Context When Making Loan or Sale Promises

[briandonahue2]

Perhaps there is a way to do this and I haven't realized it, but I have often wished I was able to specify details when making a promise to a player and his agent that the player will be sold/loaned out. Specifically, it would be great to agree on how much of the transfer fee I am expecting to be guaranteed. There are have been numerous occasions when I agree a player will be sold for say, a very fair 5 million, and then I don't feel comfortable accepting an offer for say, 2 million immediate, 1 million over 2 years, and then 2 million being incentive based between games played, international appearances, etc. Rejecting this offer doesn't mean I won't still seek to make a deal or even that the player/agent couldn't come back and renegotiate the promise if the player isn't sold in X amount of time, but currently the player seems to always be angry about a broken promise, when I am just not comfortable knowing I may never see that incentive-based 2 million. It would also be fine if the player/agent felt my wanting 5 million guaranteed was too much even if they felt my wanting a 5 million incentive-based package is fair, I would just like to hash that out with them up front.

Regarding loans, I have noticed players are quick to get upset at any rejected loan if a loan has been previously promised, even if other loan offers were accepted. I would completely understand a player becoming upset at my rejecting a particularly preferred destination, but it seems to be any loan rejection at all. Further, there are times when I reject a loan offer because a team offered too little playing time or too low of the salary %, but I still fully intend to loan the player out. I might intend to adjust a specific component of the loan offer to yield better options, or perhaps I decided to loan the the player to an affiliate, given that I wasn't happy with the initial teams that responded. I wish the game would stick to the time expectation in terms of finding an appropriate loan, rather than have the player react to any rejected loan. To reiterate, if a player has a particular preferred destination I would be totally fine with them expressing that, but they seem to instead focus on what they felt were acceptable loan offers in general. I am able to express that I intend to continue seeking a loan in the follow-up meeting, but not without the player first becoming upset and his trust in me being questioned. 

Thanks!

[Luke Hume]

Reviewed so locke.d