Releasing Players On A Free

[Insanemadman]

I really don't like how releasing players works in the game.

Basically I have two main issues:

-Terminating players contracts shouldn't free up space in the wage budget

-The boards of lower league clubs should block a lot more contract terminations

It makes it far too easy to get rid of dead wood and free up wages. Yes, it reduces the club balance, but that only has a tiny impact upon your running of the club, especially in the short-term.

You're basically paying the players their wages, but all in one go, so it should reduce your wage budget accordingly.

Here is an example from my home club, Morecambe.

Wage budget: £17.3k per week

Wage spend: £15.9k per week

Club balance: £231k

(To be honest, given the clubs financial problems, that's probably a bit generous!)

One day after confirming my season expectations, I decide to release the entire squad (24 players, cost £950k), and all the staff (7 staff, cost £325k). Terminate some guy who is on loan too. Two player terminations are blocked.

Wage budget: £17.3k per week

Wage spend: £1.8k per week

Club balance: -£815k

Ok, that's an ridiculously extreme example, but the basic idea is the same.

At smaller clubs, players should only have their contact terminated if they are on a relatively negligible wage (such as youth players), the club has a large available balance/transfer budget, or they are coming to the end of their contacts.

Players at lower levels should probably be a bit more receptive to mutual terminations than they are, especially if the players are moaning about a lack of first team football and it's inside the free transfer window. Again, this should cut the wage budget by the amount saved, but not the full amount the player was being paid.

Any thoughts?

[HakanMild]

That's a good point. I agree with it.

A bit unrelated but in the NBA they have a very strict salary system and if you cut a player in that league it still counts towards your salary cap.

[teknokryptik]

I agree and disagree, to an extent.

The point I would make is: The "Wage Budget" that your board sets for you is really based on (Expected Revenue p/w + Performance Expectations + What Level/Tier League), not how much money is in the bank. Remember, some boards can be stingy and some can be financial imbiciles.

I think, perhaps, the penalties should be bigger. Maybe that is what you're looking for? As in, releasing a bunch of regens doesn't make much of a difference, but releasing a squad player who has been at the club for x amount of years will cause the squad to lose morale or the board to get on your case, and releasing a senior player or a "star" could see the end of your tenure or the players refuse to play for you (RED morale).

I love releasing players, though. I am the terminator.

[Herbert Fandel]

I disagree, compensation comes out your bank balance, as it is a one of payment, but the wage budget adresses what you are forced to pay as a weekly liability.

However, I think your correctly identified issue should be adressed by there being greater reprecussions for being in debt, it seems that even boards at lower league clubs don't bat an eyelid. Perhaps rather than the money staying in the wage used part, the wage budget should be decreased at more regular intervals to match your debt, rather than just at season's end.

I kind of think that in your Morecambe example the money should not be left in your 'wage used' calculation, but that you should be sacked afterwards, but the game never minds in the slightest as you financially ruin your club. My only flaw with my own suggestion is to question how realistic it would be for a manager to be able to do that to a squad without the board's permission (as evidenced by the upcoming sacking). Maybe instead of sacked you should just be made very insecure, and forced to balance the books ASAP whilst also getting good performances.

I like the ideas of teknokryptik, if applied with an appropriate degree of randomness.

Its very complex though, wouldn't surprise me if someone says something to completely change my mind

[Clausdk]

I completely disagree.

When you cut a player, you have to compensate the player, this compensation varies according to the players contract.

The whole point of releasing a player, especially in the lower leagues, is to free up space in the wage budget. I really don't see a point in changing this.

I agree that there perhaps needs to be a bigger penalty of some sort, but I absolutely don't agree with the point, that termaniting a players contract, shouldn't have an effect on the wage budget. You already have been penalised because you compensated the player

[CityAndColour]

I completely disagree.

When you cut a player, you have to compensate the player, this compensation varies according to the players contract.

The whole point of releasing a player, especially in the lower leagues, is to free up space in the wage budget. I really don't see a point in changing this.

I agree that there perhaps needs to be a bigger penalty of some sort, but I absolutely don't agree with the point, that termaniting a players contract, shouldn't have an effect on the wage budget. You already have penalised because you compensated the player

His point is you are penalised by having to pay compensation, but then can use your wage budget to sign another player, thus costing the club more. I agree that the compensation should come out of the wage budget that you were using on the released player anyway, even just partially.

