Budget gets cut after qualifying for Champions League

[spiros91]

I am manager at Chelsea for almost 10 years now. Let's say for starters that when you secure a top 4 spot you get the new budgets for the new season (which happened to me in fm 2015 when i managed Newcastle). in the first 4-5 seasons the owner kept adding money to my budgets when I secured a Ch.L. qualification (usually around March). But for the rest seasons, till now (April 2025), when that occurred (securing a top4 spot) the manager tool much of my wage budget, sometimes leaving me from +140 m/y to -30 m/y. I have no debts, I produce profits around 1,4 b euros, and the only change in the stadium is that it increased it's capacity to 60.000 (and when I ask to build a new one, they reject).

[Phero]

I've won Euro Champ cup 4 times and still my club is in massive debt. Even in a winning season they produce a deficit. And yes I' paying my players less than anyone else. I ended up buying the editor to correct this stupid behavior. The math is WAY off.

As it is right now, I can be #3 rated club in the world and still make NO MONEY. So yeah, the math is screwed.

[Spurs08]

I've won Euro Champ cup 4 times and still my club is in massive debt. Even in a winning season they produce a deficit. And yes I' paying my players less than anyone else. I ended up buying the editor to correct this stupid behavior. The math is WAY off.

As it is right now, I can be #3 rated club in the world and still make NO MONEY. So yeah, the math is screwed.

What league are you playing in? It may be that the reputation and ability of other clubs in your league - and therefore your ability to maximise revenue from television contracts, ticket sales, commercial activity etc - haven't caught up with your success yet. In which case it makes sense that you're in financial difficulties even if you spend less than the European heavyweights. Especially as a huge portion of the Champions League money is based on your nation's TV contract with UEFA.

[Phero]

I'm currently in the year 2043 with FCM, having won the Euro championship several times, so everyone should have "caught up" at this point but haven't. Still receiving pathetic income from sponsors and getting insanely lowball offers for my world class players.

I injected 200 million euros into the club last season using the editor(first time I ever used it) and for some reason all my players are now properly valued compared to similar clubs and the incoming offers are fair. Did nothing for sponsorships though. Seriously, my sponsorships will barely cover one world class player's wages.

I stand by what about said about the math, it currently does not scale well at all. Furthermore there is a chicken and egg thing going on, I have no money so every offer is insultingly lowball, thus I don't get to ever earn money on my developed players. Then, when I inject money artificially, I can make tons of money selling players. Poor stay poor rich get richer mechanics in there.

[Spurs08]

I'm currently in the year 2043 with FCM, having won the Euro championship several times, so everyone should have "caught up" at this point but haven't. Still receiving pathetic income from sponsors and getting insanely lowball offers for my world class players.

I injected 200 million euros into the club last season using the editor(first time I ever used it) and for some reason all my players are now properly valued compared to similar clubs and the incoming offers are fair. Did nothing for sponsorships though. Seriously, my sponsorships will barely cover one world class player's wages.

I stand by what about said about the math, it currently does not scale well at all. Furthermore there is a chicken and egg thing going on, I have no money so every offer is insultingly lowball, thus I don't get to ever earn money on my developed players. Then, when I inject money artificially, I can make tons of money selling players. Poor stay poor rich get richer mechanics in there.

Which is pretty much how things work in real life! How many leagues which were not particularly successful 16 years ago (in 2000) are now world powerhouses with massive sponsorship deals and TV revenue? It's obviously quite a while for an FM save, but it isn't long-term enough to make Denmark (assuming FCM is FC Midtyjlland) a powerhouse. The other issue is going to be the country's population - less than 6M. There is NO internationally sucessful football league based in such a small nation. Even historically successful ones, like Scotland and Holland, have failed to adapt to the modern age and tailed off massively despite big-name clubs. That's why they're always talking of merging with leagues in neighbouring countries. There are a very limited number of people who are ever going to watch televised games domestically there, and the international market has always been very hard to crack - and arguably may now be impossible with the stranglehold of the Premier League across much of the world which even La Liga is making major changes to try and compete with. You've done very well to make your club individually sucessful, but in terms of trying to transform your league you're going to find it borderline impossible and it will take much, much longer than you've spent so far if it's ever to happen. The first thing to do, if you want to try it though, would be to try and sell unneeded squad players to your domestic rivals, even if they can't pay you as much as foreign clubs can. You will need other clubs to compete with you to provide entertaining matches for TV markets and do well in Europe to increase the league's international standing, and that's the most direct way you can help that process along

