Wise to max out the wage budget?

[danej]

I wonder: Do I risk running into longer term problems if I max out my wage budget?

In other words, if I slide the transfer budget vs. wage budget slider towards to the left, towards wage budget - and I eventually sign players and spend that wage budget - what happens longer term? Do I risk getting financially squeezed 1-2-3 seasons down the road? Do I risk that the board later gives me a much lower wage budget so that I need to offload players on the cheap etc.?

 

I ask this because I am rather new to the game. It would be great to hear from experienced manager out there rather than having to spend time stumbling through seasons making random choices in order to exploring this from scratch myself.

 

I would of course prefer to maximize my wage budget to the extent that it is long term sustainable. And on the other hand I probably prefer to lower the wage budget to the extent neede to minimize the risk of the mentioned long term economical squeeze that might in theory occur if I ramp up wage spendings too fast and aggressively. Just my initial thoughts as a rookie FM player.

[-kay]

In lower leagues it's often best to mostly rely on free transfers and to max out the wage budget. Hopefully in 2-3 you will be promoted and have a bigger budget to work with. 

[Freakiie]

Completely depends on the situation. If you have a solid balance, but a board that's tight with your budgets? Feel free to max out that wage budget. You got a board that's loose with the budget? Better think twice about spending all the money the board gives you. Seen plenty of boards give me budgets that would instantly put my club in the red if I were to spend it all. Admittedly, the financial side in FM is pretty easy so you still can get away with this, but I'd still prefer my club to not have a wage budget that by itself equals my entire yearly income!

[jens_dewit]

As Freakiie says: depends on the situation. I had a club where in the early seasons we had a budget that was too low to get good players, but still put us in debt and alter, when signing and selling a lot of players and we were flush, they would give me a transfer budget that would put our club nearly a decade back in time if I spent it all...

 

[glengarry224]

Also depends upon your goals.  If you want to build a reputation and move on to a better job, I'd say maximize and get the best team you can for this year:  if you end up in the red, it was the Board's fault? Someplace, I read or heard that the Board will often rescue you if you get into the red but stayed within their budgets.  Is that true?  I don't know.  Similarly, I'd worry less about developing young players.

But if you want to build a club long-term, I'd be more careful.  If you end up with bad finances, it might be mostly the Board's fault but in addition to the problems you identified, you won't be able to improve facilities, hire more staff, improve youth recruitment, etc.

Of course, if you lose, you won't be there long-term 

Also, be aware that if you get promoted, some of your players won't be good enough to play in the higher division, so don't sign too many to long-term, expensive contracts unless they have potential to play higher.

Remember:  especially with an inferior team, poor team or lower-league team, loans are your friends!  You can often loan promising players from bigger clubs, even for free.  Also, veterans but often you have to pay part of their salary.

Edited June 29, 2022 by glengarry224

[afailed10]

Something important to keep in mind: the higher the wage budget the higher wage demands will be for contract renewels and new signings.

[Rashidi]

Generally in lower leagues i never max out the budget, because it gives me more room to bring in someone else in the winter transfer window. Plus at lower levels you dont want to be pushing your club to financial ruin so I tend to operate with self imposed wage caps and release players who start asking for too much money