[Herbert Fandel]

His point is you are penalised by having to pay compensation, but then can use your wage budget to sign another player, thus costing the club more. I agree that the compensation should come out of the wage budget that you were using on the released player anyway, even just partially.

The what would you gain by sacking someone? Wage budget is a calculated weekly expenditure, (supposedly) set according to your bank balance, I really don't think the two should overlap in the way you describe, but that there should be much great penalties to being in the red.

[Clausdk]

His point is you are penalised by having to pay compensation, but then can use your wage budget to sign another player, thus costing the club more. I agree that the compensation should come out of the wage budget that you were using on the released player anyway, even just partially.

But I still disagree. It maybe cost the club more money, because you sign a new player and you have compensated the released player, but isn't that actually penalty enough?

The only way I can see this changed is by implementing the US model, where you get a cap penalty (wage budget), in the next season. This could be a way to go

[dazbowski]

Fully agree with OP

Put it this way, if you had a food budget for the week of £100 and spent it all. Then you decided to throw away £20 worth of food you didn't want you wouldn't be able to spend another £20 because you haven't got it.

[Herbert Fandel]

A bit unrelated but in the NBA they have a very strict salary system and if you cut a player in that league it still counts towards your salary cap.

The only way I can see this changed is by implementing the US model, where you get a cap penalty (wage budget), in the next season. This could be a way to go

Don't confuse league rules with the board's own internal rules (wage budget) It would be folly for SI to implement rules which don't exist.

[Insanemadman]

I don't really see how anyone can disagree to be honest.

If you sign someone on a 1 year deal at £1k a week, in simple terms you've agreed to pay £52k. If you then terminate the contact, you're just paying that £52k upfront rather than spread over the year.

The same money has been spent as would have been spent on his wages, so as far as I'm concerned, it should be taken from the wage budget. Otherwise you can basically spend the same money twice.

As for the advantages, quite frankly there aren't going to be many. If he's disrupting other players you don't have that any more, and if he's taking up resources, you've got rid of that too. Quite frankly, there shouldn't be many. You're paying someone to leave the club and getting nothing at all back in return.

In the lower leagues you should be forced to try and make the best of what you've got a lot more than you do now. Clubs struggle to make ends meet as it is, they shouldn't just let you pay a load of money to cancel a contact and then let you spend that money again on wages.

[Welshace]

Wage budget is an arbitrary figure anyway, it only has relevance as it's taken from the balance.

Now since you are paying the compensation from the balance anyway, reducing the wage budget after paying out the compensation makes very little real world sense. The whole point on releasing players is too free up space/budget for improved or better people.

Wage and transfer budgets are more or less interchangeable as far as real life managers are concerned. A club will give a transfer budget but it will be dynamic with his wage budget, i.e "free up £1,000,000 a year in wages by releasing/selling and you can buy your £1,000,000 player"

The system works and is great how it is imo.

[Insanemadman]

Wage budget is an arbitrary figure anyway, it only has relevance as it's taken from the balance.

Now since you are paying the compensation from the balance anyway, reducing the wage budget after paying out the compensation makes very little real world sense. The whole point on releasing players is too free up space/budget for improved or better people.

Wage and transfer budgets are more or less interchangeable as far as real life managers are concerned. A club will give a transfer budget but it will be dynamic with his wage budget, i.e "free up £1,000,000 a year in wages by releasing/selling and you can buy your £1,000,000 player"

The system works and is great how it is imo.

I don't think the current system works at all. I actually considered posting this in the bugs forum it's that screwed up.

The wage budget is what the board have told you that you can spend on wages for the season. That's what the club have let you reduce from the budget.

By terminating a players contract you're spending that money on wages, but in a different way. It doesn't free any budget, you're spending the game money. Just like if you spent it on a transfer.

If you have spare money in the transfer budget, than it could obviously come out of that instead as they're interchangable.

At the moment you're basically not impacted by releasing players.

[Herbert Fandel]

At the moment you're basically not impacted by releasing players.

I completely agree with this, but not your proposed solution.

[Insanemadman]

I completely agree with this, but not your proposed solution.