Another issue is that you've injected money as a one-off, and I expect you've used that to buy players with significant wages? But you haven't increased annual income to be able to afford them, which would explain your deficit. You can't really use a cheat to bypass the financial model, then argue the results are unrealistic. It wasn't built to adapt around £200M floating in from nowhere.

[Phero]

I get what you're saying about how the size of a country matters and it makes sense to some degree, still I'd argue that if we're consistently challenging for Euro Champs, we'd receive much more attention from other countries, making our size matter less.

Also I only injected money because, as you said so yourself, the economics model was pretty much making it impossible for me to sustain a Danish club at a high enough level. Considering I'm paying my players pennies compared to other clubs and have taken every other step to keep expenses down AND maximize my income from selling players, I still basically have no shot to come out ahead. Even after 27 years(!)

FCM had debts of more than 150 million Euros, while doing very well. They give me transfer funds of 100+ million euros but were I to actually utilize any of it, I'd bankrupt the club... it's a bit silly, imho.

[Spurs08]

I get what you're saying about how the size of a country matters and it makes sense to some degree, still I'd argue that if we're consistently challenging for Euro Champs, we'd receive much more attention from other countries, making our size matter less.

Also I only injected money because, as you said so yourself, the economics model was pretty much making it impossible for me to sustain a Danish club at a high enough level. Considering I'm paying my players pennies compared to other clubs and have taken every other step to keep expenses down AND maximize my income from selling players, I still basically have no shot to come out ahead. Even after 27 years(!)

FCM had debts of more than 150 million Euros, while doing very well. They give me transfer funds of 100+ million euros but were I to actually utilize any of it, I'd bankrupt the club... it's a bit silly, imho.

Again, when you say less than "everyone else", are you comparing to other world-leading teams or the rest of the Danish League? If it's the latter then yeah there's an issue, but if not it is pretty realistic. It should be near-impossible to do what you're doing, it's frustrating but realistic.

[Phero]

Again, when you say less than "everyone else", are you comparing to other world-leading teams or the rest of the Danish League? If it's the latter then yeah there's an issue, but if not it is pretty realistic. It should be near-impossible to do what you're doing, it's frustrating but realistic.

The other Danish clubs have been boosted because of my success. My club is currently rated 4.5 stars while most of the other Danish clubs are rated 3.5-4 stars. I get more value from loaning players out to other Danish clubs than I get from what should be other superior leagues.

How the hell those other Danish clubs are rated that highly, I don't know, except for a rubber banding mechanism. Their only good players are loan players or sometimes the lucky Brazilian regen they got for cheap and still overall their players are much worse than mine.

Yet, these useless players are winning player of the month, goal of the month and so forth. These are players the AI would tell me to ditch asap if I had them on my team. I know, 'cause I've tried hiring them.

There's a weird "catch-up" mechanic going on, perhaps to make the matches challenging, but in reality there's no way in hell their terrible players should EVER be a threat to my guys. Even if I applied the worst tactics I could.

[Spurs08]

The other Danish clubs have been boosted because of my success. My club is currently rated 4.5 stars while most of the other Danish clubs are rated 3.5-4 stars. I get more value from loaning players out to other Danish clubs than I get from what should be other superior leagues.

How the hell those other Danish clubs are rated that highly, I don't know, except for a rubber banding mechanism. Their only good players are loan players or sometimes the lucky Brazilian regen they got for cheap and still overall their players are much worse than mine.

Yet, these useless players are winning player of the month, goal of the month and so forth. These are players the AI would tell me to ditch asap if I had them on my team. I know, 'cause I've tried hiring them.

