Second Season Transfer Budgets - Crazy!

[Saint_Lane]

Why is that at the start of the second season, with largely any team, you are presented with a far greater transfer budget than that club has ever seen in its history. 2 examples from my saves:

Save 1: Italy. Game with Empoli. First season finished a modest 10th. Start of 2nd get issued a transfer budget of £24m. I am no expert in Empoli history but they have never spent upwards of £5m in a transfer window. There were a few signings last season with the exit of Valdiofori & Hysaj etc. even then I doubt they spent > £5m. Why is it I am all of a sudden presented with a £25m transfer budget. Where did that come from?

Save 2: Germany. Game with Hertha. First season finished 13th. Start of second season I get issued a transfer kitty of nearly £30m. Not a chance! That is crazy. Most Berlin have spent on a player in the last 10 years is what? £6/7 m for Stocker or maybe Adrian Ramos?? Think their transfer record was for a Brazilian back in the late 90s and that wasn't much more that £8m!

Both budgets seems un-realistic for those teams, and are not representative of budgets managers of those team would've seen previously. Now i understand that income is rising within the game, and we are seeing more and more spent by clubs in transfer windows. However it seems that the game is a little too generous to the human player with the kitty they're presented at the end of each season.

Xx

[mika del siro]

I got around 70 M with Southampton. When you add money from sales I had over 200 M to spend on start of season 2.

I dont mind big budgets though. Makes it nicer to play when you realize you can bring some decent players to Empoli in your example, which you couldnt with 5 M budget.

[jam jameson]

I've experienced it too and This is a big issue, something goes mad over the seasons, it's potentially game-breaking

[mack4ever]

Why is that at the start of the second season, with largely any team, you are presented with a far greater transfer budget than that club has ever seen in its history. 2 examples from my saves:

Save 1: Italy. Game with Empoli. First season finished a modest 10th. Start of 2nd get issued a transfer budget of £24m. I am no expert in Empoli history but they have never spent upwards of £5m in a transfer window. There were a few signings last season with the exit of Valdiofori & Hysaj etc. even then I doubt they spent > £5m. Why is it I am all of a sudden presented with a £25m transfer budget. Where did that come from?

Save 2: Germany. Game with Hertha. First season finished 13th. Start of second season I get issued a transfer kitty of nearly £30m. Not a chance! That is crazy. Most Berlin have spent on a player in the last 10 years is what? £6/7 m for Stocker or maybe Adrian Ramos?? Think their transfer record was for a Brazilian back in the late 90s and that wasn't much more that £8m!

Both budgets seems un-realistic for those teams, and are not representative of budgets managers of those team would've seen previously. Now i understand that income is rising within the game, and we are seeing more and more spent by clubs in transfer windows. However it seems that the game is a little too generous to the human player with the kitty they're presented at the end of each season.

Xx

Just because you have the money available doesn't mean it's a wise idea to spend it all.

[iAlwaysWin]

Just because you have the money available doesn't mean it's a wise idea to spend it all.

Is this some logical explanation why small clubs are getting huge transfer budgets compared to there first season in charge? if so its a really terrible one.

Why dont you accept that its a very unrealistic aspect to the game just like countless other features i cant be arsed to go into detail about, because quite frankly its been the same game for years now.

[dan_lcfc]

Is this some logical explanation why small clubs are getting huge transfer budgets compared to there first season in charge? if so its a really terrible one.

Why dont you accept that its a very unrealistic aspect to the game just like countless other features i cant be arsed to go into detail about, because quite frankly its been the same game for years now.

You don't get as big transfer budgets in the first season because all of the teams have spent the majority of their budgets already when you take over. (As in the real life transfers). It makes perfect sense that budgets will increase in the second summer

[Saint_Lane]

You don't get as big transfer budgets in the first season because all of the teams have spent the majority of their budgets already when you take over. (As in the real life transfers). It makes perfect sense that budgets will increase in the second summer

It makes perfect sense that it increases on the first season, I completely agree. But that doesn't go any way to explain why in a very large number of cases the human manager is presented a transfer budget which would be the greatest amount of money ever spent by that club if used.

The fact i as Empoli manager was presented with a £25m transfer pot (Adjustable to £30m btw) in my second season, killed the game for me. No realism. No Empoli manager has ever been provided anything like that sum by the board before. The club spent 5/6m Euro's in that last 2 transfer windows. Why stump up £30m all of a sudden.

[puffascruffowitz]

Ok fine but do you know what Empoli or Hertha's transfer budgets usually are? Sure, they may not spend that much but how do you know what these teams' finances are?

