Lower League Finances

[phallus]

I took my Lewes save game that was collecting dust for nearly a year to L2 in about 3 seasons. My finances are very healthy, I've gotten some really good deals and I've used one or two youth products in my team. I've scheduled pre-season matches with bigger team reserve's since I started and during the course of a season have my Reserves and youth team schedule friendlies to pad the bank. Out of 10 scheduled friendlies, I'm getting a success rate of 2-4 teams accepting. I'm sitting pretty at about $1.2 million.

However, now that I'm in L2 and we've gone professional, there's this issue of player wages. I've read that the average L2 player is about 1,000 pounds (~$2k) per week. That's fine, I have enough for that. What I need help on is the 'extras' like goal bonuses, appearance, top team, etc.

What I have right now (and thank goodness I have them on long contracts) are players averaging about $400/week, with $35 appearance, $60 goal, team of the year $1.2k, 20+ goals bonus $2k, promotion/yearly wage rise 10%/20%).

Some of the players I am interested are asking for huge appearance fees compared to what I've normally been paying. In the neighborhood of $150 - $300.

In real life, what is the average appearance fee for a L2 player? What's a decent wage structure with bonuses in game? I've found threads that have wages, but barely any info about the bonuses tagged on.

 

[Lol_101]

how much are u spend every week on wages. ? well u can stick to what u have atm.

 

[innoxious]

I personally give bonuses based on my best players. I usually check the bonuses on my best players and adjust accordingly to the player you want.

Let's say you are getting a better striker than your current best striker in your team. If your current best striker have let's say $ 150 / appearances, just give slightly more for the better striker like $ 200. You can negotiate the number but be aware of the agent's patience. If the new player is slightly better than your current ones, just give them slightly higher pay and bonus. If he's a lot better, give bigger pays but don't overspend your budget.

Another thing to consider is the role. If you want the new player to play a lot, don't give too much appearance fee as it will drain your money a lot. If the new player might score a lot of goals, don't give too much goal bonus as well. Giving higher appearance fee and goal bonus doesn't help his morale or performances as far as I know.

Another way to persuade the player to accept the amount you offered for bonuses is through sign on fee and agent's fee. In my experience, giving higher sign on fee and agent's fee can help the player to accept lower salary and bonuses. I think it's better in the long run because you spend a bit higher only at the transfer. The focus is to maintain your budget throughout the whole time.

One mistake I did last time was I give my key central defender high goal bonus to lower his salary. In the end, he scored 12 goals in 32 appearances from corner kick. He nearly beaten my striker with 15 goals. It didn't take a lot, but for lower league teams, every penny counts.

 

[Roymo]

Lol_asaur_cano_copter: sounds like he's going for realism... 'cept for the friendlies

*****:
Wikipediphilia: "There is a mandatory wage cap in this division that limits spending on players' wages to 60% of club turnover."

thoughts?

 

[phallus]

I am currently spending $11,273 (yes, dollars ) per week on wages. My current balance as of Oct 12, 2012 is $1,798,195.
Here is my breakdown:

Key [11] Allowed 1,600 min 450 avg 700 max 825 total 4242
1st (5) 1,200 / 190 / 325 / 425 / 1592
rotation (1) 775 / 750 / 750 / 750 / 762
backup (11) 775 / 275 / 325 / 550 / 3561
hot prospect (3) 775 / 160 / 190 / 220 / 574
youngster (23) 775 / 8 / 8 / 8 / 190
not needed (18) 80 / 8 / 20 / 220 / 351

I don't mind paying them decent salaries, as I said, but what would be a decent average bonus for each position? My main stricker, Guylain Ndumbu-Nsungu scored 44 goals last season in BSP (he was a BEAST) so each goal was at $60, and goal tally bonus of 20 goals per season was $2k which was fine.

However, I've tried to get a decent striker let go from premier league club and they want goal bonus of $360 and appearance of nearly $900! I cannot afford that, so I've lost out on every single one of my prospects.

I finally harassed the board enough that they will begin contemplating building a youth academy so by June 2013 I'll know if they think it is worth it and then construction will begin. I'm going to try to build up my academy and youth program to not only start bringing in youth, but flog them off for a profit eventually.

I don't mind being in the lower leagues for a few years as long as the wages and bonuses don't bankrupt me!