There's a weird "catch-up" mechanic going on, perhaps to make the matches challenging, but in reality there's no way in hell their terrible players should EVER be a threat to my guys. Even if I applied the worst tactics I could.

I'd say it's less a catch-up mechanism, and more just that your staff are underestimating them. They'll mainly be looking at overall ability which is all well and good - after all, your's do tend to do better and win the league, in the end. But that doesn't preclude a more limited player in a role that suits him perfectly and good attitude and application impressing individually. Just look at what we've seen in the Premier League this season. Defoe was meant to be an over-the-hill striker who'd long since been retired to the MLS, but was still effective enough to be one of the highest scorers in the league and keep Sunderland up. No way in heck are the staff of a top 4 club going to reccommend him, but he can still do a great job playing against them. And the less we say about Jamie Vardy the better! The reality is football is so much more than a game of numbers and absolute, quantifiable consistent ability and for a video game FM does a truly incredible job of replicating that.

[themadsheep2001]

I'd say it's less a catch-up mechanism, and more just that your staff are underestimating them. They'll mainly be looking at overall ability which is all well and good - after all, your's do tend to do better and win the league, in the end. But that doesn't preclude a more limited player in a role that suits him perfectly and good attitude and application impressing individually. Just look at what we've seen in the Premier League this season. Defoe was meant to be an over-the-hill striker who'd long since been retired to the MLS, but was still effective enough to be one of the highest scorers in the league and keep Sunderland up. No way in heck are the staff of a top 4 club going to reccommend him, but he can still do a great job playing against them. And the less we say about Jamie Vardy the better! The reality is football is so much more than a game of numbers and absolute, quantifiable consistent ability and for a video game FM does a truly incredible job of replicating that.

There isn't a catch up mechanism, but consistent success can and will increase the rep of your league and clubs in league. But it doesnt change the rating of the players, it does however influence the kind of players willing to go there, and therefor in that way can indirectly over a period of time change the make up of the league (ie more and more better players at all age levels will join)

[Phero]

It's not make believe. On one hand the AI is giving out rewards for this and that to players that are not anywhere near the level of my own players. If I say "ok", maybe my 2020 scouts are wrong and hire some of those same people. They are reported WAAAAAAYYY below my current staff and when I play them, they don't perform at all and my staff wants me to get rid of them.

The current FACT is that I see terrible players consistently compete with my world class players in the stats. Over and over. So if there's no rubberband mechanism, there's definitely HUGE errors in the internal calculations that you're doing.

[themadsheep2001]

It's not make believe. On one hand the AI is giving out rewards for this and that to players that are not anywhere near the level of my own players. If I say "ok", maybe my 2020 scouts are wrong and hire some of those same people. They are reported WAAAAAAYYY below my current staff and when I play them, they don't perform at all and my staff wants me to get rid of them.

The current FACT is that I see terrible players consistently compete with my world class players in the stats. Over and over. So if there's no rubberband mechanism, there's definitely HUGE errors in the internal calculations that you're doing.

There is literally no rubber band mechanism in terms of how players perform in the match engine. I'm not sure how much more bluntly I can put it tbh.

I also have no idea what you mean by internal calculations. Calculations of what exactly?

[Svenc]

Huh, typically if you're domestically dominating you're dominating. Seasons become easier and easier as everybody else is playing catch-up. Never experienced this ever. On an Australia save I even experienced though that clubs often wouldn't even fill their Marquee spots and mostly filled their squads with youth, whereas I was the only club that even genuinelly transfered players from abroad. That made things domestically even less competitive. So yeah...... there can be weird things going on.