Arsenal spent a grand total of 10m over the summer. How much do you think Arsene had available to him for transfers? 50m wouldn't be a stretch. Like another poster said, just don't use it?

[Welshace]

It makes perfect sense that it increases on the first season, I completely agree. But that doesn't go any way to explain why in a very large number of cases the human manager is presented a transfer budget which would be the greatest amount of money ever spent by that club if used.

The fact i as Empoli manager was presented with a £25m transfer pot (Adjustable to £30m btw) in my second season, killed the game for me. No realism. No Empoli manager has ever been provided anything like that sum by the board before. The club spent 5/6m Euro's in that last 2 transfer windows. Why stump up £30m all of a sudden.

How do you know what the manager was given?

[sporadicsmiles]

What are your finances like? How much money do you have in the bank? What is the predicted income over the coming year? Do you have any outstanding loans?

Those are the important question now to determine if this is an issue with the game in terms of giving very high budgets when it shouldn't, if there is a problem with one of the income streams providing an unrealistic amount of money, or if there is an actual reasonable information for the budget you have been given.

[Saint_Lane]

How do you know what the manager was given?

That's a good Point Welshace & you're absolutely right, I dont know that at all, but lets agree there is some strong evidence perhaps. I would struggle to believe that If a manager of a newly promoted team (Last 2/3 seasons) was told by the board that you have £30m to spend on players this season, that the manager would limit the spending to just £5m. Granted not all managers would spend all available funds all the time, but certainly in the case of my examples above where we have a club, certainly in the case of Empoli who rely on freebies and loan players due to a lack of transfer funds - Would take advantage of those funds.

Doing a little digging I can see Empoli have spent around £15m since the 00/01 season. I hope here we can begin to see that, it is a little strange that during my second season in charge, I would be presented with a £30m transfer budget.

Appreciate the responses and input chaps

*Allow me to add as a side note here, as it is important. There has been no significant 'financial windfull' in my game. By that I mean no extraordinary player sales or tycoon cash injection. I am talking here about run of the mill seasons.

[Optimistic Dave]

Seems fair and well researched. I hope they look at it.

[saihtam]

Let me give another strange one. Not that big sum but still I was amazed.

So I started using Serie D database where Parma is open. They have 60mil debt (I know it should be cleared but heck i like the challenge.)

Then i managed to get promoted to Serie C in the first season and the club went from semi-pro to pro. I was given 5-6mil in transfer money. The club is in huge debt, transfer rev is on 10%, yearly balance is red, but still they give me this amount? Also they say that the club finances are bad and one time owner injected 110k to help the club.

[fmfan74]

The money your talking about is not a lot given today's football. Take a look at the stats and see how you will compare with the big spenders http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/69/transfer-zone/2014/08/18/5042461/top-10-biggest-spending-clubs-in-the-summer-transfer-market

enjoy

[luka_zg]

But if you spent the 25mil which Empoli gave you, what would be your financial situation? Would you put the club at financial risk or not?

[oneronaldo]

See how that figure matches up to your club's bank balance first, just because you've given £25m doesn't mean you can spend £25m.

[Welshace]

I would argue that a managers job is also thinking about the long term well being of the club, so even if that money was available, they probably wouldn't spend it.

[luka_zg]

It's like: here you are with 25 milion. Spend it if you can lead us to the CL. But if you fail we're going down in flames

[Kenco]

Fair enough if it's not realistic but those saying this is game-breaking are just being ridiculous. There is an easy workaround - don't spend it. Continue with your game.

[Optimistic Dave]

I would argue that a managers job is also thinking about the long term well being of the club, so even if that money was available, they probably wouldn't spend it.

I would argue that is, in the majority of cases, complete nonsense. Managers last a couple of seasons in the main. They will, largely, spend whatever they can to improve the squad that will determine if they have a job next season or not.

Not always, but Wenger is the exception that proves the rule, he's not the rule.

[..Valhalla..]

They will, largely, spend whatever they can to improve the squad that will determine if they have a job next season or not.

I agree with this. No manager worth his salt is going to "hold back" on buying players, if the money is there, in case he is at the club in a decade's time and beyond...

[fmfan74]

If i were you i wouldn't spend the 25 mill on expensive players. I would heavily invest in buying top notch youth talent from around the world and your own league. As you buy good young players the positive that comes out is that you can sell them for a higher price in future as their price can only go up since they are young. Investing in mid to old players is a short term solution, I like having and excellent under 18's and 20's players and investing for the future not forgetting having money in the pocket.

