer / sell on's for Karlan Grant, Macauley Bonne and Dillon Phillips. I'd suggest that the starting balance should be a lot more in the green than it currently is (however, for the sake of balance, can you set it that the board won't approve a significant increase of transfer balance, as that could be unrealistic!). I also believe (and this is more of an opinion than can be backed up with solid quotes, but to support the opinion I'd recommend listening to TS's interview on the Club Youtube channel) that TS is in a financial position that he will cover any losses incurred to the club in the short term to ensure it doesn't dip into the Red (at least for a couple of years in League 1 - with Fans in stadiums I think we break even in the Championship). I don't know how TS is currently set up in game (as one other Charlton fan suggested a few posts ago, he's already sold the club in their save, and in my save there are constant news articles threatening a takeover), but as a fan it would be good to see the above reflected.

On the debt, I understand that the payments to Roland Duchatalet should be quarterly, and they are not "interest" on the debt, but "rent" on the training ground and Stadium. And the "debt" is ownership of the training ground and Stadium. Unsure if this can be reflected in game, but would be good if so.( https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/exclusive-interview-with-new-charlton-owner-thomas-sandgaard-addicks-were-days-away-from-administration/ - Paragraph 9 onwards). Although, I fully understand most of this isn't in the public domain so not many quotes we can rely on.

[[England EFL League One] Data Issues]

55 minutes ago, MrPompey said:

according to this his ownership of the club appears in doubt:

https://talksport.com/football/efl/791240/charlton-athletic-thomas-sandgaard-dismisses-paul-elliott-claims/

Its all a bit tricky and not sure we'll have a final answer before the database gets locked. Perhaps one for the future Winter update if things become clear?

Ownership of the club is not in doubt - Paul Elliott ('PE') claims to now own "East Street Investments" ('ESI'), the company off which Thomas Sandgaard ('TS') bought Charlton in September. PE claims that his ownership of ESI is retroactively assigned to him as far back as May, as that's when he initially approached to buy the company (allegedly he wanted to asset strip Charlton, but that hasn't been confirmed). However, as the former directors of ESI have already sold Charlton to TS, PE has no legal basis for claiming ownership of the club. Legally he can seek damages as the income from that sale would be due to him and not to the previous directors , but that has nothing to do with TS or Charlton anymore. He cannot legally reverse the sale and ownership of the asset (The football club) will not transfer to him.

A really good article on the situation (and some notes on finance) was just posted on sky news - https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11684/12135776/new-charlton-owner-thomas-sandgaard-in-range-rover-giveaway (i actually joined the forum to post this!)

I think TS is making the right noises and it seems as if he has the financial clout to push the club forwards, and this isn't really represented in the current database we have in the beta version. As you say things will probably be clearer in a couple of months and it may have to wait for the winter update, but as a Charlton fan I hope some tweaks to the financial situation more realistic (or at least, in line with how we understand the situation to be at the moment, can never tell with these bloody owners...)