Parity / Competitive Balance in Europe

[burrowss01]

This is a bit of a brain dump but I’m interested in the thoughts of others. I’ve read a couple of other interesting threads, including a good one on a European Salary Cap which @Roy Race 9 was a prolific contributor to a few years ago.

 

My main objective here is to - as far as is possible - create a more balanced football ecosystem in Europe. I’ve started with the EPL to experiment but will rollout anything successful to the major top divisions across the Continent as the experiment progresses. To start with I asked ChatGPT which steps would be good to explore and the headlines it gave me were:

1. Strengthen FFP Regulations

Action - reduce allowable losses

2. Revenue Sharing

Action - inverse prize money implemented. 17th placed club receives prize money which traditionally goes to winner, an Vice Versand.

3. Salary Caps and Transfer Fee Limits

Action - Salary Cap for registered squads implemented equal to the 10th place club wage bill in a simulated 5 season test. No more than £2.4m per week can be spent on a registered squad.

4. Promotion of Youth Development

Action - Implemented the proposed “6+5” rule so that no more than 5 foreign players can be on the field of player at any time.

5. Introduce a Draft for Youth Talent

Action - No action identified.

6. Restrictions on Loan Systems

Action - No action implemented but will explore further.

7. Enhanced Governance & Oversight

Action - Strict implementation of wage cap and 6+5 rule - cannot be gamed or circumvented.

8. International Collaboration

Action - Will expand and rollout to other nations if successful. 

9. Fan Ownership Models

Action - None implemented but will consider whether all clubs should be changed to a Supporters Trust ownership.

10. Flexible Scheduling

Action - None implemented.

My initial test has shown strict adherence to the salary cap and the 6+5 rule (although many foreign players have accumulated 2nd nationality status in England).

I’d like to push on further and faster - all ideas / suggestions very welcome.

[\'Appy \'Ammer]

There's a little bit of "promotion of home grown" players chat in this thread (about halfway down). I had the 6+4 rule but changed it due to reports that the AI manager wasn't adapting to the rules properly. I think @Rob 396 produced a mod where the owners or the board would be up for election every 5 years, although I can't find it, and I'm not even sure if it was for fm23 or 24?? He also started this thread with some similar thoughts to yourself. 

Edited February 20 by \'Appy \'Ammer

[burrowss01]

Thanks! Helpful - looks like there isn't a huge degree of interest in this topic (and I'm not sure the AI can really cope with it either)

My test game with the parameters above has led to a very interesting opening season!

[\'Appy \'Ammer]

Personally I play the old competition format of pure knockout football. If you don't win your league, you don't play in the European Cup. So, difficult for all the top teams to compete at the top table at the same time. 

Edited February 21 by \'Appy \'Ammer

[keon]

This is a good post and something I am interested in any of my long term saves.

It's a difficult balance, because in my case, I want realism but also, kind of don't want it haha, because the reality is that the smaller/mid European nations will always struggle to consistently compete but I would love for them to find a way.

What I have created in the editor is a 4th European competition, I have some posts in the editor hideaway but essentially, it's a 64 team competition which includes losers of Europa League Conference (ELCon) qualifiers, mainly from round 1 and 2 as less likely to get a club from the big nations. I also include all league champions who didn't qualify for the other European competitions. There is a decent amount of money in this competition and the winner gets into the CL group/league stage (it requires a little manual intervention due to the editor limitations), but this prize is a big deal! Mainly for the rep and money increase. This competition has helped build smaller nations as well as it will boost coefficients for the smaller nations (again, manual intervention), it also increases the league rep partially too. I've seen North Macedonian, Kazakh and Finnish teams win this competition.

I've also included prize money for the top leagues in Europe, normally 1/2m for the winners... not a huge amount but it helps.

I have also created a few different variants of the CL, 2 groups of 18 for example... and the bottom 2 of each group will get a 2m boost, as normally it's the smaller, poorer clubs.

I think the youth draft would be a good thing, no idea how you would implement it though! FFP tightening may help too. As AA (HH?) has said above, the AI won't do well with rule changes in terms of squad HG caps.

One thing to note is that you mention about making it fairer across Europe and said about the ownership, some European clubs have become much better due to tycoon takeovers, Celtic and Aris of Greece for example have become CL mainstays and competing to a high level on my save. I think the tycoon takeover ban would work as long as the prize money is consistent across the continent.

My final point, and I'm sure you know this already, is to have all the European nations set to 'Playable' and on full detail.

