<https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/549018-everyone-went-mad-with-wages-request-need-help-to-save-my-save/#comment-12974671>
<http://schema.org/text>
"I have been in your situation and I know how hard it becomes, some on this board believe FM simulates real life, it doesn´t, it´s actually far from realistic and you just have to look at it as a \"game challenge\".\n \n\n\n\t \n \n\n\n\tAfter winning the PL for 8 seasons straight and the CL 5 times I still get lots of players drooling when Barcelona comes knocking, Barca who havn´t won anything for the past 8 seasons, they have been basically reduced to a memory in the past. This is due to Barca actually being able to pay them 400K a week where my limit is 325k, the same goes for PSG. Last season for the first time ever my players started to reject the likes of Tottenham and Liverpool, it took a while.\n \n\n\n\tMoney drives FM players to insanity and they come knocking for new contracts far more often than they should, they just signed a 5 year deal and 6 months later they want to be sold to X club or have a new deal, I always say \"no\" and bite the dust if there are consequences, I deal with contracts at the end of a season like normal clubs do with the very rare exceptions. This is where it helps a lot to have a good \"leader\" in FM, preferably an older guy with leadership qualities, he can usually keep the contracts at bay til April/May.\n \n\n\n\tThe only realistic part in FM is wage expectation relative to club performance which you do have to consider, a player doing well in the Championship will look at his performance and demand wages accordingly, he doesn´t care about his numbers nor stars. I have a backup keeper who never plays and he is not that good but he wants 250K a week, why? He is looking at my economy, it´s healthy, we are winning everything and he just thinks he can get away with it, I told him to get lost and he is now getting 90k a week at Brentford. Players don´t take their real skill into account and consider what they would be earning elsewhere. My backup keeper was at 140K a week, wanted 250k for a new contract ... but is now at 90k at Brentford and not even their first keeper.\n \n\n\n\tWhat can you do? Nothing really except keep going and think longterm, that means 5-6 seasons where you have to build up your economy buy signing 15-18 year olds, plenty of them, anything that looks promissing. Your economy will be dependent on selling those players, that´s how I did it at Wrexham and I was in the Championship for 5 seasons basically being a midtable club but getting a very very healthy economy. That means spending 3-4 hours scouring national youth teams for anyone willing to join your club right at the end of their contract, I spent a lot of time doing this.\n \n\n\n\tGet a senior affiliate and loan for free, max players, you need fillers.\n \n\n\n\tDO NOT think about promotion, you are solidifying and will have a very hard time doing so, even bargain youngsters may still demand wages beyond your reach. You will have to however set a new wage limit for yourself, that means gambling on that you can get players sold to maintain the economy, spectators and sponsors are not going to be your bread and butter, if you bet on that you lose. If you get promoted to the PL your wage problem will renew itself and the extra income might not be enough to maintain a happy club, a happy club in FM is better than a rich one in many ways. Money has a very short legs in FM unless you are sure you can keep out of relegation in the PL dont go there, less stressful to be happy in the Championship.\n \n\n\n\t1. Set your wage budget and be realistic, this is called gambling. Realism means you will have to make a profit selling players, don´t get attached to anyone. Everyone is for sale, don´t expect team cohesion to reach high levels, traffic will be busy.\n \n\n\n\t2. Sign free, young and dirt cheap, this will require tons of digging through various youth national teams. Hoping you don´t have attribute masking on and don´t scout the players you want to sign, the AI is likely to offer them a contract if you do.\n \n\n\n\t3. Don´t panic, you are extremely restricted. If players want to leave and your leader can´t sway them, let them go but do try to use the leaders to speak to them every time it´s possible.\n \n\n\n\t4. After your first big sale don´t spend it on players, get your stadium and facilities done. I survived in the PL with 15k seats for the first 3 seasons, now I have a 57k all sitter.\n \n\n\n\t5. If the board refuses to expand after your first big sale gamble on better youth for later sells purpose, this means scouring national youth teams again, don´t add them to your shortlist &lt;--- you don´t want clubs to know you are interested. Pen and paper method.\n \n\n\n\t6. Use your youth players in the first team, those you mean to sell, they need exposure to be sellable. My team survived in the PL with an average age of 18.5 if I deduct my leader who was 30-33 in the first 3 seasons, had to sell most of the youngsters to bigger clubs.\n \n\n\n\t7. Save wages by sending players out on loan, those you can´t sell and don´t plan to use, offer them for free loans ..... wait for the loan bids ...reject them ... offer them again for loan with full wages paid, works for me.\n \n\n\n\t8. Patience young Padawan ... and again ... don´t panic .... but you do need to start gambling a bit with wages and set a new max hoping future sales will mend the issue.\n \n\n\n\t \n \n\n\n\t \n "
<https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/549018-everyone-went-mad-with-wages-request-need-help-to-save-my-save/?tab=comments#comment-12974422>