NineCloudNine

Sounds fun! That’s interesting - I’ll go and take a look at how that’s set up because I’ve not had a Board enforce its preferences before, though I don’t recall ever managing a club with a mandate to sign players of a specific nationality.

I do similar things, though not to the extent of actually being a famous ex-player. I am currently managing Barcelona with Xavi as my DoF, Carles Puyol as Technical Director, Sergio Busquets as my Assistant, Sergi Barjuan as HOYD and Albert Ferrer & Victor Valdes on the coaching staff. I’ve undone every paid transfer in since 2020, replacing them with free transfers who Barcelona were strongly linked with IRL. I’m bringing through youth and am only allowed free transfers, with one exception… …Marcos Leonardo, who I have turned into a recreation of the original Ronaldo and who tore up records in Brazil before I bought him in Jan 24 with a ‘bank loan’. FM is one of the best role-playing games I have played, and I have a history of role playing gaming going back to tabletop Dungeons & Dragons at school in the 1980s! .

I suspect it is harsh to blame the keeper entirely. If he got a 5.5 conceding 8 goals, the game doesn’t think he was at fault for all of them!

This is exactly right - it clearly doesn’t work correctly. In fact it’s not easy to see how it is calculated at all - I’ve rooted around in the editor and there’s an option for ticking on or off ‘club specific salary cap’ but no indication of how that cap is arrived at. In the end I just took the salary cap out, it just messes up La Liga saves.

I think this is a really good point. Some clubs have youth development deeply embedded in their culture, others are known for buying stars. Managers similarly differ. This is absolutely not reflected in the behaviour of clubs or managers in FM, even though those culture and preference tendencies are indicated on club and manager profiles. Chairperson (and thus club) objectives also allow for a wide range of transfer preferences, none of which are ‘enforced’ in the game. It does seem that dialling up the importance of these already existing tools would go a long way to making youth development stronger, as well as providing significantly greater variation in AI club/manager behaviour overall and offering a wider range of challenges for players.

It’s just you

Holy #walloftext !

This must be very frustrating but if random contract offers were a thing, there would have been an uproar about it here. Your issue sits somewhere in FM’s labyrinthine and fiddly menu system! I sympathise and hope ticking all those boxes solves the problem.

Theory - the players involved were actually in your U21 squad but you had the filter on which meant they showed up in your first team squad page. So although you think they are first teamers, the game thinks they are U21s and your DoF gets to negotiate new contracts. Just to be sure, take responsibility for all three yourself. You will get notifications and team meeting agenda points for players who want or deserve a new contract or whose contract is running down.

This is very good advice

You have missed a setting somewhere. Contract renewals are a separate responsibility to new player signings. Go more carefully through the responsibilities pages - you’ve missed one .

The most obvious answer is that you are somehow mistaken about him signing a new deal with you. This would be stated in the relevant emails about him accepting either your contract or the other club’s.

One thing that used to catch me out - though I have no idea if it’s a factor here - is that appearence fees and goal/ clean sheet/ assist and trophy bonuses are not counted in your listed salary commitments but do come out of the wage budget. This can lead to a significant overspend. I no longer offer appearence fees in contracts and I have never had a negotiation fail as a result.

Take a read of the Marca article I linked to above. It looks like the payout is based on the last five league positions, which would explain your payout going up. From the outside it looks like a system guaranteed to reward the big clubs who regularly challenge for the top spots.

Yes, although one will always be top of their list. Many roles have similar attribute requirements so are much easier for a player to have equal familiarity. I have had success with players moving seamlessly between roles in a tactic, especially in midfield, but as you imply it is sensible to largely train and play them in the same role.