Why are my board not in sync with my finances? FM2016

[dolph11]

I'm currently into my 6th season with Berwick Rangers in Scotland. In my first 2 seasons I gained back-to-back promotions without spending a penny and basically hardly signing anybody at all. I'm 4 seasons into life in The Championship (having a bit of a bad time this season) and haven't been able to go professional yet (the last time I asked I had over 300,000 in the bank) but not only that my finances are constantly shown as insecure despite having £394,000 in the bank and pretty much running equal with a tiny loss so far this season (-13,000). It's ruining my save. I haven't been able to expand my scouting range and my clubs rating seems to have remained at League 2 and it has been a battle to stay in The Championship. I don't mind that but surely there must be room for expansion or improvement otherwise it's just groundhog day. Four seasons into The Championship and 400,000 (and has been for nigh on 5 months and at certain points throughout my save) in the bank surely I must be given the option to at least expand my scouting range! I've had a board takeover, too, and they are like the exact same board. 

 

I guess the point of my writing is I'm at a point where I might just quit and start a new save but I really don't want to as I've enjoyed this save and put a lot of time into it. So, any advice would be very much appreciated. I know it's not FM 2017 so I hope that there are still some 2016 players out there.

[Cougar2010]

Welcome to life in the lower leagues.

Just to pick out a couple of your points:

A) Turning professional - Generally you need a lot more than £400k in the bank.  £1m is around the figure often mentioned while you also need to be in a league where teams are likely to be professional.  When you do turn professional you can expect wages to more or less triple while other costs will also significantly increase and overall you could find yourselves worse off.

 

B) Scouting range - I'm guessing you are limited to Scotland and thats fine at the level you are.  Its not going to change until you turn professional as players generally don't up sticks & move to another country to play in a part time league.

 

C) Its not ruining your save, its how it is.  If you don't like it thats fine but its no different to how clubs at that level work IRL.

[dolph11]

There is some merit to what you are saying. That being said, it is becoming tiresome as my best youngsters have been sold, despite my protests, for no more than £15,000! Granted, a couple have been sold for 100,000 but 5 have been sold for less and 3 for less than 20K despite me not being in debt! That is a stupidly low amount. I understand the challenge, that's why I started the save but this is just boring now and makes little sense. Yes, I would say that this level is still not a highly reputable league but it is a league whereby the scouting range could at least be increased to Northern Europe, I haven't even had the option to request it.

 

I may be missing something, in all fairness, considering my finances. I have, at this point, almost £400,000 in the bank yet my finances are considered insecure. This does not seem right to me. That amount is definitely not insecure. 

[Guest]

What are the board's expectations? My guess is that until they start considering the club to be ready to challenge for promotion to the SPL there's no reason to take a risk & significantly increase operating expenses by going full-time.

[dolph11]

I am huge underdogs and have been favourites for relegation every season and should never have been promoted. I guess that's the primary reason and I guess I could be a victim of my own early success. I got promoted very quickly when I was never considered promotion candidates (1000-1 in my League 1 winning season) and as such it didn't give me time to improve anything. I was using the same strikers I was using in League 2 for my first 2 season in The Championship and the gulf in ability is huge. Berwick vs Hibernian/Ross County/Kilmarnock/Inverness CT is pretty much League 2 vs Premiership. Maybe relegation would be beneficial in all fairness as it would give my team time to grow.

[Spurs08]

Last season you made a loss, however slight. Going professional normally means at the very least doubling your wages, therefore you're going to make a substantial loss if you do so. The board would only do it realistically if either you were consistently in profit, got promoted to the SPL, or were close to doing so and they decided to take a risk. 

[dolph11]

It was a strange situation, though, whereby my part-time players were asking for £600 per week on a part-time contract due to the club being in The Championship and I wasn't allowed any money by the board to sign new players and the only players that were free were terrible. It really was/is an unusual cycle. I had to let a lot of my players go last season as they were demanding too much for part-timers |(some might say I was paying equal to full-time players wages at that level) and the only replacements I could find from my known players list were League 2 standard. 

[Guest]

That's life managing a club in Scotland, other than the obvious clubs it's a tough existence & tbh if you plan to develop Berwick into an establish SPL side then be prepared for a long haul that will include plenty of squad recycling as your better players leave & maybe the odd relegation before coming back stronger.

[dolph11]

Very true, Barside! Unfortunately I just got relegated after losing the relegation play-off so it's back to the drawing board and see if I can build a new tactic that will create more stability should I regain promotion!