[Suggestion] Changing the wage culture of a club as part of "Club Vision"

[onewordepic]

Hello there, as someone who's played Football manager over the years one thing that I have noticed, especially if I am taking over one of the bigger clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Manchester City etc is that the way the wage culture of the club is set in stone.

In my most recent save, I took over as ManUtd to try and do my version of a rebuild, the first thing I did, was try to bring the wage budget down and sell off players on huge contract (above $250,000k a week) and try to sign players on much cheaper contracts (less than $100k a week). It worked brilliantly initially and I was able to sign a host of U23 players for such smaller contracts and my wage budget dropped from close to $4,500,000 million a week to around $2,500,000 million a week.

But 3 seasons in when it was time to renegotiate the contracts of the players i signed, all of a sudden all of them again wanted exorbitant wages ($300,000 - $500,000 a week). Now in a normal save I can understand this, United are a big club with a history of paying big sums recently so it makes sense.

But I wanted to change the 'wage culture' of the club, take the club out of debt and remove the image that United are a club that pays huge wages. When you look at other successful clubs like Liverpool, this has been done successfully, the wages of even their best players like Salah at their peak is less than $250,000 in real life.

But in the game any player coming to a club like United or Real will always ask for a huge wage once they are no longer a U23.

What I'm suggesting is a way as manager to alter the wage culture of the club, where before the season starts or as part of your 5 years plan, you can suggest to the board that you want to curb the wage to a cap, this can be as simple as saying no contracts above $250,000 will be handed out.

This would mean when you sign a new player and negotiate with them, there can be a clause added by you which says 'player agrees to new wage culture', if the player is 'extremely interested in joining' then they would accept it meaning when it comes to renegotiating their wage in 3/4 years time, they won't ask for $500,000k but they respect the club's new culture and ask for anything from $150,000-$250,000 (or whatever is the limit you set with your board)

Now this can also backfire in that, say in the first 5 years or so of your save, you might miss out on a lot of potential talents who don't want to join you because they don't want to accept the wage culture. If you keep this as a 'clause' in contract negotiations then you as a manager has a choice to make,

- do you say no to a great talent because he's won't adhere to the wage culture in 3 years or 

- do you sign him anyway and then make him an exception and give him whatever it takes because he's that good thereby breaking your culture or

- do you say no to him, face the short term issue and look for someone else who wants to stick to the culture

As is in real life, it will and it should take a few seasons for the wage culture to be completely 'reset', at which point, any player looking to sign for you, realize that you are no longer a club that will pay huge contracts, but respectable contracts, even then signing one or two players above the restricted wage will again break the culture and you might see yourself facing the sack or player discontent because you've just made other players who agreed to the new culture angry.

The idea stems from the fact that as for the clubs finances apart from transfer income, there is very little in the way you as a manager can help contribute to your club. I feel enforcing a wage culture is a fundamental way in making sure you feel more in control of your clubs finances as well as giving you an added long term target to hit with your club which will make the save a whole lot more enjoyable.

Now please don't tell me it's already in the game and you can just reduce the wage budget, that isn't the point because the players you're trying to sign doesn't know that. So say you sign a 20 years old on $60,000 a week, even if you reduce the wage budget, in 3 years the chances are if he is really good, he will still ask for $375,000 a week and you'll have to let him go or give in to his demands. 

The idea is to tell him right when you sign him as a 20 year old that he needs to agree to the new proposed wage culture meaning when he's 23 and about to renew, no matter how good he is, this club won't be paying him more than say $200,000 so if he isn't ready for that right now, he needn't join.

Again, before you say this is unrealistic, please realize clubs like Liverpool, Bayern all operate with much more modest wages and still have world class players

I feel this is a balanced feature that adds enough headaches and long term rewards, miss out on top talents initially, trophies etc but in the long term you'll have a financially sustainable club that top players still want to come to. And since this is a continual year by year exercise, the long term planning and upkeep it requires will never go away making the financial management aspect of the game a whole lot more difficult and satisfying.

Lastly, we all play football manager to write our own stories and the ability to change the wage culture of a club and make it more sustainable in the long run I feel can be one of the most thoroughly enjoyable if not difficult concept to add to the game.

 

[ashwa08]

I love the sound of this feature and hope it gets implemented

[Luke Hume]

Reviewed so locked.