I knew one of my current saves was going to be more of a challenge. A relegated club, not the strongest financially, competing in a very good league, with several bigger clubs ahead of it. I like those types of saves, there’s something to be said about bringing one (or more) of the teams that have dominated the league for so long back down to earth.
And then inside the game, you have new challenges to overcome as well.
However, this version of FM, I have been surprised by the one area I was not expecting to be surprised by, which has caused me to work harder in this save than any other save I have done.
And that area is the Loan Market of Transfer Window.
Now, before I continue let me say first and foremost, the mechanics of the loan market/transfer window are not broken. What is broken though, is the economics of it.
Like all markets, the transfer window consists of buyers and sellers. A Sellers market is when a club has a player (say…Endrick) whom everyone wants, and they can drive up the price, and get the most bang for their Buck/Euro/Pound. A Buyers market is one in which Team Meh puts Joe Average out there for loan, and noone wants him until the last day of the window, and the only offer a team gets is the best offer, so if the club wants Joe Average to go out on loan, that’s the offer they are going to take. Right?
Transfers in FM23 make no economic sense to me. Young players on good teams are listed for loan, and then the team wants 175K a month when they play, 350K a month when they don’t play, 100% of their salary covered, and Oh Yeah, here’s a 33.5 million optional future transfer fee and 750K for when you when your Nations Cup tournament. And it seems like it is like that for 95% of the players you look at out there.
Now, I will admit, Santa Clara’s financial situation is not the best. While our finances are secure, we don’t make a lot of money. My budget surplus is about 1.9 million Euro’s, my yearly expenditures thus far have been covered by competition and TV monies. But I only get 10% of the transfers and my payroll is the lowest in the Primeira. My scouting is Portugal only, and I have turned down creating a B squad and a competition U19 squad because I cannot afford the staffing for it. Its a challenge, one I look forward to overcoming.
That in mind, a lot of my loan attempts are going to be looking for player’s who’s clubs are not going to want outrageous salary demands, or high monthly payments, preferably no monthly payments. But it seems any young player loan listed by a team who’s in the top two divisions of their country has the starting point of the negotiations somewhere near Oberon.
For the astronomically challenged, that is one of the moons of Uranus.
Now admit it, you giggled a little-+ there….
Now, there is a point of view put forward that says loans made by a club take into account the requesting teams finances. To which I say that is a Blivet, if not Two Blivets worth of Bad Information not grounded in objective fact.
Case in point:
Meet Giorgi Abuashvili, AKA the less capable Georgian Khvarradonna.
At Santa Clara, he would be very good, amongst the best players at the club. My Scout and my coaches say he’s 4 star current, 4 star potential player. His versatility makes him even more useful to me, and his wage is within my range as well. If Porto want me to cover 100% of his wage, I can. Last season he was on loan, at Le Havre:
I would expect to pay more than that, seeing as how he’s still young, played very well, and Porto is looking to get him playing time.
So I made an Inquiry, and about fell out of my chair when Porto’s starting offer came back:
What in the wide wide world of sports is going on here? This offer is 120,000% more than what he went out on loan for last year. That is not a typo. And I am sorry, while 3 goals, 6 assists and a POM in 31 games is pretty good, it’s not in the range to drive his asking price up that much. IMO of course, feel free to disagree and tell me why.
“But Jellico, you can negotiate them down,” I hear some of you say.
No. No you can’t. I tried, multiple times. With multiple players, over the course of six hours. I was grinding my teeth so much Household Six offered to go get me the mouthpiece my son wears when playing soccer. At one point she thought I broke a tooth because I hit the keyboard in frustration, but that was when another player at another clubs offer was 97K a month starting fee. For a 29 year old winger who hadn’t played more than 4 games a season the past four seasons.
So I played the waiting game, and the last day of the transfer window, went back to Porto to see if they would come down on their offer. This is what they said with 16 hours left in the window:
The €600 was the most the club would let me pay. But Porto still wanted 20K a month for him. And as far as I could tell, there were no other clubs interested in loaning him, in fact he stayed at Porto, and is playing for the B Squad. They musty not have been that interested in loaning him out…
I don’t know, maybe the transfer window has always been like this, and I just never noticed it.
I will say one thing though, I am positive the bidding club doesn’t give a tinkers dam about your finances when you make a loan offer.
Case in point, this is Giorgi from my other save, at Saint Etienne, and at that club my finances are in way better shape, much more so than at Santa Clara.
I haven’t fully scouted him, but I think it’s safe to say he’s close to the same player in my ASSE save as he is my Santa Clara save.
And yet the offers are pretty similar…
Look, I get economics is the art of explaining to tomorrows crowd why the predictions made yesterday didn’t come true today, but what’s happening in the FM23 transfer market with regards to loans is just…weird.
What am I missing here? Other than a peaceful night of sleep because my jaw is sore…
THE FOOTBALL MANAGER BLOG OF FM_JELLICO 