Well, what would your solution be?

As you're spending money that should have been spent on wages, the two options I can think of are to either reduce the transfer/wage budget, or artificially keep a chuck of the wage budget allocated to reflect that it's already been spent.

The latter seems really confusing, so i'd say the former is the simplest.

[teknokryptik]

I don't think the current system works at all. I actually considered posting this in the bugs forum it's that screwed up.

The wage budget is what the board have told you that you can spend on wages for the season. That's what the club have let you reduce from the budget.

By terminating a players contract you're spending that money on wages, but in a different way. It doesn't free any budget, you're spending the game money. Just like if you spent it on a transfer.

If you have spare money in the transfer budget, than it could obviously come out of that instead as they're interchangable.

At the moment you're basically not impacted by releasing players.

Like I said earlier, that's actually the exact opposite of what the wage budget is.

The wage budget is separate from the clubs bank balance.

The board, in all their "wisdom", set a wage budget based on what they are prepared to allow you to spend on wages for the year, based on what level competition you are in and what level of success you are (or should) be aiming for, in order to attract and pay competent players to achieve these goals.

This is why clubs with a negative bank balance can still operate and offer players wages, instead of, based off your theory, having a wage budget of zero.

The reason for this is that, as with IRL business, if you happen to have zero in the bank it does not automatically make you bankrupt. There is future revenue to take into account, as well as bank loans, cash injections from wealthy board members etc. etc.

What would be worse for these clubs is to reach a bank balance of zero and shut up shop, which would result in a quick slide down the pyramid and put them in even more financial strain.

For example: a club playing in the EPL has a chance to qualify for Champions League football, which would bring in a lot of extra money BUT which they would not see until next season. If their bank balance reaches zero, and, using your theory, they all of a sudden have to stop paying wages, then all their players would leave, they would most likely miss out on that CL spot, and THEN they would be in real trouble.

TL;DR - Wage Budget and Bank Balance are not linked (at least not particularily close)

[Sampa]

But there is an impact...

It comes out of your bank balance, so you go into the red (well, you make a loss). The further you go into the red the less funds you'll get for next season.

[Insanemadman]

The board, in all their "wisdom", set a wage budget based on what they are prepared to allow you to spend on wages for the year, based on what level competition you are in and what level of success you are (or should) be aiming for, in order to attract and pay competent players to achieve these goals.

This is the key part.

You are still spending the exact same money on wages, you've just decided to pay them all at once to get the player to leave the club.

I'm not saying that wages should be directly linked to the clubs bank balance. I'm saying that if you decide to terminate a players contact, you should have to pay that out of your wage budget.

[DuncanJM]

I agree that it is a problem but as welshace said, the transfer and wage budgets are linked very closely. So a solution for me would to ensure that any contract terminations have to be paid out of the transfer budget, which means that if you want to replace the player with a new signing, you would need to adjust the wage budget down to free up transfer funds.

This also means that if you have spent your tranfer budget already, you would need to reduce the wage budget to release the player.

[teknokryptik]

This is the key part.

You are still spending the exact same money on wages, you've just decided to pay them all at once to get the player to leave the club.

I'm not saying that wages should be directly linked to the clubs bank balance. I'm saying that if you decide to terminate a players contact, you should have to pay that out of your wage budget.

I feel like I've explained it poorly.

Wage budget is an "allocation", but not representing a total. So the board says "this is how much we will allow you to spend per week on player wages", not "this is the maximum we will allow you to spend on wages for the entire year".

Releasing a player means you still pay their contract out, and that money comes out of your overall bank account, but the wage budget is really just a representation of the weekly figure the board is happy to spend on players.

Like I said, overall bank and wage budget are treated separately.

Think of it this way:

Club has an overall bank of 25,000,000

Board gives you a wage budget of 3,000,000 pw

You're paying some fading star 500,000 pw even though he is no longer starting.

You want to sign a hot young talent, but you're at your max wage budget, so to free up some space in the wages you release the fading star out of his contract.

Club bank is now reduced to, say, 16,000,000.

The club still has money in the bank.

Why would the board tell you that you can no longer sign this hot new talent that could bring the club great success and rivers of gold in sponsorship, gate, prizemoney by reducing your wage budget down 500,000 pw? They still have money in the bank.