 

 

[Roy Race 9]

I have fan ownership for every club in Europe exactly the same

there are no owners or sugar daddy[anywhere] set ups

for a belt and braces job I have edited the valid_takeovers_only.edt to make sure there is no possibility of this changing

I have given all clubs more or less parity with income/finances/sponsorship/wage budget and gone after the so called elites

along with prize money being the same in most leagues and the reps all revised

sponsorship transfer values/wages under nation are levelled out

stricter squad rules to favour home grown staggered over a few seasons with the numbers increasing, you will see big clubs sell their non eu/foreign players 

and tweaked transfer rules eg keep  Dutch players playing in Holland until they are 28....however making top leagues similar rep and offering same wages players dont see the need to move to the EPL etc ,

I have also restructured UEFA so there are usually 12 teams from each nation all playing in group stages 6 team groups in 4 comps-[this means a bigger prize pool spread around all nations not as the carve up that is real life]

to accommodate this all international fixtures are played at the end of the season[works like their own mini comp for WC qualifiers all games played back to back , EURO qualifiers are gone all countries in Europe play in the finals, and I have my own nations league set up played when Euro qualifiers would be

There are various other tweaks I have made

 

The result is I have seen on sims for 10 years no 'big teams' dominate it is shared about teams from portugal,scotland,holland,france,belguim win the European cup

 

What I want to test

International squads only pick players based in home nation/continent see what bearing that has

making all clubs semi professional if that can be maintained then it could be the best leveller 

what I want added

what I really want added is option to stop clubs from signing x amount of youth players per season-this would address the ability of EPL teams signing 6 [ideally want it club specific]

 

Edited February 23 by Roy Race 9

[burrowss01]

@Roy Race 9 - would you be willing to share your edit files? Sounds like a fascinating set of rules!

[burrowss01]

My testing of the rules set out in post #1 have proven very encouraging. I'm not seeing a "blanket" league table at the end of the season, which is interesting, but we have had a variety of league winners and a good churn of teams making the ECL. Brentford have made three consecutive Champions Leagues and Everton are genuine title contenders within three seasons (they almost won it but bottled the run in during May).

What's really fascinating is that the Premier League has won the Champions League twice since the rules were implemented, which I thought would be almost impossible given the "free market" continues to operate in Europe. I have implemented 6+5 in the major European leagues as well, so perhaps this just shows that the salary cap in England is bringing the EPL back into the pack rather than destroying it. Ditto continued strength in the Europa League, where Manchester United (finished 10th) have just beaten Aston Villa in the final of Season 4 Europa League.

 

Some interesting legacy issues:

- Out of the big six, only Liverpool and Man Utd have managed to get their "club" wage bill under the cap. This is mostly due to being able to sell ageing stars to Saudi Arabia.

- Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City and Spurs are trying, but not able to, shift high earning players. Odegaard and Rice have only played Champions League football for three seasons! This will fix when those contracts expire, but it's a 5-6 year problem to solve which may justify some additional editing (ie putting 12 month expiry dates on any EPL player on >£200k per week)

- These high wage earners are essentially stuck because (a) their wages are unaffordable and (b) the big clubs on the continent don't want to buy foreign players and breach 6+5

- Clubs aren't able to stockpile their cash savings thanks to a 90% corporation tax charge on profits, but there still significant variation in the club balances at the end of each season

- There is a race to the Passport Office for any established Premier League player who has been in England long enough to qualify for second nationality!

[Roy Race 9]

for those not aware the bug with FFP still exists, so no point trying to use it for parity

and feedback from SI it wont get fixed in FM24 

 

[\'Appy \'Ammer]

SI have really let themselves and their loyal customers down with things like this. I don't want to sound like miserable swine, but why, why, why did they not get things fixed that have been around a long time? We've all spent countless hours trying to fix things that they won't / can't, only to find that whatever you do won't work. I would love to see a dedicated SI member to help explain the workings of the pre game editor. Maybe that will never be on their agenda. FM24 has been a let down for me in terms of playing the game. I simply haven't played it. Instead I spend my time in the editor, trying to get the gameworld I want to play in, to work well. Has the product outgrown SI? Many things have been neglected. Problems have been logged but not fixed. It is clear to me that the majority of the resources have been directed at FM25. However let's face it, FM25 is bound to be littered with issues until about FM28 I reckon. The whole scenario is just disappointing.

[Roy Race 9]

10 hours ago, \'Appy \'Ammer said:

SI have really let themselves and their loyal customers down with things like this. I don't want to sound like miserable swine, but why, why, why did they not get things fixed that have been around a long time? We've all spent countless hours trying to fix things that they won't / can't, only to find that whatever you do won't work. I would love to see a dedicated SI member to help explain the workings of the pre game editor. Maybe that will never be on their agenda. FM24 has been a let down for me in terms of playing the game. I simply haven't played it. Instead I spend my time in the editor, trying to get the gameworld I want to play in, to work well. Has the product outgrown SI? Many things have been neglected. Problems have been logged but not fixed. It is clear to me that the majority of the resources have been directed at FM25. However let's face it, FM25 is bound to be littered with issues until about FM28 I reckon. The whole scenario is just disappointing.