As for players this is a completely unrelated thing to the OP and budget thing anyway. No experience managing in Denmark so far, for instance, but how is it possible to record huge losses when the wages are as lowly as reported, for instance? There's no "catch-up" thing for players going on at all, players are players and at one point the only really challenge would be going a season unbeaten. I find nothing off with players from other clubs getting the odd player of the month award. They may not make a starting spot for your side, but they might still be good or even great players for the league level. It would be only weird if they would get such an award playing exclusively your side which typically happens only twice a season. Thrice, depending on which. And goals of the month, every poor player can hit a miracle strike. If you're into editing, edit some actually world class players into the Danish league. I did this for Basel in Switzerland for fun and even though that inevitably makes for an inherently ungelled squad, even the AI man had them scoring like 4-5 goals on average. Whilst ratings can be wobbly (keeper ratings bumped when making tons of easy saves and their side ending up winning/not conceding, etc.), the top ten average ratings that was all Basel. If you don't generally run away in the tables despite such a gulf in class, you'd have to be pretty terrible. It's hard to tell without looking at any save what is going on either way.

[Phero]

It makes no sense that the clubs I'm consistently beating, having ZERO world class players are constantly a threat to my million dollar squad. Not just for one match but for the entire season. If I slack off a single away game, they win. That's pretty much it. They win with useless players. We're talking 20k Euros a month vs. 600k euros a month players. After the game they beat me over the head, saying this or that player was so great. I look up his stats and he's terrible. There IS rubber banding going on. FOR SURE. Otherwise these guys would NEVER EVER challenge me. And they do.

All the time.

[themadsheep2001]

It makes no sense that the clubs I'm consistently beating, having ZERO world class players are constantly a threat to my million dollar squad. Not just for one match but for the entire season. If I slack off a single away game, they win. That's pretty much it. They win with useless players. We're talking 20k Euros a month vs. 600k euros a month players. After the game they beat me over the head, saying this or that player was so great. I look up his stats and he's terrible. There IS rubber banding going on. FOR SURE. Otherwise these guys would NEVER EVER challenge me. And they do.

All the time.

There isn't rubber banding. Feel free to ignore that if you so choose, but you're 100% wrong on that front, so there is no reason for me to continue talking on that.

[Phero]

You don't know. Being a moderator you know what they want you to know. Which isn't much.

[Svenc]

There isn't rubber banding. Feel free to ignore that if you so choose, but you're 100% wrong on that front, so there is no reason for me to continue talking on that.

Yeah he is totally wrong. It's easy to completely run away with dominating squads. Any kind of hint at AI bias is a totally non-issue of which there are many more and many actually imminent.

I have no exp managing in Denmark though. He even states that his side his consistently beating those sides. However he's only facing them thrice a season. Focusing so much on star ratings which are always relative assessment to his own squad I'm not convinced he can tell how those teams would rank in comparison to the rest of the league by now. That's a huge gulf in budget, but they might still be able to attract much better players than the average club and do, players that may not earn a fortune but would neglect a move to everybody else in that league, which makes them easily beat everybody else. Hard to tell. Weirdly dynamics possible for sure. Such as on my Australia save back on FM 2015. And that wasn't a long-term save, not much exp myself with the dynamics of the dynamic league reps. What sounds bad either way is how he records huge losses on apparently modest budgets. That's kinda weird.

[themadsheep2001]

You don't know. Being a moderator you know what they want you to know. Which isn't much.

You'll be suprised by how much we do know.

And if you continue down the abusive front, you'll be off this forum pretty sharpish. Grow up

[themadsheep2001]

Yeah he is. It's easy to completely run away with dominating squads.

I have no exp managing in Denmark though. He even states that his side his consistently beating those sides. However he's only facing them twice a season. Focusing so much on stars I'm not convinced he can tell how those teams would rank in comparison to the rest of the league by now.

It's arguably still the AI weak point, once you have a well built, well run squad, it's very hard for the AI to dynamically catch up, unless you start making fundamental squad or longer term tactical mistakes

[Spurs08]

It makes no sense that the clubs I'm consistently beating, having ZERO world class players are constantly a threat to my million dollar squad. Not just for one match but for the entire season. If I slack off a single away game, they win. That's pretty much it. They win with useless players. We're talking 20k Euros a month vs. 600k euros a month players. After the game they beat me over the head, saying this or that player was so great. I look up his stats and he's terrible. There IS rubber banding going on. FOR SURE. Otherwise these guys would NEVER EVER challenge me. And they do.

