Tips for Football Manager 2012: Building your own transfer budget

Tips for Football Manager 2012: Building your own transfer budget

With the release of the Football Manager 2012 game just around the corner, I thought I’d write an article on how to make the most of your in-game transfer budget by buying and selling players. I’ll discuss the best types of players to sign, when to sign them, what not to do, and how to make the biggest profit when it comes to reselling them in the future.

Everyone dreams of getting a huge transfer budget for a football manager, but that usually limits you to choosing only wealthy clubs to manage, which can sometimes become a boring or unsatisfying game to play. Have you ever thought about building your own transfer budget at less affluent clubs? This can be a fun game and is a great alternative to managing a club that already has a lot of money.

You may not be able to build a budget as big as Manchester City’s, but with a few clever strategies you can gradually build up your own transfer budget season after season.

The strategies for making money all involve a bit of playing and dealing from the players, and the main principle is to just buy low and sell high. We want to attract players who are good investments so that we can sell them to other clubs in the future and make a nice profit that can be pumped back into your transfer budget. When looking for players to sign for investment purposes, the goal is to target players who are currently undervalued by their current club and whose value could increase in the future. In this article, I will discuss some key strategies for monetizing player transfers that can help increase your transfer budget in Football Manager. 

“Target young players”

Young players have time on their side, so in general, unless you pay wholly too much for a young player, you will see your money back on them in the future when another club comes for them as they are still relatively young. If the player you choose has an ounce of potential about them, then you can be sure of making a profit. The key is not to overpay when trying to acquire the player in the first place. I usually find that big clubs have very high regard for certain youngsters. These players are usually extremely expensive because they have huge potential. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t sign them either, though. Just be careful and make sure you don’t go beyond your means to acquire the player. For example, Santos won’t let Neymar go for just under £20 million.

Maar deze gids gaat niet over het aantrekken van dure spelers, dit gaat over tips om koopjes op te pikken en ze in de toekomst voor behoorlijke winsten door te verkopen. I would recommend meeting with two different types of young people. First and foremost, you have young players at large clubs such as Barcelona, where there is a lot of competition for spots. There will always be a few who aren’t afraid to be the new kid on the block and break into the first team. These are good players to play Football Manager with because they have a stamboom and fatsoenlijke spelers, but you can usually ophalen them for a few hundred dollars per stuk.

The other type of young player is those who belong to relatively small clubs. These players are usually the top talent at smaller clubs, but you can pick them up for a lower price than bigger clubs’ best young prospects as they generally have smaller bids for their players. You can usually make a deal where you pay out bonuses on goals scored and international appearances, which offers you a lower fee up front. These players go for more money than the players on the transfer list at the bigger clubs, but they are still worth the money as they are usually good enough to go straight to your first team, where if they perform well, their market value will increase.

Target players towards the end of their contracts.

The last type of player I would recommend is those nearing the end of their contract. Once a player is in the last or two years of their contract, their value will drop dramatically, and you can negotiate a much lower fee with the selling club. I usually go for players under 27, so they have a few more playing years to go before they peak between 28 and 30. Once they reach their peak, you can resell them to other clubs for a profit.

The contract situation also works both ways. When it comes to selling a player, it is always best to keep your investments under long-term contracts as you can charge a higher transfer fee for them. This is a handy little football manager tip that many people miss.

The new Football Manager 2012 game will be released soon and all these principles will still work to give your club extra money to spend on players. So let me know how it goes, and if you have anything else to add, feel free to leave a comment.

I will be writing more articles on football managers soon, so be sure to check back for the latest updates. I will also write a guide on signing players for free transfers, as it could have been in this article, but I thought I’d leave it for another day.

I just started a new Football Manager 2012 blog, so feel free to stop by, read some of my shorter posts, and leave a comment. All my more detailed Football Manager 2012 articles will be published here on Ezine.

This article was written by C.Feliciani for the benefit of all real-time fantasy Football Manager fans and gamers around the world.

Table of Contents