Hi mate 

Ditto -Football itself is now a soulless exercise in corporate greed/avarice 

where teams arrange themselves in financial order and power

where individual clubs are more powerful that their own FA who are too scared to use/enforce penalties in fear of reprisals from the corporate overlords

For the game to reflect this too...kudos to SI

 

[Wolf_pd]

We need to get and pay @Daveincidto create a new world order based on our requirements

[\'Appy \'Ammer]

The barmy thing is that @Daveincid seems to understand what needs looking at, and yet the makers of the game neglect it. 

[Wolf_pd]

40 minutes ago, \'Appy \'Ammer said:

The barmy thing is that @Daveincid seems to understand what needs looking at, and yet the makers of the game neglect it. 

Most of it is not so much the developers and SI people, but rather head researchers. The issue with much of the data is that setting it is usually rather subjective. I am an assistent researcher for a Dutch football club and I prefer to do the objective data since I can say for sure what someone's birthdate, contract period and such is, while setting the stamina, technique or work rate is much more subjective. To confirm subjective data you need a massive test to check whether the data is right or wrong. Dave does exactly that which makes his work so good (and interesting to study as a world building editor). I don't know how much the researchers test and how they test, so can't say why they don't come to the same result as Dave.

[\'Appy \'Ammer]

6 hours ago, Wolf_pd said:

Most of it is not so much the developers and SI people, but rather head researchers. The issue with much of the data is that setting it is usually rather subjective. I am an assistent researcher for a Dutch football club and I prefer to do the objective data since I can say for sure what someone's birthdate, contract period and such is, while setting the stamina, technique or work rate is much more subjective. To confirm subjective data you need a massive test to check whether the data is right or wrong. Dave does exactly that which makes his work so good (and interesting to study as a world building editor). I don't know how much the researchers test and how they test, so can't say why they don't come to the same result as Dave.

I hear what you're saying, and it only leads me to the conclusion that the manpower for fm24 was under resourced once fm25 was on the horizon. That's the only sensible reason I can come up with as to why so many issues are outstanding.

[Fredrik]

I see it a bit differently. Even the so called objective data is often wrong. Things like second nationalities, ethnicity, skin colour are often not right. Many researchers seem to think eg. skin colour is 5-14 instead of 1-20. Others just refuse to acknowledge languages spoken(eg. an average Swiss without known city of birth can IRL be assumed to speak German or maybe French but the game says Italian. Yes, I know this isn't really about game play but some if breaks immersion for me. I also understand that in some cases it's because both SI and head researchers know some of this is political/"historical" and don't want to ruffle the feathers of some people. Or they themselves are full of it. 

After that rambling point I just want to say that if researchers can't get objective stuff right, then I have no  particular expectation they will get subjective things right. 

In the end I wonder what kind of tests SI run? Are they ever telling a head researcher eg. "your country  has too high CA/PA" or "your country is too low on determination". My gut feeling is they rarely. Only if it's blatant and made certain teams or players overpowered enough to get lots of complaiints.

[Wolf_pd]

2 hours ago, Fredrik said:

I see it a bit differently. Even the so called objective data is often wrong. Things like second nationalities, ethnicity, skin colour are often not right. Many researchers seem to think eg. skin colour is 5-14 instead of 1-20. Others just refuse to acknowledge languages spoken(eg. an average Swiss without known city of birth can IRL be assumed to speak German or maybe French but the game says Italian. Yes, I know this isn't really about game play but some if breaks immersion for me. I also understand that in some cases it's because both SI and head researchers know some of this is political/"historical" and don't want to ruffle the feathers of some people. Or they themselves are full of it. 

After that rambling point I just want to say that if researchers can't get objective stuff right, then I have no  particular expectation they will get subjective things right. 

In the end I wonder what kind of tests SI run? Are they ever telling a head researcher eg. "your country  has too high CA/PA" or "your country is too low on determination". My gut feeling is they rarely. Only if it's blatant and made certain teams or players overpowered enough to get lots of complaiints.

Valid questions. I can only speak for my own research and I will only put in verified information, which in my case usually means verified by the club, but you are right, there is data that can be considered objective which is on various occasions wrong.

I can only speak for my own head researcher and not for any other head researcher, except what I have seen in the editor and the respons to data issues being brought forward.

I don’t think there are much long term tests being run except for those of Dave, and if they are done, they are likely to be done in isolation for their own nation and not so much creating the worldwide landscape that Dave checks. I guess you already see where things can go wrong there.

