Cant "approach to sign" player that is already available on a free transfer

[The Warrenburgh]

So the title is pretty self explanatory, i can't approach to sign a certain player that is already available on a free transfer.  Just to be clear i am not attempting to sign the player on a pre-contract, that seemed to be the main thing that came up in my search when attempting to find a solution to what is not yet a problem.

Not yet a problem in that I don't actually really want to sign the player in question that i will show the screen shots for, but i thought it was weird and so figured i would post it just incase it becomes a problem in the future with someone i actually want to sign. Also i was kind of curious if anyone else has had this happen, and if i should just ignore it and move on.

So this is the player in question:

As you can see in the image he is clearly a free agent and available to sign, i don't actually want to sign him but if he didn't want too much money i was thinking of maybe signing him to sell in the future and maybe come in as a back up.

However whenever i hit the "approach to sign" option it takes me to a different screen that says "i need to have a transfer offer accepted before moving into transfer negotiations" even though the player is currently unattached. see below.

All in all i thought it was strange and couldn't seem to find anyone else with this issue on the forums so here we are.

Also if there is a better place to post this as it may well be some kind of bug let me know, as i am relatively new to actually posting as opposed to simply lurking in the hopes of finding remedies to all of my FM woes.

Cheers.

[ThunderCelt]

Could it be to do with the rule that a player can only sign for two clubs in a season?  It doesn't look like it from the screenshots but on the other hand I had the same or similar message when I tried to sign a player without an explanation too and I had to work it out for myself.

[The Warrenburgh]

Doesn't seem to be, just got released from Brighton this season.

[XaW]

Do your club have any transfer restrictions? Like Bilbao? Or are you under a board takeover? Or have you failed some FFP?

[HUNT3R]

Your screenshot shows that you can make an offer; what happens if you try to?

[The Warrenburgh]

8 minutes ago, XaW said:

Do your club have any transfer restrictions? Like Bilbao? Or are you under a board takeover? Or have you failed some FFP?

Nope, i am playing in the championship in England and i'm currently well under my wage budget, not takeover, no embargo, also i don't have issues approaching other free agents. 

 

2 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

Your screenshot shows that you can make an offer; what happens if you try to?

When i hit the "make an offer" button it takes me back to his player overview screen, presumably because there is no club to make an offer to.

Then if i try to approach to sign again it take me back to that screen, and the vicious cycle continues haha

[XaW]

3 minutes ago, The Warrenburgh said:

Nope, i am playing in the championship in England and i'm currently well under my wage budget, not takeover, no embargo, also i don't have issues approaching other free agents. 

Well, then I'm stumped. You should probably upload the save to SI and have them look at it, could be some weird bug, or some strange interaction and they can find out. Just post in the bugs section and upload to the SI cloud.

[The Warrenburgh]

1 minute ago, XaW said:

Well, then I'm stumped. You should probably upload the save to SI and have them look at it, could be some weird bug, or some strange interaction and they can find out. Just post in the bugs section and upload to the SI cloud.

Yeah its quite weird, i think it might have happened a couple other times but has never been game breaking so i didn't really care.

[XaW]

1 minute ago, The Warrenburgh said:

Yeah its quite weird, i think it might have happened a couple other times but has never been game breaking so i didn't really care.

Yeah, even so it's good to report, at least then they can fix it, if it's a bug.

[AytchMan]

Just an outside shot but...have you tried exiting the game and coming back in?  I've noticed that some complex games such as FM and EU4 get confused on rare occasions and require a restart to get sorted out.  They will do weird things such as prohibiting actions that ordinarily are allowed.  Just a thought.

[FrazT]

Have you changed the skin and what happens if you change it to one of the other default skins?

[Smurf]

As he's a free agent - can you offer them a trial?

Try cleaning your cache and verifying your game files

 

[Bothan Spy]

2 hours ago, FrazT said:

Have you changed the skin and what happens if you change it to one of the other default skins?

I suspect it's this also...