All the time.

So if you're consistently beating them, how are they a threat? Occasionally you lose a match to a team with inferior players on the whole, that's football, that's why it's entertaining. But if you generally have the better quality, win most of your matches, and end up winning the league, I really don't see what the problem is? And if you're losing the league to teams with a thirtieth of your wage budget, then the most likely explanation is bad management, particularly perhaps motivating your players to perform to their best against them.

[Silver Twilight Sparkle]

It makes no sense that the clubs I'm consistently beating, having ZERO world class players are constantly a threat to my million dollar squad. Not just for one match but for the entire season. If I slack off a single away game, they win. That's pretty much it. They win with useless players. We're talking 20k Euros a month vs. 600k euros a month players. After the game they beat me over the head, saying this or that player was so great. I look up his stats and he's terrible. There IS rubber banding going on. FOR SURE. Otherwise these guys would NEVER EVER challenge me. And they do.

All the time.

Did you watch the premier league this season son?

[Mrlee.1986]

It makes no sense that the clubs I'm consistently beating, having ZERO world class players are constantly a threat to my million dollar squad. Not just for one match but for the entire season.

Did you watch the premier league this season son?

Exactly what I was going to say.. thats what Leicester did this season with their team of 'zero world class players and cheap nobodies' beating the million pound squads of city, United and Chelsea to win the league..

Didn't make much sense irl either but it happened... Maybe, just maybe, FM is more lifelike than we first realised..

[Guest]

You don't know. Being a moderator you know what they want you to know. Which isn't much.

I'm a former SI employer therefore I expect my confirmation that the game does not contain any rubber-banding mechanism is enough to end that train of thought..

[JockBrodie83]

I was heading into my 3rd season with Chelsea and my transfer budget went from £110M when I got the job, 2nd season £140M, 3rd £7m. Balance was £200M, raised £130M in player sales but % of sales was set to 20%. My instinct was a new stadium was about to be built, is the game that coniving??

[Plachy]

Not too interested in the fight threatening to break out there but could you explain what rubber banding means in the context above?

Is it referring to matches being harder than they should be because your side is OP?

I have to say I have experienced a little bit of this but I've always put it down to my side in reality not being that much better than the oppo, there just being a little bit of a cliff in terms of signing better players after a certain point (i.e. improving Cattermole to Mark Noble not being a huge ask as those players are ten-a-penny, but improving Payet would be a significant outlay for any club). So you are essentially paying huge amounts for slightly better players but your opponents can buy a whole new squad for the same price, and close that gap quite significantly to you.

Also that beating sides 3-0, 3-0, 3-0 and then drawing some games and occasionally losing is to be expected in a side that is vastly better than the rest of the league (that has also given the game time to catch up), much in the same way that Chelsea might not win every game in the Championship if they went down tomorrow. Juve's excursion to Serie B is probably a nice real example of this, they dominated the division but only won 2/3 of games.

[Svenc]

Not too interested in the fight threatening to break out there but could you explain what rubber banding means in the context above?

Is it referring to matches being harder than they should be because your side is OP?

Juventus also lost 4 matches that season. Clearly scripted. :-) Yes completely and there's no reason to fight. Personally do editing for experiments and fun too. Messi in the lower echolons? Sure why not give it a go. You would totally dominate the Championship with Chelsea and score a lot, despite everybody and their mom shutting up shop for good from kick-off and praying for the best without additionally edits to club reputation (which is amongst the main mechanic by which Ai managers gauge where they stand relative to any opposition).

Just seen that the Basel save still exists off previous.

What he's done is:

- editing budgets so he can afford "world class players" in Denmark

- getting ahold of those world class players

- using the star ratings which are subjective ratings relative to your squad given by the staff to determine how good the players of the opposition still is

That's not even a difference Cattermole -> Nobel likely, that is the top guys arriving in Denmark, which no other club can afford. Consequently even great players for that level would have lowest possible ratings, as when the likes of Robbery are your starters, the guy who's still capable of scoring 20+ goals each season in Denmark (except against his) doesn't cut it anymore and is rated by the staff accordingly.

