Change the way transfer and contract negotiations work

[sdx15]

Hi. While transfer and contract negotiations aren't a part of the game that's too buggy, I think there's still major room for improvement in this area which would make the whole process more dynamic.

My first suggestion would be to make it possible to conduct transfer and contract negotioations simultaneously as this is something that can definitely happen in real life. Especially when the deadline is tight and all three parties are interested in a transfer. The way this would work is pretty simple: the first transfer offer should have a twofold response. One response for the transfer offer itself and another yes or no response to allow or forbid parallel contract negotiations with the player.

This would also make it possible to change the unhappiness system for transfers. While currently unhappiness is triggered as soon as you reject a bid, even when the bid is laughably low, now the player can stay calm even if you reject a few bids but allow contract negotiations to start as by doing so you're showing the player willingness to let him go. Furthermore, if the player isn't happy with the contract negotiations, he might not even become agitated if the buying club pulls out of the deal even though he initially woud've made a fuss about not being able to leave your club for a bigger club. On the other hand, if transfer negotiations get dragged out or you reject one bid too many, the player might still become unhappy and do all the usual shenaningans unhappy players do at the moment in-game. This could also happen with players who weren't too interested in a transferin the first place, but the buying club offered them a surprisingly good contract.

Another interesting thing that could be added to complement this suggestion would be the option for the buying club to ask the player to put pressure on the selling club in a bid to lower their demands. Then the player would either go through with the request and make a fuss or get mad and reject the contract offered out of respect for his current club.

Something that should accompany this first request is to make accepted transfer offers permanent in a way. I believe there is no need to cancel the transfer as soon as the player rejects the contract and force us to reenter transfer negotiations when everything was negotiated and both clubs were happy with the deal. I know most times you just have to resend the same offer again, but sometimes the selling clubs want more money and you are forced to start from scratch which is annoying. Of course, if other clubs make bids, the selling club might want more money for the player, but that should work in the same manner a player's agent can now contact us and ask for improved contract terms when other clubs offer better contracts to the player we're trying to sign.

When it comes to conducting transfer and contract negotiations, I believe we should have more chances to strike a deal than we currently have. Some clubs and agents are very impatient and you only get 2-3 chances to make them accept your offer before they either pull out or give you a non-negotiable offer. This makes it seem like real-life negotiatians are a five minute chat after which one of the parties says **** you and leaves. More back and forth would be welcomed as currently it's hard to find the sweet spot without having to deal with constant non-negotiable offers and clubs asking you to submit an official offer which they'll reject because you don't have a clue what they want.

In addition to this, it would be great if a rejected contract offer by the agent wouldn't trigger a 2-3 week sulking period. I really don't understand why this is in the game, but a better system would be if the agent would just ask us to talk again in a few days when our offer isn't good enough. And only after trying to negotiate a deal a few times should the agent come with a non-negotiable offer or ask us to give our best offer. The same thing should happen with transfer talks, after a few prolonged back and forths, the selling club could conclude that negotiating is, for the time being, hopeless and give their final demand.

And my last request is to remove non-negotiable fees and clauses. I'm not saying there shouldn't be something like this in the game, but there should be more flexibility. Currently both we and the AI can start transfer or contract negotiations and immediately mark something as non-negotiable or remove it from negotiations. A better system would be to mark certain fees and clauses as "preferrable" or "non-preferrable", which would make it clear what makes the deal easier/harder to negotiate, but would also leave room for the other party to still try and strike a deal even while offering non-preferrable clauses and fees. Another neat feature alongside this would be if clubs and agents would make suggestions regarding preferrable and non-preferrable conditions. Something like: "While we understand that you are not inclined to accept a 30% perccentage from profit of next sale clause, offering such a clause would make us inclined to accept a transfer fee of 15M instead of the 22M we're currently asking." or "We do understand you are not willing to accept a 10M release clause for my client, but we urge you to reconsider your stance as my client would be willing to accept a much lower wage if you include such a clause in his contract."

Thank you for reading all of this.

[MaskedReferee]

I really like this, the transfer and contract system at the moment feels like exactly what it is, a computer game trying to replicate quite complex human interactions. Watching programs like All or Northing shows you how fluid transfer and contract negotiations are and FM makes everything quite rigid and binary.

That said I sympathise with the Devs because this is a really difficult thing to replicate! It probably needs something as complex as the match engine to get it right

[Zachary Whyte]

Thank you for the detailed feedback. This is going to be reviewed, your ideas may end up in a future FM.