"Im going to wait until until you have made an offer..."

[Bothan Spy]

how annoying is this when an agent states that contract wise and you literally have no clue whatsoever what to offer the player in wages, fees, etc?

then when you offer what you can only guess is a fair amount you are then faced with the dreaded amber comment of, "your opening offer is too far apart from my clients demands..."

you then try again but the damage is already done negotiating wise and then it all goes tits up and that's the end of that!!

surely this isn't realistic? especially when you a trying to give a new deal to a player or sign a player who really wants to come. really frustrating. surely the levels of communication would be kept open and you would have a rough guide as to what a player would like bonus and clause wise as its just a minefield. I've taken to initially offering them a deal, then when they inevitably refuse it and state what they expect, I then take a picture on my phone so I can memories what the silly little clauses there were, wait until the AI lets me talk again to the player weeks later then I have some sort of clue what to offer!

[Mrlee.1986]

I usually just check the players existing contract with his current club, and add a bit here and there, at least it's a ballpark figure and you can negotiate from there  

[BoxToBox]

I usually just tell them to get stuffed and sign someone else.

[Cougar2010]

Well if you've scouted them you already know your scouts opinion of the top & bottom end of their expected offer.

I normally look at their current contract and the bottom of the scouts opinion and start above their current contract but slightly below the scouts bottom end opinion.

I select status, length, monthly wage & stick a nominal figure in for loyalty & agent fee and then send it.

I don't bother entering any bonuses initially, I just wait to see how they respond.  If its close you just up it a bit, if its yellow you have to be a bit more serious and up it more.

[FrazT]

As others have said, the scout report and existing contract should give you at least a staring point and you can usually negotiate from there.  Experience in this type of negotiation is also good to have and will help as you come across this situation again.

[HUNT3R]

It's very annoying, but not really unrealistic. As the others said, you should have an idea of the demands anyway. Based on that, I go in a little lower and negotiate from there. Only if you're way out, there will be a chance the agent walks away without negotiation, but that's why we as managers prepare and know what the likely demands will be beforehand.

[sporadicsmiles]

Unless it is a player I am really interested in signing, I will cancel the negotiations and look elsewhere when this happens. If the agent wants to play silly buggers he can go and do it with someone else. I see this as me saying "well, if you do not tell me what your client wants, we are unable to table a realistic offer". Sometimes they come back (the news item "XXX is ready to re-enter negotiations") and sometimes we have normal contract discussions.

If I really want them, I do as the guys above say. Look what they are currently paid and make slight increases here and there. Check what their suggested wage is on the scout report and stick the opening bid somewhere near the bottom of that. The more I want the player, the further from the minimum suggested wage I go.

[Cougar2010]

10 hours ago, Bothan Spy said:

surely this isn't realistic?

 

46 minutes ago, sporadicsmiles said:

Unless it is a player I am really interested in signing, I will cancel the negotiations and look elsewhere when this happens. If the agent wants to play silly buggers he can go and do it with someone else.

 

See I disagree here.

If you went for a job interview or an annual review or something you are unlikely to be opening the negotiations.  You would either be given the wage or offered a rise, ie the employer would be opening the negotiations.

Apply that same logic to FM and its somewhat natural for the club to open the negotiations as they are the ones making the offer of a contract.

[HUNT3R]

24 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

See I disagree here.

If you went for a job interview or an annual review or something you are unlikely to be opening the negotiations.  You would either be given the wage or offered a rise, ie the employer would be opening the negotiations.

Apply that same logic to FM and its somewhat natural for the club to open the negotiations as they are the ones making the offer of a contract.

I can see your point, but I also don't equate football with every day job interviews.

Here we're dealing with egotistical players and worse, egotistical agents with the attitude of "tell me why your club is worthy of my great client" rather than the way it is in a "normal" job interview.