Whether it is an issue or on purpose that means of income don't raise as much in the given amount of time is another matter and worth looking at. What would be alarming was if he lost money before his edits. Effectively he "broke" the db by his edits and doesn't understand the star ratings. There's no need to fight here. Rubberbanding mechanisms have been made an excuse since the dawn of the game. Whilst there are certain mechanisms that slightly increase the likelyhood of individually point drops, such as match focus, confidence or player consistency, they apply to all teams in the game's world. They however are no on/off switches that would predetermine a result. It's typically always a combination of things. Already talked about sides readily shutting up shop and praying for the best with no less than 5, 6 players always sitting behind the ball, which is visibly happening and affects play second by second as you would think it would. Which in turn rubs off on the quality and amount of chances and goals scored big time.

[Plachy]

Aye I had suspected some foul play, but I wasn't prepared to say anything/usually err on the side of benefit of the doubt

I'm more interested because I play in Wales and I've developed it non-edited to between the 15th and 20th best league in Europe. And in all those seasons I've done I've gone unbeaten maybe 3 times and had maybe 1 season where I felt 'this is too easy in every game' and since then the league has got harder and harder every year. I've some people say I'm bad at the game because I don't find league games a formality 25 years into a save in a smaller nation, but I like how an FM save is a living, breathing world of football and sides will eventually improve over time to the point some of their players will be better at some things and might well be able to knock a few goals past you if you don't think about your tactics because you're focusing on the big Champions League game next week. This thread was kinda touching on some of the feelings I have on a bad-FM day of 'I really should be tonking these but it's ended 2-2'.

I find this a lot with reported 'balance issues' in the game. There's a lot of it on YouTube where users clearly edited a side's rep/stadium/budgets in a smaller country that then causes a horrible scenario of catch-up far too insurmountable for the AI teams. 11-0 every week type stuff 4 seasons into the game (unless a side gets taken over by a sugar daddy when they might only be able to beat them 5-1). You're completely right that there's no problem with doing it, because the editor is clearly offered in part because it's fun to play out football's great What Ifs on FM. But it's quite difficult to justify criticising FMs balance issues when you've made changes to a database that a lot of people, being paid presumably a lot of cumulative money have put together and more importantly has been tested by people who know exactly how to 'break' a game. That seems like what has happened here.

My rubber banding questions were more to understand whether he thought it was a match to match issue (i.e. each team is given inflated chance of winning a game to rubber band his dominance) or the league's teams having inflated reputation. The latter I was a lot more interested in as I'm trying to drastically increase my division's rep and I'm quite interested in how dynamic league rep works when one side is pulling the cart (which is the case in my Welsh save) vs. having two or more sides pulling it (Rangers/Celtic in the 90s or maybe somewhere like the US where lots of sides are improving year on year). Doesn't seem like this guys save is anything like mine with your additional info.

[spiros91]

I tried to get help for my problem, yet no answer came through, just some dialog... Can anyone help me? It's frustrating to sell 1billion euros in the summer transfer window and have 2.25b euros transfer and only 70 m/y available wage budget and no option to tsansfer from one another

[spiros91]

You opened a dialog and the moderators haven't replied to my problem

[Guest]

Premier league rules cap wage expenditure so it doesn't matter if you have £2bn in the bank if the league rules do not permit you to exceed £70m, £100m or £500m in wages.

Have a look at the FFP tab in the finance section to see your current regulated spending limits.

[spiros91]

But why do they keep taking my transfer budget? This year, they took 900m euros from my transfer budget when I secured Champions League qualification

[Guest]

It's their club so they can do what they want with their budgets & if they feel that you do not need £900m to meet the set targets then they will not budget for you to have access to £900m, all you can do is make the most of what they are providing which I doubt is chump change.

If you need £900m to meet your targets then a trip to the tactics & strategies forum might be a worthwhile exercise as a tenth of that transfer budget is more than enough for a Champions League side.

[spiros91]

I don't actually need them, I just like to discover young players and sell them very expensive. Thanks for your answer though.