JvB >> tuesday july 13 - 18:20

@Numpty, if you really want FA5 it is probably the most efficient way. I had the advantage with a stronger team to get a promotion and to receive about a 100M additional ticket income.

I think I stick with FA4 and YC10, in line with PMK. I dont think it will make me the Champion in NL, but it gives me enough potential to keep growing and to fight for European tickets in a couple of seasons. Good enough for me for now after over 20 seasons of building towards the future.

Numpty >> wednesday july 14 - 07:51, Edited wednesday july 14 - 08:17

My current maintenance costs are roughly $154 million per season, based on FA1/YC10.  Profit last season was $610 million plus $75 million on construction costs, making a working profit of nearly $700 million. This gives me a very rough guide of potential disposable income once construction work has been finished. 

I did a survey recently of the most developed clubs - although not necessarily the most successful - I looked at the top 100 in the popularity rankings. There will be other great clubs that I didn't look at but I think that's probably a good sample.

I found the most common development level was FA4/YA5 (42%), 90% had FA4 or better and around 85% had YA4 or better.  

There are 2 clubs with FA6, of which one has FA6/YA5, [$993 million per season]  and the other has FA6/YA4 [$858 million per season]. (Just to be clear these are the academy costs only) 

8 clubs had 5/5 with a few others on the way. This costs $669 million per season.

All these clubs are obviously selling players to help meet their running costs. High value sales and not just farming youngsters. They might be struggling to pay their bills, but apart from some notable exceptions most of them are surviving.  

FA5 by itself would cost $364 million, and FA4 costs $186 million. 

These are the fixed costs. The unknown costs are the wages of the top players, which can get completely out of control. It seems to me that the key to keeping a strong team is finding a way to keep the wages manageable.

[Note for anyone checking these numbers. Due to an unfixed bug we only pay for 51 weeks each season.]

Numpty >> wednesday july 14 - 09:00

To be fair it's not easy to be sure which is the best option.

If you can find a way to fund it then obviously having a higher level FA will help you to train better players. But trying to estimate where to draw the line is nearly impossible given the unknown and uncontrollable costs of the wages. 

If you're training your own players from scratch then it makes sense to have a very high level FA until you can prove it's not affordable. On the other hand if you're going to buy ready trained players and not train your own youngsters then you only need to slow their decline and FA4 or FA3 or maybe even FA2 would be best.

davo >> wednesday july 14 - 13:53

I tried the FA4/YA4 route with quite a bit of domestic success. Due to having some very strong teams in the ACL, I never made it past the semis.

I was making a loss, a team in my division was just on the verge of becoming better than me (his YA5 youths trained in a FA4 were much better than my YA4s) and my team was about to start declining.

I figured that if I went into money making mode for a few seasons, then upgraded to FA5 and downgrade to a YA1 (after my ST arrives), buy a youngish team, I should be peaking around the time that everyone else is struggling to stay in business. Maybe then I can finally win the ACL.

Numpty >> wednesday july 14 - 14:40, Edited wednesday july 14 - 14:42

Even reaching the semis in the Asian CL is pretty impressive @Davo. The strongest clubs are mostly in Asia and Europe. 

In any event it seems that most of the clubs with the very best facilities - and players - are struggling to stay afloat.

Although the wages are a real pain it's the same for everyone and in some ways it makes the game a lot more interesting than just building to win.

Ultimately only a small number of clubs will ever win the top prizes so much of the game enjoyment has to come from other aspects of the game. Friendly rivalries, seeing your own players develop, improving your club over time and even banter on the forum all add something of value. 

davo >> thursday july 15 - 09:31

My income runs at about $900m excluding tansfers. Farming could easily bring in enough to make a profit. However, my current plan is all about hoarding money to finance a winning team.

Numpty >> thursday july 15 - 10:55, Edited thursday july 15 - 10:57

$900 million sounds about right.

For comparison my income last season was $735 million excluding transfers. But that was nowhere near the potential maximum.

The stadium was only around 80-90% full, 1 catering staff was level 8, interest rate was 7.5%, sponsorship was lower, museum level is fairly poor and didn't have a great run in the national cup...  so everything could have been better.   

JvB >> thursday july 15 - 11:19

I am surprised by the $900M income excluding transfers. Last season I had 64M sponsoring, 513M stadium income (I don't have international matches due to the strong competition in NL), only 29M interest (finished FA4 and bought many young good players), 8M TV revenue and price money and 8M Museum income. All together about 625M.

Interest will rise about 45M so that is 670M, still missing 230M each season? The international matches are about 15M each? That is downside for me in NL and in Europe, it will be hard to be able to play them and if so, it won't be much of them. Furthermore Museum can bring some extra milions, but won't make the difference, so where is the gap coming from?

By the way, interesting research stats Numpty! My maintenance costs with FA4 / YC10 are 303M and wages are 174M.

Numpty >> thursday july 15 - 11:26, Edited thursday july 15 - 11:39

"... still missing 230M each season?"

Double catering will cover most of that. With a full stadium a second (level 10) catering staff will give you an extra $9.2 million per match.

JvB >> thursday july 15 - 11:46

Oh there is the difference, thnx. We are talking about max 160M per season, probably around 140/150M in my case. Next question is my second guy on FA4, what is contribution to my profit. Farming and other sales are going better with him and my first team is becoming stronger with him. I just don't have the guts to get rid of him, just for (potentially) some extra money.