The Football Manager Transfer System - Changes

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The Football Manager Transfer System

 

Brief: The way the current transfer/contract system works in FM is good but isn’t very realistic. Currently if you attempt to buy a player the process looks a little something like this:

 

1.       You go to the players transfer screen and start suggesting a value of transfer (along with the usual trimmings). In game time this usually happens on the same day, meaning that by the time we click continue we (usually) know if the club has accepted our bid. On occasion clubs may go away to deliberate on it.

2.       Assuming the bid is accepted contract negotiations are opened with the player. Promises followed by contract demands but once again by the time the negotiations are closed we know if we are going to capture this player or not (assuming no other clubs come in for the player). This means contract negotiations despite lasting many ‘rounds’ of negotiations are pretty much usually finalised within 1 day, followed by a waiting period. We also don’t really know what other clubs have offered contract/expectations wise so cant effectively ‘one up’ them.

 

However, from what comes out of the football media/clubs, this isn’t really accurate to what happens in real life. Transfer sagas can last months (if not a whole seasons). We only have to look at the Mbappe and Haland transfers to see that. In real life negotiations between both clubs and the players agent can really drag on, which is why some transfers don’t get over the line before window closures or just never happen. In FM we don’t really get those transfer sagas, or in the case that a player is being sought after by multiple clubs we don’t really feel heavily involved once our bids/contracts has been made. Here is rough system I would propose to add more realism/immersion to FM.

 

1.       You go to the players transfer screen and create an opening offer to the club which has to be submitted. You can add a deadline to the offer (as is current) but no matter what the selling club will go away and think about it.

2.       The selling club come back to us with their proposal. Perhaps they accept right out, perhaps they come back with a counter offer (as they currently do) or perhaps they reject outright. However the key point is this doesn’t happen immediately, it might take a few days or during the final few days of the window a few hours. I believe this is similar to how FM used to handle club negotiations in the early noughties. I would also add that instead of just dealing with the selling club as a whole the negotiations should be done with their DOF/technical director/manager/chairman as is appropriate. This provides the player with greater interaction with ‘big personalities’ from football. Let me attempt to negotiate with Danial Levy, let me build relationships with those people in order to improve/hinder negotiations in the future. 

3.       Assuming both clubs agree on a fee the contract negotiations can then begin. This time both parties (the buying club and the agent) can take turns with their proposals/offers but again its over a period of days of back and forth negation. This also allows agents to change their demands as their clients situation changes. If PSG has just submitted a bid the agent should use that as leverage on other interested clubs. Even when a contract has been ‘agreed’ the agent can come back and make demands.

 

This has a few benefits:

·         Firstly FM players cant just have their whole transfer business concluded during the first few days of the window. The benefit of this is that it gives them a reason to push on during the off season because they heavily involved in transfers ALL window not just the start. Usually the times when I stop playing a save is when I have hit the end of the season but there is nothing to do beyond press continue due to me having completed all my transfers in 1 day. This new transfer system keeps me involved all window.

·         It further spices up deadline day making it unclear if you will get that important transfer over the line in time, perhaps making you cede demands you otherwise wouldn’t.

·         It makes the FM world feel richer by involving staff from other clubs outside just the clubs manager.

 

However I can see the downsides, FM players will certainly not be happy when they feel a player is over the line only for an agent to come back and quibble something. Perhaps to counter act this FM players should have an easier time ‘unsettling’ players making negotiations with club/agent a little easier.

 

This system could also be extended to new contract negotiations for existing players, once again we can see in the media that contract negotiations can drag on (Salah springs to mind) but in FM terms the Salah contract would be sorted on the same game day. I don’t think it would be nessercary to extend this to staff, usually we only hear about manager negotiations being drawn out and us FM players don’t exactly need to hire managers!

[Zachary Whyte]

Thanks for the suggestions, we appreciate your extensive feedback on this topic. We've reviewed the suggestions and requests and they may yet be rejected or with further development make a future iteration of FM.