What have we learned? Minimum transfer fee clauses should be illegal

[podunkboy]

Managing Forfar, got them up to the SPL, have a great little right back, raised him from a pup. I have carefully nurtured him, because we don't have many quality home-grown players for continental play. EPL teams have been sniffing about, but they always bid well under his value. Start of the season, he was valued at $170K and I had him tied down to a 3 year contract with a 2-year club extension clause.

Midseason transfer period rolls around, here come West Ham with a $900K bid. I look up top, see he now has a value of $1.7 million, so naturally I reject it, go into transfer screen and bump his asking price up to $7 million. I think he's safe. Next day, West Ham comes back with a $5.5 million bid...which the club accepts...because it meets his minimum release clause. AIIGGGH! Too late, I realize that the $5.5 million minimum clause agreed to when we was worth virtually nothing has bitten me in the seat. (I also didn't apparently realize that England was a "foreign club" to Scotland - I thought they were all one big happy family...) It's just not fair (although I know it happens in almost every sport all the time, but when it happens to me, it's personal.)

[FrazT]

It happens and it is no fun as I have lost another player since this thread: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/456243-The-news-item-nobody-wants

[tmason122]

Yer, it sucks. After it happens to you once you get used to reading ever detail of the contract negotiation stage to make sure it doesn't happen again.... I will quite happily pay a player substantially more money to keep such a clause out of his contract if I think he's going to be an good.

[podunkboy]

We were actually challenging for Champions next season and were still in the knockouts of Europa Cup play this season, so it's not like we weren't giving him a level of play matching his ambitions (and with West Ham in 15th place, he's not going to sniff continental play for the immediate future.) Well, I've learned my lesson, no one with 4-5 star potential gets a minimum fee clause in their contract.

[SlightlyAwkward]

If players are going to demand some form of release clause, always make sure it's a relegation release clause because if it becomes active then you've already been sacked and it's not your problem anymore.

[Guest]

If tight in lower rep league or managing a lower rep club that might prove impossible or costly. Try using the min fee for continental football option as a possible alternative, might not always be good enough for the player but it's better than paying over the odds in wage, bonuses & agent fees just to write min fee clauses out of contracts.

There is also the fact that they are a part of football & as this is an attempt to simulate football you could just accept the situation.

[Geordieboy52]

I lost a player who was running my first team - dynamic box to box midfielder from Czech Republic whom I had a huge release fee for, I holidayed between games during the international break and came back to find Man U had paid the whole release clause and he'd gone. Bugger!

[Guest]

But with a high enough fee you can build team rather than a one man show or invest improving the club. Big part of the problem is that it's too easy to make money in FM, if clubs were run as badly in FM as they are irl these clauses would make more sense.

[podunkboy]

But with a high enough fee you can build team rather than a one man show or invest improving the club. Big part of the problem is that it's too easy to make money in FM, if clubs were run as badly in FM as they are irl these clauses would make more sense.

yeah, the board's only giving me 45% in transfer fees, but I'm just going to troll the scouting reports and bring in a couple youngsters. When you're in Scotland, you just have to accept that you're a feeder nation for England.

[Guest]

Planning ahead is vital, have potential replacements identified & do some ground work to unsettle them once a bigger club shows an interest in one of your players. The trick is to anticipate when that might start to happen so you cab get your work started before a player might be tempted to leave & never leave a player an important player on the same contract for more than 18-24 months as that can be a string negotiating position, especially if there is no interest of potential interest elsewhere.

The biggest & most common fault I used to see from saves was that folk were too cheap with their contracts & would not start looking to get them extended until it was too late, if you're well below budget on wages do not be afraid to pay important players top dollar.

[FrazT]

The moral of this and other threads like it is that most users will have been caught by a "hidden" contract clause at some time, but hopefully will use the experience to ensure that they do not do it again and all contract conditions are closely inspected.

I have just lost my DC and captain to a similar min release fee, set when he was 19 and uncapped and now he is 23 and an established international- fee was acceptable( it seemed large at the time ), but the main issue was that it happened at about 11.30 pm on transfer deadline day and I had no time to find cover.

[Guest]

Not getting an established international to a new deal was a poor move, it was also sloppy of his agent not to make an approach.

[FrazT]

Not getting an established international to a new deal was a poor move, it was also sloppy of his agent not to make an approach.

That was his second deal and still had 2 years to go, but lessons were learned.

[podunkboy]

After my player went to West Ham I saw that he'd be interested in a loan move, so just because, I sent out a loan request. They wanted $15,000/week AND a monthly fee for a player that I had been paying $2,100/week last week. So, instead he'll be sitting in their U21 team, rotting away, because he's not good enough to even ride the senior team bench.