[gunner86]

I'm sure I read somewhere at the time the agent feature was added that SI'd spoken to several agents  about the way that contract negotiations etc. are handled IRL and that the various scenarios (waiting to see what the offer is, being grossly over-demanding, blah blah blah) were created off the back of that.

It is annoying when it pops up, but I tend to have an idea of what I'm willing to offer anyway, and it will normally pop up with an estimated wage demands bracket in the offer screen (which I assume is based off the scout reports)

[cris182]

17 hours ago, BoxToBox said:

I usually just tell them to get stuffed and sign someone else.

And if it is a contract renewal of one of your own players?

[BoxToBox]

1 hour ago, cris182 said:

And if it is a contract renewal of one of your own players?

Sell them, let them run it down, whatever. Plenty more fish in the sea.

You don't get to mess around like this unless you're god-damn special. Usually though, you can ask them to sack their agent and you may get someone more sensible to deal with.

[Ellis_D]

19 hours ago, HUNT3R said:

It's very annoying, but not really unrealistic. 

I'm sorry, but I think it is unrealistic. An agent or player may well say, "Make us an offer" in real life. But if you then offer £10k a week and the agent or player want much more, and even if they think you can't afford what they want, it wouldn't close the dialogue completely. You'd say, well what do you want? And they'd say £100k per week and then you could negotiate from there. Even if they completely reject your offer, walk out of the meeting/hang up the phone because your £10k per week offer is so poor, you should still be able to contact them and offer more. In fact, let's be completely realistic: If your chairman/owner/director/manager/agent/DoF wanted to, they could text/email/call the player/agent every 10 minutes offering an extra £10k per week until the player/agent realises it's actually a good deal. I'm quite sure real life deals have much more negotiating and very few cases of a player/agent saying "I don't think you can offer me enough so I'm going to refuse to speak to you from now on". It's rubbish and completely unrealistic.

[HUNT3R]

4 hours ago, Ellis_D said:

I'm sorry, but I think it is unrealistic. An agent or player may well say, "Make us an offer" in real life. But if you then offer £10k a week and the agent or player want much more, and even if they think you can't afford what they want, it wouldn't close the dialogue completely. You'd say, well what do you want? And they'd say £100k per week and then you could negotiate from there. Even if they completely reject your offer, walk out of the meeting/hang up the phone because your £10k per week offer is so poor, you should still be able to contact them and offer more. In fact, let's be completely realistic: If your chairman/owner/director/manager/agent/DoF wanted to, they could text/email/call the player/agent every 10 minutes offering an extra £10k per week until the player/agent realises it's actually a good deal. I'm quite sure real life deals have much more negotiating and very few cases of a player/agent saying "I don't think you can offer me enough so I'm going to refuse to speak to you from now on". It's rubbish and completely unrealistic.

Then you haven't negotiated very much in your life. It happens that an offer is so low, it's insulting and that party walks out. You need to remember that they have options. Many options. If your club makes an insulting offer, they have other clubs they can talk to. That means that they can completely afford to walk out, because there are other negotiations with other clubs waiting. They're not relying on this one negotiation to be a success.

[sporadicsmiles]

23 hours ago, Cougar2010 said:

 

 

See I disagree here.

If you went for a job interview or an annual review or something you are unlikely to be opening the negotiations.  You would either be given the wage or offered a rise, ie the employer would be opening the negotiations.

Apply that same logic to FM and its somewhat natural for the club to open the negotiations as they are the ones making the offer of a contract.

You do make a valid point here. I am not actually disputing that it is realistic, I just find it irritating. I mostly avoid those players because their agent is usually a lot less inclined to budge from their initial offer, and usually I find that I would have to pay over the odds for the player. As I say, that is fine in terms of realism, perhaps the player is not that interested in joining, or feels he is making a big step up and deserves what he feels commensurate pay. I am just sceptical about these negotiations being very fruitful.