 

[innoxious]

Well, if your focus is to stay healthy in finance and develop your own youth players to get something out of them, then I don't think you need such expensive player. The thing is the minimum pay and bonuses for players from Premier League teams can be considered very high for L2 teams. I would suggest you find players from Championship instead, because the standard payroll for Championship is lower than Premier League and thus, they will expect lesser payroll and bonuses.

I don't know about bonuses in real life, because it is usually private and not published to public as far as I know. You also have to remember that bonuses do not affect morale or performance of the players. So, if you think the offered price is too high, you might want to take a look at other players. One thing for sure is, you can get good players cheaply in term of payroll and bonuses. My Southampton currently in Premier League and the payroll at most is 35k / week and my team is stable in mid-table. Not to mention the steady profit 2.5m every month.

 

[phallus]

OK, now I'm starting to make a consistent profit now that I'm starting to fill out my humble 3k person stadium. I'm averaging about 2.7k people for home games. Big games I hit 3k and have made a record 80k in gate receipts for those big games. I'm thinking if I can keep the mid/top 10 level that I'm at right now for a couple of years, I may have a bigger stadium once the board decides its time. Right now, I'm focusing on them beefing up the training/academy parts.

I signed a few new people, a goalkeeper with a $100 shutout bonus (my defense leaks so he's not going to get paid ) and all of them are on $65-$75 appearance fees. The landmark bonuses happen once in a blue moon so I have it about 2-3k and goal bonuses are at roughly $100. Had to jew one of them down from 1k goal bonus. It was ridiculous.

---------- Post added 17/09/2011 at 02:24 PM ---------- Previous post was 16/09/2011 at 12:05 AM ----------

Well, after miraculously being promoted to L1 (I have no earthly idea how I pulled that off. The beginning of L2 was loss after loss after loss), I asked my board to expand the stadium since they had about 10 or so sell outs and were packing 85-95% of capacity. They said no. Wankers. At least they finally conceded into upgrading the youth facilities and I have my academy on the way. It will be finished in November 2013 (5 more months!) with the youth facility upgrade being planned for 2014. Going to try to do a staggered 6 month youth/academy upgrade scheme and see how far I can upgrade it before the board become cheapskates.

I've been signing a few people on appearance bonuses between $80-120 and goal bonuses between $80-130 which isn't too bad now that I have more money from promotion. Got $700k for getting into L1!

My key players are on $1,000 - $1,400 per week salaries with some decent bonuses, my 1st team is on $750-900 per week with lower bonuses.

So hopefully any LLM looking to find out a decent appearance/goal bonus can see how I came about my numbers.

 

[innoxious]

Usually the board automatically upgrade the facilities at the end of the season, if you have enough money (it's random though).
I prefer to focus on the training facilities first, especially the youth facilities. Because for lower league teams (especially those with low capacity stadium), the biggest source income possible, I would say come from the profit of selling youngsters. The quality of youth players generated from the your team depends heavily on the facility.

So the faster you upgrade the facilities, the better chance you get good youth players. When the other team is interested to buy your youth player, don't think twice (unless he holds important role in your team), sell them and set the clause to 50% for "Percentage of next sale" (not "profit from next sale"). Just hope that you will get a quality player from the youth rank. I just bought a youth player aged 15 from Home Farm (Ireland team) for 50k, now all the big clubs want him for 1.5m. You should actively check the U18 roster too. Take a look at England's U18 or Ireland U18, who knows you hit a jackpot.

I prefer to upgrade youth facility first because it's much convincing in the long term. Upgrading your stadium is good, but it must be balanced with good team performance. If your team is doing badly, there will be less people want to watch your team playing, even in your home. You get good amount mostly if your opponent is a much bigger team or you're near to the end of season (even more likely if you are close to promotion).

 

[phallus]

Great stuff mate! Yes, I'm planning on bringing through as much youth as I can during my reign at Lewes. So far I've given two youth products contracts as they are 3 stars: a right midfielder and a centerback. They are currently in my reserve team and have been doing pretty well in friendlies and reserve matches. I'm planning on putting them in the loan window during the winter break and if they do well, I'm hoping their value will increase.

So far I've been poaching 15-18 year olds from all over on the cheap. Nearly all of them have a potential of 4.5+ stars (e.g., decent to leading L1 stars). I found two of them from BSN teams (of all places!) and the rest from L2-Championship reserve/youth teams or prem league rejects. One or two have come from the Irish Prem. I'm thinking of slowly building them up and then see if they make the cut in the team, or flog them off to others. I will definitely use that 50% of next sale clause.