retired_11xgirl

I'm in the break between first and second season with my Brighton team. We finished second in league 1 and secured promotion with that. All the season I've been losing money due to the small size of the current stadium and with the player bonus payed out the bank balance is almost 1 million in the red.

Next season is approacing and I can't seem to see any solution to this as I can't sell off any players as I only have maybe two that are good enough to generate that kind of cash between them. Going for a higher up challange offloading the best of my players = the only ones that have championship standards doesn't feel like a good solution.

As a new stadium is under construction the board with all right is not interested in expanding the current one. The new stadium wont be done for another year though and by that time it seems like the team will be in a horrible condition finacially no matter how much I cut in the wagebill.

I have tried arranging a couple of high profile friendlies but all the proposals get rejected so that options seems emptied out. I only bought one player last season and he was well within budget at that time and we pretty much filled the stadium every game so that wont generate enough money on its own.

retired_intelsleuth

i don't see you having any choice but to sell some bodies. From what you've written, it looks to be the only option. If I were you I'd see how things are by the middle of January. hopefully, you might have had man utd away in the fa cup by then.

mdschneids

the board will probably make a cash injection soon but making a new stadium is a bad move on 1st/2nd season if you're LLManager... try to buy some free players and sell them right away.

alidog

Several options, but you seem to have discounted them already:

- Sell your best players. I've had to do this with both Kettering and Carlisle. First thing I did when I took over Carlisle was sell £775k worth of players to balance the books.

- Arrange some high profile friendlies. You say you've tried this already.

- Look at your wages. Perhaps you have someone worth £5k who is earning £2-3k per week. Selling this guy will save you £100k - £150k per year. Get rid of a couple of them, even if you sell them for nothing at all, will save you a fortune. Controlling your wages at small clubs is THE most important thing you can do. That's a long-term fix though, not a short term one.

Don't discount selling players too easily. I know you've just been promoted and are worried (understandably) about surviving in a higher league. But loan signings are vital in lower league football. I've secured 3 promotions on the back of decent loan signings. Get 5 top-class youngsters in for the full season, and pay their parent club £0 per week. They won't mind, they'll still accept it, and you'll save a fortune in wages. Just make sure you're going for players you could, in theory, afford (Wages wise) as I find that if you go for someone on £10k per week their club might well accept but the player themselves will turn you down as they see you as being beneath them.

I've just won League 1 with Carlisle and my top earners were on about £2k per week. So I limited my loan signings to players on £2k per week as well (Even though I was offering their club nothing for wages) and had no problem getting people to come.

retired_intelsleuth

I think the new stadium at Brighton is pre-existing condition in the game. correct me if i'm wrong, but i think i'm right.

retired_11xgirl

Can always hope. I got a couple of bids I'm trying to negotiate up, feels pretty bad to sell of quality players around the age of 20 for pocketchange.

My sponsordeal seem to ba about to run out so perhaps I can get some more cashflow from there but who knows. I just hope I find a solution before we go in recievership as I think the next season will be hard enough without pointreductions.

retired_intelsleuth

well good luck with it.

retired_11xgirl

I ditched my wagebudget as much as possible last season, dumping players that earned high amounts and wasn't part of the starting 11. I loaned in players to cover squadrotation and a ocuple of starting positions. I will go with this this season aswell. I will try to offload those players that I can find free replacements for, it kinda hurts as I have a kinda young squad with good potential but who said life was easy.

The new stadium is pre-exsisting, I would had settled for 2000 more seats not 14000 for the cost of over 8 million in bankloans.

Got a bunch of contracts running out that I wont renew so that should save me some cash. I'm working hard to find solutions but not sure how you can finance a championship tour on a 8800 person stadium and over 8 millions in debt and a bankbalance 1 million in the red. It is bound to be an interesting season atleast.

retired_italianbella

I definitely agree with the idea of loan signings. Getting 3 or 4 very good ones from Premiership clubs will save you a fortune in wages. I always do it to bolster my squad.

Also, you could loan out all your reserves. Even though they may only be on 400 a week, if you loan out 5 that's a saving of 2k a week - 100k a year! Not a lot but better than nothing.

Also, have a look at the contracts of players you want to keep. Maybe they'll accept less money? Same with staff. Maybe there's a coach on 1k a week who'll accept 750?

At the turn of every season there's always plenty of player released from Premiership clubs. I'd suggest scouring those lists for 2 or 3 gems that could replace players you're more than likely going to have to sell. There's bound to be someone still more than capable of playing in the Championship. It may be that their value will increase, and you'll be able to cash in during the January transfer window?

retired_redbutterfly

As has already been said:

The most important aspect to saving money is definitely to get your wages under control.

A 1K per week wage doesn't feel like a lot in FM, but over the course of a year it amounts to over 50K. So definitely look at who you can get rid of, not for the transfer money they might bring in, but because of the cumulative effect of the money you save. Essentially it can be said as simply as this, cut 19-20K from your wage bill per week and in a year that million will be a nice neutral 0. If you have 4 players on 5K per week contracts, well, get rid of them and your economic troubles will be gone in a little while. Even though you might have to give away your players for free that's still quite a deal and when you're a few years into the game there's usually lots of talents floating around the leagues...