[Ellis_D]

7 hours ago, HUNT3R said:

Then you haven't negotiated very much in your life. It happens that an offer is so low, it's insulting and that party walks out. You need to remember that they have options. Many options. If your club makes an insulting offer, they have other clubs they can talk to. That means that they can completely afford to walk out, because there are other negotiations with other clubs waiting. They're not relying on this one negotiation to be a success.

Whilst this may be true, it doesn't mean it's realistic for you not to be able to at least make another offer. You might offer player x £10k a week and he finds it completely unacceptable as he wanted 50k a week and walks out of the meeting, tells his agent, don't speak to them again, as I was so insulted with the derisory offer. In real life this could all happen, but there'd be nothing to stop you at least approaching the player or his agent again. You could call/text/email them and say, "Sorry for the poor initial offer, it was just a starting basis to negotiate from. I am willing to offer you £100k a week." Now, some players might still be too insulted, bless them, at the first offer and still turn down the offer. I'm quite sure though, that most players in real life would think, that's twice as much as he actually wanted, and be glad to accept the offer. Especially players without a club. FM doesn't offer that option though, and that's what is unrealistic. There would ALWAYS be a way to go back to the player and make a higher offer.  Also, there are times when you make an offer to a player who is a free agent with no-one else interested in him and this can happen. So he prefers to stay without a club but still won't hear any further negotiation from you. 

[Cougar2010]

In FM you can go back and make another offer, you just need to wait a little time to let things settle down.

[HUNT3R]

Tbh, if you offer something that low to make an agent immediately stop talks with you, you deserve not to be able to make another bid for a while.

Starting off low is normal and probably what most of us do. Starting insultingly low, like you have no clue what you're doing in the football world, deserves the appropriate action.

[Ellis_D]

You can go back and make an offer eventually but it takes too long.

And I do understand about making an offer too low, but sometimes it's hard to know what to offer. You can get players from South America and such on the cheap sometimes, so it's worth coming in with a low bid and seeing what they say first. 

[Majick]

Players could also be aware, through their agents, of what a 'typical' wage for a player of their reputation and talent will be, and would expect parity.

And, let's not forget, sometimes people are just greedy: Ashley Cole nearly drove his car off the road over a matter of 5k a week, which is both pertinent to this conversation and a story I like to remember occasionally for a chuckle. While he'd been promised 65k, from memory, the official offer was 60k and he felt that was an unreasonable change. If a player has something like that in their background (for example, you're negotiating from a position of "What will it take to get you to stay at the club?") then they may well feel that all the power is with them, and your choices are start high, or risk letting them walk.

Ultimately, your team is likely better off without a player like that - team harmony should trump almost everything, and I confess to a real (sadistic) warmth when a player rebels over an issue like this... and the rest of the team side with me

[martinji]

I think it would be good and realistic if after breaking off negotiations, you sometimes got a news article which might even be the same evening or next day, or might be substantially longer, which would either be a personal note from one of your staff or even unattributed, saying "You've heard through the grapevine that such-and-such may be willing to re-open negotiations", or a media speculation along the same lines.  These could have a button click to take you straight into the negotiations stage (for unattached players or your own players)  or straight into the make a bid screen.  This would make the process a bit less tedious and also be a helpful reminder.  But it wouldn't always happen if either the player got signed in the meantime or was a prima-donna with too much pride.

[HUNT3R]

57 minutes ago, martinji said:

I think it would be good and realistic if after breaking off negotiations, you sometimes got a news article which might even be the same evening or next day, or might be substantially longer, which would either be a personal note from one of your staff or even unattributed, saying "You've heard through the grapevine that such-and-such may be willing to re-open negotiations", or a media speculation along the same lines.  These could have a button click to take you straight into the negotiations stage (for unattached players or your own players)  or straight into the make a bid screen.  This would make the process a bit less tedious and also be a helpful reminder.  But it wouldn't always happen if either the player got signed in the meantime or was a prima-donna with too much pride.

This is already in the game, but isn't a common thing. I think you only get that news item when you're scouting the player for a period that overlaps with the player now willing to re-enter talks.