[Optimistic Dave]

See how that figure matches up to your club's bank balance first, just because you've given £25m doesn't mean you can spend £25m.

That's exactly what it means. The transfer budget is the amount you can spend.

[Bradz FM]

You have to also remember that signing on and agent fees etc come out of the budget. IRL these fees don't be quoted as part of the price paid for a player

[s1111]

Can you post your finances screen with Empoli? Because they shouldn't even have £25m in the bank after one season finishing 10th, let alone allowing you to spend it on transfers. They start the game with a balance of £4m and have a tiny stadium and no European football.

It would be interesting to see if there is something wrong with the money coming in and out of the club. On FM13 there was an issue with taxes in Italy before it got patched out.

[Seb Wassell]

Hi there all,

If you have examples of clubs being given what seems like far too high a transfer budget could you please upload them to our FTP? Details on uploading here: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/441296

The ideal save would be just before the board hand out the (too high) transfer budget.

Thank you,

Seb.

[eple]

If he finished in a CL qualification-spot then the budget probably would be sustainable. That said the budget is based on bank balance, projected income and influenced by chairman attributes. Last but not least, manager stats and reputation also plays a part. Maybe the attributes are wrong, maybe the Empoli board finally have that world class manager(starting rep) they always longed for, maybe the finances in Italy are not realistically tuned, or maybe more info on the teams exploits in hte 1st season would shed some light on why the budget is so big.

[kandersson]

I think finances are generally too generous with Italian clubs. Money from TV goes mostly to top clubs IRL which is why team like Juventus, Milan, Inter always have much more financial power and small clubs rarely grow financially (Premier League is much different, as small clubs get good money from TV contracts, and in fact they can often compete with top italian clubs on the transfer market). It's a vicious cycle really, because rich clubs get richer, so they have best chance to qualify for CL and make more money while smaller clubs are just lucky to showcase the occasional promising player and sell him to a big club to make some money and survive. This is exactly why the great Pozzo got tired of this madness with Udinese and decided to invest in Watford - and of course in one season in PL he's already got more money than in 20 years at Udinese, and it will only get better with new PL contracts!

A perceived 'rich' club like Fiorentina only spends money if they've cashed in before (of the 30M euros made from selling Cuadrado, I think they've spent just 10 overall for Kalinic, Gilberto and Astori this summer, while also selling Savic to A.Madrid for M.Suarez+money...), I couldn't imagine them having a clean 30M euros transfer budget without CL money, let alone Empoli after a 10th place! The sad truth is Italian clubs not named Juventus, Milan, Inter, Roma, Napoli will never have money to spend IRL, unless they strike gold with a surprise CL qualification. Yeah it's sad, at least FM gives me some hope...

[stokes_83]

Was given a transfer budget of 33 million at Crystal Palace after finishing 17th in the league. Yeah right.....

[Welshace]

new TV deal?

[kandersson]

Also, IRL italian managers aren't actually given a budget to spend as the director of football (if not the owner himself when he has a big ego...) is in charge of signing/selling players. Of course, the manager will give his input for transfer targets but in the end he doesn't have a final say, especially at smaller clubs (high profile managers at bigger clubs will obviously be more demanding). So a real life scenario for a 10th placed Empoli would be operating on a small budget, with the director/owner handling transfers.

OP, you actually have that option available in FM so if you fancy a challenge you can try having DoF handling all the signings and transfer activity

[Optimistic Dave]

Was given a transfer budget of 33 million at Crystal Palace after finishing 17th in the league. Yeah right.....

I think the finances for the Premier League are about right as the new TV deal takes the old one and gives it a wedgie in the toilets - it's that much bigger.

[eye-switcher]

What is strange is when you play as Barcelona and win literally everything year after year the budget never gets gigantic (Depends what you are compairing with i guess , but no 70 Million like the Southampton example)

[chob]

What is strange is when you play as Barcelona and win literally everything year after year the budget never gets gigantic (Depends what you are compairing with i guess , but no 70 Million like the Southampton example)

It's because after the second season in the premier league the TV money rises crazily due to the new TV deal, that's why southampton get a bigger budget.

[s1111]

After reading this thread I did my own investigation in to transfer budgets for small Serie A clubs and found that something is definitely wrong in the way that transfer budgets are allocated. This is with Frosinone, who finished 11th in Serie A and made no meaningful transfers in the first season.

