Jimbokav1971

In real life, there has been a "salary cap" used in both League 1 & 2 which limits the amount a club can spend on wages to a % of it's projected income.

I believe that this equates to either a 75% (total wages figure) or 65% (playing wages).

After posting some info in the Barnet data thread, a fellow Barnet fan asked me how Barnet were getting on and so I looked for the first time in the game.

Here are my findings.

I honestly can't see why the "salary cap" isn't in the game as it's absence makes a mockery of everything else that happens in real life.

In reality, Barnet are a club who cannot afford even to match the wages paid my some of the senior clubs in the Conference, and until something is done about it, a realistic simulation of lower league football in England is impossible .

Neville_Roach

Couldnt agree more jimbo!

I find the lower leagues incrdibly frustrating when a big side gets relegated, as in real life they are forced to sell their best players over recent years look at Southampton, Forest, Sheff weds and leeds(who now have Constantine up front! aha)

but in FM its all too easy to keep players performing against their will(some arnt even bothered) and it makes a small club trying to rise already knowing they have no chance of promotion becasue the 3 that came down are far more powerful then them.

The addition of the salary cap should be in becasue FM strives for realism but would also eradicate this problem, and if you imagine being a big club getting relegated - it would involve some skill in getting the best price for stars keen to jump a league and bring in the best of lower standard(and wage) players!!

PS - Because the title is so long it took me ages to find the post now button!!

playmaker

Just looking at it from a different perspective, there are a fair few who like to take a small club and make them big as quick as possible, who would probably hate the salary cap.

I'm not saying you are wrong, I just wonder whether it is one of those playability over realism issues. I'm throwing the thought in more for debate than anything.

Then again, salary cap or no salary cap, I suck at lower league because I just don't have the knowledge of that level, so frankly what do I know!

Fevs

I thought SI said they wanted to the see the IRL impacts of this before putting it into the game.

mertle

True but this why SI could have options setup for those who want the realism and those who just want to pick up the game and play.

It then pleases both camps.

But have to say its a big miss to have this rule missing. Its like playing a league without playoffs.

Neville_Roach

Its becoming very difficult to that in recent versions, you have to buy then gel, you rarely assemble a new squad of higher standard players upon promotion and succeed first time around so i think for those of us who play down n the doldrums of the FM world, it would suit.

I understand what your saying, nonone wants to sit through the board meetings in game!

Barside

The salary cap is something I would definately like to see introduced into the game.

The game strives to be the most realistic on the market & such a glaring ommition does need to be looked at if only to make my LLM efforts that little more rewarding.

Another great shout Jimbo.

Barside

The salary cap has been in place for a number of seasons now, it does appear to be having a positive effect on the lower leagues & as such I think it's here to stay.

Si BHA

When we research our sides for FM we have to say how much extra finances the club has for transfers/wages.

So in that respect, the wage budgets should be pretty good at the start of the game.

As for the wage cap - it's being looked into.

paulsgruff

A suggestion I would put forward to sort this out would be to either introduce the salary cap like you said, or not allow clubs to actually go over their wage budgets unless it was only by a relatively low margin in comparison to the sort of income they are expected to be getting. I think the realism of the budgets are a major factor in this sort of thing, most of the time they are either too high in relation to the clubs financial status, or too loose in terms of how much freedom they give you. At times it seems like wage budgets have nothing at all to do with the running of the club, when finance is extremely important to any team, more so for the don't haves that the do haves in money terms.

In FM07, I had a long term game with Burton Albion and when I eventually managed to get out of the conference, I was already several thousand pounds over my wage budget and if I bid for players that wanted a low enough wage to fit into the reduced contract offers I could make from being over-budget, the board would still let me sign them without doing anything whatsoever about it - even though I was plunging the club into financial uncertainty.

True, the side I brought in did achieve promotion, but there is no way that the board were aware that this was a possibility as they predicted safe mid-table finish, however they still sanctioned the deals, forcing themselves into spending money that either wasn't there, or shouldn't be there.

The fact that I was allowed to go so far over my wage budget and not really suffer any consequences or board objections is highly unrealistic and does reduce the realism/difficulty levels considerably, but as playmaker says, at what point should the game draw the line, the playability vs realism debate is a very good one.