And politics in FM? Nah

[Roy Race 9]

16 hours ago, Fredrik said:

I see it a bit differently. Even the so called objective data is often wrong. Things like second nationalities, ethnicity, skin colour are often not right. Many researchers seem to think eg. skin colour is 5-14 instead of 1-20. Others just refuse to acknowledge languages spoken(eg. an average Swiss without known city of birth can IRL be assumed to speak German or maybe French but the game says Italian. Yes, I know this isn't really about game play but some if breaks immersion for me. I also understand that in some cases it's because both SI and head researchers know some of this is political/"historical" and don't want to ruffle the feathers of some people. Or they themselves are full of it. 

After that rambling point I just want to say that if researchers can't get objective stuff right, then I have no  particular expectation they will get subjective things right. 

In the end I wonder what kind of tests SI run? Are they ever telling a head researcher eg. "your country  has too high CA/PA" or "your country is too low on determination". My gut feeling is they rarely. Only if it's blatant and made certain teams or players overpowered enough to get lots of complaiints.

some good points there 

what me me chuckle it must have been fm18 when the researcher was insisting Pogba's attributes- long shots was justified

Spoiler

 

[NineCloudNine]

I spend a lot of time in the editor and it is pretty clear that researcher quality is very variable and also that researchers have different priorities. Some are very good at playing histories but casual about achievements; others get personal factual details right but not the dates of transfers. German researchers seem to be obsessed with huge lists of favoured personnel. The Spanish team is particularly weak on hidden character attributes, many of which are left at 0 even for very senior players. There is little consistency in how playing histories are presented.

I understand how enormous an undertaking this is and also that researchers are volunteers. There is also an enormous amount of info per player and many of the editor sections overlap and interact in odd ways when shown in-game. My impression is that - like many aspects of the game - it has become a huge, out-of-control monster and needs dramatic simplification.

Edited March 8 by NineCloudNine

[NineCloudNine]

On the thread topic, I always add foreign player / homegrown rules to leagues I play in. The challenge is that existing squads have been created to different rules so there’s a 4-5 year period of adaption and even then AI squad building is not able to cope well, giving the player an even greater advantage (for example planning seasons ahead with homegrown players coming through and foreign players ageing).

There are also oddities with nationality. For example in FM24 foreign players in England who previously had ‘settled’ status have now been given English nationality, which is just factually incorrect. Other nations have different rules for nationalities considered ‘foreign’. All this is surmountable with editing, but it is a lot of work!

Edited March 8 by NineCloudNine

[Roy Race 9]

On 08/03/2024 at 20:28, NineCloudNine said:

On the thread topic, I always add foreign player / homegrown rules to leagues I play in. The challenge is that existing squads have been created to different rules so there’s a 4-5 year period of adaption and even then AI squad building is not able to cope well, giving the player an even greater advantage (for example planning seasons ahead with homegrown players coming through and foreign players ageing).

There are also oddities with nationality. For example in FM24 foreign players in England who previously had ‘settled’ status have now been given English nationality, which is just factually incorrect. Other nations have different rules for nationalities considered ‘foreign’. All this is surmountable with editing, but it is a lot of work!

good post

what I will test hopefully next week is staggering the squad selection rules

will try various combinations to find a sweet spot, brief test previously AI do start to sell foreign players

Edited March 9 by Roy Race 9

[NineCloudNine]

Even though it is staring me in the face I never thought to add a start year for new squad rules!

It is heartening to hear that the AI does adapt. I will give this another go, thanks!

[Roy Race 9]

1 hour ago, NineCloudNine said:

Even though it is staring me in the face I never thought to add a start year for new squad rules!

It is heartening to hear that the AI does adapt. I will give this another go, thanks!

sometimes mate the obvious simple change is the one we all overlook 

[\'Appy \'Ammer]

17 hours ago, Roy Race 9 said:

good post

what I will test hopefully next week is staggering the squad selection rules

will try various combinations to find a sweet spot, brief test previously AI do start to sell foreign players

See that section for squad selection rules you have there, is that on fixture rules in the competition itself or fixture rules in the nation? I had no joy a month ago getting the start dates to work in 2046. I wonder if the last update has fixed anything?

[\'Appy \'Ammer]

I'm also very interested if you get the sweet spot!

[Roy Race 9]

3 hours ago, \'Appy \'Ammer said:

See that section for squad selection rules you have there, is that on fixture rules in the competition itself or fixture rules in the nation? I had no joy a month ago getting the start dates to work in 2046. I wonder if the last update has fixed anything?

 

3 hours ago, \'Appy \'Ammer said:

I'm also very interested if you get the sweet spot!

fixture rules in the nation mate

your issue has been continental rules? if so as we know there can be issues there

and international rules trying fixture rules either way doesnt seem to work  I was trying to make international squads pick

mostly players based in home country to see if this had a bearing on players staying in their country 

alas the rules do not register in game

however I have changed min squad size and that does