So you can see here that Frosinone have a transfer budget of nearly £21m despite only having a balance of £12m. You can see that they even have a £245k a week wage budget and only a £160k a week wage bill. To actually even get £21m in their balance, without making transfers, they would need to make about the same income/expenditure in the second season as they did first season, where they turned over £49m and spent £41m (the transfers incoming and outgoing were neglible). So if a manager actually spent the £21m transfer budget and increased the wage bill up to the wage budget they would in theory pretty much bankrupt the club. There is nothing in the projected finances, no tycoon owner, no hidden pot of money that could make this realistic.

[Seb Wassell]

To look into this we'd need a save from just before this budget is given. If you happen to have one, please do upload it.

Cheers,

Seb.

[Cummins]

To look into this we'd need a save from just before this budget is given. If you happen to have one, please do upload it.

Cheers,

Seb.

Surely you have the facilities to holiday a 1year save with that club to test instead of relying on the user to send in his save? Or are you believing his game might in some way be bugged?

[Seb Wassell]

Hey Cummins,

Reproducing from a save game is a much more reliable way of getting to the bottom of an issue. Due to the countless number of calculations that take place with every continue our two saves could diverge greatly in only a few weeks. The influence the human manager has in the game can also cause large knock-ons. Obviously it would be extremely time inefficient for us to play through as a specific club in the hope that an issue would reproduce due to those actions. As such, bugs are much more likely to be fixed if we can get a save close to when they occurred for you.

Saying this, as soon as something is raised here we look into it internally ourselves. In this case, there is an issue we are aware of, but further examples are always useful and aid in the investigation.

Cheers,

Seb.

[Golden Boot]

Hey Cummins,

Reproducing from a save game is a much more reliable way of getting to the bottom of an issue. Due to the countless number of calculations that take place with every continue our two saves could diverge greatly in only a few weeks. The influence the human manager has in the game can also cause large knock-ons. Obviously it would be extremely time inefficient for us to play through as a specific club in the hope that an issue would reproduce due to those actions. As such, bugs are much more likely to be fixed if we can get a save close to when they occurred for you.

Saying this, as soon as something is raised here we look into it internally ourselves. In this case, there is an issue we are aware of, but further examples are always useful and aid in the investigation.

Cheers,

Seb.

After waiting six weeks (and counting) for a fix for the dreadful FIFA rankings bug in FMT, this is starting to really get up my nose now. Many of these bugs (such as this finances bug and the rankings bug) don't require saved games and they certainly don't require extensive play tests. They smack you in the face as soon as you start playing the game. Take the rankings bug for example. All you have to do is load up FMT. How on Earth a tester didn't spot this is beyond me. I design and develop websites for a living, and before a site goes live we ALWAYS carry out a very simple, but very effective test: go through the main pages and sections and ensure that everything looks OK. It's not rocket science. Unless your testers have all had a lobotomy I would imagine that seeing Maldives as the #1 team in the world would have raised alarm bells.

Likewise, this finances bug doesn't magically appear on certain saves; it's a massive problem that occurs repeatedly throughout any game. All you have to do is holiday through a few seasons, check the finances of a few teams and you'll notice it soon enough, sure as day is day. Again, it's not rocket science. Just holiday a few seasons on your own game and you'll encounter the bug.

These issues have forced me to stop playing the game, as unless you want a save where Maldives, Tonga and American Samoa dominate the world rankings, or where teams are given astronomical budgets way beyond their means, the game is unplayable. This really needs to be fixed as a matter of urgency. We have been waiting patiently for weeks for a fix now and it is becoming extremely irritating to say the least.

[Neil Brock]

I can understand your frustration but I can't condone the tone of what you're saying. I'd suggest taking the time to read the house rules before posting again - http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/370304-Failure-to-Read-or-Follow-House-Rules

In regards to the issues above Football Manager is an incredibly complex game with many areas having direct knock-ons which can potentially cause issues. A very simple and effective test on a website isn't really a comparable situation to running simple effective tests on a game as large as Football Manager. Bear in mind I'm only talking about Football Manager - add on Football Manager Touch and bear in mind the 'Maldives' issue only appeared in that version and you realise we're talking about two games with similarities, but which are not exactly the same and need comprehensive testing.

Likewise it's not always as simple as seeing something and saying 'there's an issue' - it has to be discovered why the issue is happening and how exactly to fix it. Hence why with the finance issue our testers have requested further saves to help isolate the problem and figure out exactly what's going on. As said I understand the frustration and you're well within your rights to raise them here to us. Just do so within the forum rules and show respect to the Sports Interactive team. Thanks.