What's your favoured wage system for a growing club?

[jens_dewit]

I've always preferred using set wages with no clauses at all - to have a clear grip on my wages and what I'm paying overall. But as a growing club I've noticed my squads tend to become overcrowded since most players are not yet reputable enough to get many offers for. Meaning we sometimes have to pay too many (mediocre) players who aren't playing a lot.

I've been thinking of switching to lower set wages and more performance based clauses to get the overall wages down, unless we're really performing well.

What's your game plan?

[MrCell0phane]

This may depend on what league you're in (my experience is in the lower English non-league tiers) but have you tried getting fringe players on non-contracts? 

With these, you're only paying players when you actually use them and not a consistent weekly/monthly/annual wage. There is an increased risk of them signing for someone else on a free, of course, but it's an easy way to flesh out a squad.

[jens_dewit]

20 hours ago, MrCell0phane said:

This may depend on what league you're in (my experience is in the lower English non-league tiers) but have you tried getting fringe players on non-contracts? 

With these, you're only paying players when you actually use them and not a consistent weekly/monthly/annual wage. There is an increased risk of them signing for someone else on a free, of course, but it's an easy way to flesh out a squad.

I'm playing in the Belgian top division, currently around places 7-13. My squad is too bloated, finances are restricted (really difficult to build up an amateur club in a competition with little sponsorship money, almost no tv money and no prize money). Which is what made me think.

[kingjericho]

Whatever you do, don't ever set a "match highest earner" clause

[fc.cadoni]

Only Wage without Signing Fee, Agent Fee. Any other clause or bonus is not in the deal.

[enigmatic]

The bit that counts towards your wage budget is a sort of "total cost of ownership" that includes how much the game thinks you will pay in appearance bonuses (based on squad status). so having it all in appearance fees doesn't actually save that much money you can use (not sure its smart enough for players who aren't getting appearance fees to realise this and be more willing to be sold either)

A few key things to remember though are 

- the "loyalty bonus" mostly comes out of future budgets, which is useful if you're expecting more to spare next season after competition bonuses or dross leaving. same goes for annual wage rises etc

- players you hope might turn out good after some years and some loans and cup games will tend to overvalue "wage after 10 appearances" clauses. Especially since if you take it out and they do end up being good enough, they'll normally start demanding new contracts after their first few league appearances anyway...

- if you're expecting to get promoted or place well in the league but the game doesn't, players will tend to undervalue attached bonuses. On the other hand, they don't count towards your allocated wage budget either, the club will just pay out anyway, by which stage you probably have the extra money...

-