Hence, the two things are treated separately. This isn't me telling you how I think it should be, this is just me telling you how it is both in the game and in real life, across business more than football.

Think of how your local All-Purpose Megastore releases older, more expensive workers and replaces them with cheaper, younger workers. It's about long term gain for short term pain.

I hope this makes some kind of sense.

[Insanemadman]

I agree that it is a problem but as welshace said, the transfer and wage budgets are linked very closely. So a solution for me would to ensure that any contract terminations have to be paid out of the transfer budget, which means that if you want to replace the player with a new signing, you would need to adjust the wage budget down to free up transfer funds.

This also means that if you have spent your tranfer budget already, you would need to reduce the wage budget to release the player.

Yes, that's exactly what I meant.

I only said wage budget as they're usually interchangeable and it might be more clear that the wages have been spent on terminating contracts.

I feel like I've explained it poorly.

Wage budget is an "allocation", but not representing a total. So the board says "this is how much we will allow you to spend per week on player wages", not "this is the maximum we will allow you to spend on wages for the entire year".

Releasing a player means you still pay their contract out, and that money comes out of your overall bank account, but the wage budget is really just a representation of the weekly figure the board is happy to spend on players.

Like I said, overall bank and wage budget are treated separately.

Think of it this way:

Club has an overall bank of 25,000,000

Board gives you a wage budget of 3,000,000 pw

You're paying some fading star 500,000 pw even though he is no longer starting.

You want to sign a hot young talent, but you're at your max wage budget, so to free up some space in the wages you release the fading star out of his contract.

Club bank is now reduced to, say, 16,000,000.

The club still has money in the bank.

Why would the board tell you that you can no longer sign this hot new talent that could bring the club great success and rivers of gold in sponsorship, gate, prizemoney by reducing your wage budget down 500,000 pw? They still have money in the bank.

Hence, the two things are treated separately. This isn't me telling you how I think it should be, this is just me telling you how it is both in the game and in real life, across business more than football.

Think of how your local All-Purpose Megastore releases older, more expensive workers and replaces them with cheaper, younger workers. It's about long term gain for short term pain.

I hope this makes some kind of sense.

Sorry, but I totally disagree.

I think there are two separate issues here:

1 - Clubs are letting you release players that they can't afford

2 - Clubs are letting you effectively spend the same money twice

The first one is pretty clear cut, I think we'd agree? A lower league club can't just pay out that sort of money in contract terminations. They can't afford it.

As for the second, the wage budget is the board saying "this is the most we're letting you spend on player wages at the moment". That's how much they've allocated for wages, that's how much they've budgeted for, that's how much they're willing to let you spend.

If the wage budget is £20k a week, they're letting you spend just over £1m a year on wages.

If you decide to terminate the contacts of players worth £5k a week, you're paying out £520,000 if everyone has 12 months left (excluding loyalty clauses).

If you don't sign anyone else, you've spent just over £1m in total (half on wages, half on contract terminations).

If you use that £5k a week wage budget to sign new players, you'll spend another £520,000 on wages. Total spent £1.5m.

Surely you agree that they can't just give you that £5k a week to spend again on other players? You're trying to spend the same money twice. The board haven't given you that money to spend, so you shouldn't be able to spend it.

[teknokryptik]

I mostly agree with your points, but again, I'm terrible at explaining things clearly.

The best I can do is this - "Wage Budget" is merely a representation of the quality of players the board expects you/or will allow you to attract. It is not actually a yearly figure/limit, which is why it doesn't change when you release players.

What I would love to see is SI accept that they've probably gone as far as they can for the next few years in terms of ME and real players etc., and really re-vamp the whole board interaction side to make it more realistic. But they can't really stop you from doing things the way they are done IRL as it kind of defeats the purpose of their game.

[Gazza88]

Wage budget is in place to prevent you going into the red, it is just a guideline.

Clubs can have negative bank balances by use of an overdraft.

Basically the board trust you in your judgement and let you release players (except for top earners/good players) and stump up the money via am overdraft to keep the same budget.

The draw back to this is you would need instant success to make up the money otherwise your wage budget will be lowered in line with the bank balance and the board will accept money transfers without asking you.