Player interaction and moving forward

[WelshMourinho]

I've raised my thoughts on this issue before, that I think FM has gone too far down the road of making every interaction a complete slog, and more importantly there's no interlink behind how things work. It's like every player has Mino Raiola as an agent. I've just had the most egregious example of it in my save.

Here are the contract 'negotiations' I've held with my captain (well, former captain) over the last 12 months.

As you can see, he wants to be a star player, he wants to play a certain role, he wants us to win a cup and he wants us to strengthen in a certain area. I've refused these negotiations, because I no longer see him as a star player and his demands in general are silly. The lowest I've offered him is a regular starter, and this is always met with the "make me a good offer or I'm off response."

After all these demands and negotiations, I see Arsenal offer a contract. Intrigued, I decide to accept the initial promises stage and come to see he wants 190k a week. I back out and let him go to Arsenal. Inexplicably, he's decided to accept this contract from them.

A full on pensioners contract. Madness! This makes absolutely no sense. There's simply no link between these things in the game. Players appear to be extreme prima donna's for no reason other than to force you into strange interactions.

Another example is Maurizio Martini, another player I lost on a free. He came to me demanding a title challenge before signing a new contract. I was phasing him out at this point anyway, so I agreed to the promise as that matched my ambition. With a few months left he decides to enter negotiations with Leeds, while refusing to even negotiate with us due to being unhappy (the promise was obviously still ongoing). He decides to sign for Leeds on half the wage and a reduced squad status. Where is the link between things? If a player's ambition is to win titles, surely that should stay consistent for all negotiations he enters? 

I understand there's been a shift in FM over the last few years to give the players more power to represent real life, but immersion is broken when there is such a clear disjointedness about it.  Interactions appear to exist solely in the interaction room but play no part anywhere else. Koroma is apparently "very close" to me and holds me in the highest regard, but not close enough for there to be a proper dialogue about realistic contract demands? Something that was clearly registered when he negotiated with Arsenal and accepted a far inferior contract? 

I have 20 LOD, an attribute that in theory should deter players from coming to my door with issues. They still turn up every other week demanding new contracts despite only being about a year removed from their last one. It's been taken to extreme levels. I'm sure there are some coaches and players out there who have interactions that don't end with the pair wanting to throw each other through the window by the end of it. 

I'm interested in other people's thoughts. I'm all for making the game more difficult in a player power sense, but it has to be consistent with the wider FM world in your save. Unfortunately, often times interactions feel like their own little mini game in which the player who enters plays the role of an antagonist for 5 minutes.

 

 

[HUNT3R]

3 minutes ago, WelshMourinho said:

Inexplicably, he's decided to accept this contract from them.

Why is it inexplicable? Your screenshot shows that he's more interested in Arsenal than your club. Unless you've left out some information? What was the playing time that Arsenal promised him?

[WelshMourinho]

1 minute ago, HUNT3R said:

Why is it inexplicable? Your screenshot shows that he's more interested in Arsenal than your club. Unless you've left out some information? What was the playing time that Arsenal promised him?

Sorry, I thought that was included on the contract page. He's on a contract as a squad player on a 1 year contract. I believe it to be inexplicable because he's on a reduced squad status to what he'd have been on here, less money, and with a less successful club. I've been at AC MIlan for a decade, and in that time Arsenal have qualified for the Champions League twice. We've qualified for it every season, and we just got to the CL final in which Juventus defeated us. 

I realise the Prem will be seen as a stronger league, but I don't think that half a star difference should override pretty much every single other aspect of the contract negotiations.

[HUNT3R]

7 minutes ago, WelshMourinho said:

He's on a contract as a squad player on a 1 year contract. I believe it to be inexplicable because he's on a reduced squad status to what he'd have been on here, less money, and with a less successful club.

You also don't see him as a star player, so what would you have offered him?

 

If he was to stay on at your club - as a star player - that was the wage (190k) that he wanted. He's more interested in Arsenal and since they offered him a squad player status, so he's not going to demand star player money.

 

There are quite a few factors that come into play when players negotiate contracts and wages.

 

Player signs for less wages - Football Manager General Discussion - Sports Interactive Community

[WelshMourinho]

Just now, HUNT3R said:

You also don't see him as a star player, so what would you have offered him?

The lowest I offered him was a regular starter. When I offered this option though I was met with that horrible orange dialogue box demanding you make an acceptable offer.

What's interesting is that when Arsenal did offer a contract, I decided to see just how much he would want from me.

"My client would be willing to take a pay cut in turn for a longer deal" this apparently didn't apply in the Arsenal negotiations either. I'm less bothered about the contract and his transferring itself, but more so how these interactions are clearly not linked to the wider world on FM.

[WelshMourinho]

42 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

You also don't see him as a star player, so what would you have offered him?

 

If he was to stay on at your club - as a star player - that was the wage (190k) that he wanted. He's more interested in Arsenal and since they offered him a squad player status, so he's not going to demand star player money.

 

There are quite a few factors that come into play when players negotiate contracts and wages.

 

Player signs for less wages - Football Manager General Discussion - Sports Interactive Community

I've only just seen your edit, but do you not think there's a slight imbalance there? It's not like he has no interest in re-signing with us, in fact he's very interested. Him and his agent have stacked it so much against him though, it doesn't even seem like they've leveraged the two clubs against each other. He's tried to take us for all we've got, but with Arsenal it's like he's accepted the minimum. A quick look at their squad shows 3 squad players earn more than him, one of which is on 60k more. I'd argue we're quite similar as clubs, and I'd go as far to say we've been more successful. Yet he's entered our negotiations like he's in their prime , and theirs like a player on his last legs.

You have to remember the 190k was only due to the length of the contract too. The player appears to have lost out in every aspect, and his happiness is already showing that he wants to feature more in the first team.

I have no issue with him going to Arsenal, my issue is that from a negotiation standpoint there appears to be no link from one interaction to the next. 

It was the exact same with the other player I mentioned. "I want to win titles... however my contract is running down so I'm off to Leeds United." These things should be consistent when they happen.

Edited July 6, 2021 by WelshMourinho