Antonio Silva Market Value

[Nikita Desjardins]

Ihaven't really done any long saves before now, usually 1-3 seasons trying out different leagues and styles. Got locked in at Benfica with a fun roster and tactic, I'm now in 2033. We're the the most reputable club in the world, ridiculously rich, three Champion's League wins in the last 5 seasons, etc.. My transfer offers have only gotten worse.

21 year old Irish winger (167 CA/174 PA, I checked after getting tired of these offers) comes back from a very successful loan at Tottenham - he's not going to displace my #1 so I go in and set his asking price at 81mn (not transfer listed or offered out, just agreed with his agent). Already way too low for his ability but he's a 'squad player' and I don't want to loan him out again and deal with this again next summer. Loan to buy offers of less than 40mn - half his market value and maybe a quarter of what comparable players sell for. The most they can be negotiated up to is the high 50s.

Or my starting winger - PSG sold old Mbappe to Saudi Arabia for 189mn, came for my starting ST/IF (asking price set with his agent at 211mn) - 70mn non-negotiable and that includes a bunch of add-ons.

I quit and I haven't had an urge to reopen it - I don't need the money from selling them at good prices but it's the principle of not strengthening my Champion's League competitors with bargains. I'd sooner use the editor to ship them all to a struggling club for free

I dont know if its a deliberate design choice (probably not, as they struggle to design an AI that recognizes value X is higher than value y), but the longevity has been sucked out of FM in the recent years. It seems to be cathered to short 3-4y careers where you can do wanky tactic stuff and then jump on a new save/proect (which is a popular YT format).

Combined with the AI being basicly a wet sandwich on the transfermarket completly kills any long saves. In FM23 I did a 15y VNS to Prem. In total I got like 5 transfer offers initiated by the AI (and yes, I had sufficient leagues active). Even championship topscorers never got an offer and I ended have to sell for like 10% of their value. Most of the times you cant even negotiate as its immediately locked in...

With a very large database (145k players at start IIRC, first two divisions of most of Europe, all the way down for the top 6 plus extras plus a number of view only) there is a decent amount of transfer business happening... between AI clubs. Seeing players worse than mine being transferred for more than my offers is probably half the reason I sort of rage-quit.

I don't know if it's allowed to link them directly here, but there are some active topics on the FM Reddit at the moment about AI transfer and some of the comments give some insight into the issues if you are curious!

For example, when you win a trophy (i.e. your reputation increases), market value of your players go sky rocket. This is not determined by a change in their ability, but just by the fact that your (and the players one) reputation is higher. This may be the case for your players as well. You won several trophies in a row, so your 21 old irish winger (who has almost achieved his PA, as you mentioned) increased his market value. However, other clubs may estimates that it's not worth to put so much money to buy him, so they try to reach a better deal.

Value skyrocketing is not my experience at all - offers barely increase with reputation and hit a hard ceiling well below market value (market value as in actual sales of comparable players, not just the value tag) for AI clubs. If value skyrocketed... I wouldn't be getting offers of half the asking price and one quarter of the market price for similar players. If 'other clubs estimated that he's not worth so much' that doesn't explain how worse players sell for more (whether comparing sales from your league to elsewhere or being brought in by the offering clubs). The entire market would be depressed if it was a question of AI shopping for value, which is again not my experience - older and less capable players transferred between AI clubs go for more, there's no shortage of transfer action.

"so don't blame AI for doing something that also human managers would have done" - human managers don't, though. Even in terms of the real world - Liverpool didn't offer $25mn for Darwin to Benfica, Chelsea's initial offers for Enzo Fernandez didn't trigger his release clause but were still over 100mn pounds. The real transfer market is pretty rational (if obscene) with clubs knowing the value of players to their current teams, when Liverpool and Chelsea were bidding for Caicedo it's not like one valued him at 50mn and one at 110mn and neither one thought they could get Brighton to sell him for 20mn.

Value skyrocketing is not my experience at all - offers barely increase with reputation and hit a hard ceiling well below market value (market value as in actual sales of comparable players, not just the value tag) for AI clubs. If value skyrocketed... I wouldn't be getting offers of half the asking price and one quarter of the market price for similar players.

I experienced it several times, especially after winning trophies. Not only in my favor, also in opposite terms (I wanted a player from another team, they won something, the price went unbearable for my finances).

The thing is that, as i read several times on this forum, AI bases its judgment like Human players (expected PA, scouting, etc...). The fact that is AI doesn't mean that they know the exact CA or PA value of a player. However, they may have decided that it was not worth to offer as much as you wanted for the player.

The entire market would be depressed if it was a question of AI shopping for value, which is again not my experience - older and less capable players transferred between AI clubs go for more, there's no shortage of transfer action

That is, in principle, not reasonable, but you need to think about the new structure of AI transfer selection this year. SI stated that AI is paying more attention on performance and "momentum" when trying to sign a player. Now I cannot say if your players for which PSG made an offer had a good performance over the season or how this exactly has an impact on AI transfer decision making, however this could be part of the process why solder and less capable players transferred between AI clubs go for more.

What I am trying to say is that even in real life you have cases when a club tries to get the best agreement. Arsenal first offer for Caicedo was 60M, half of the release clause ( -transfer-news-gunners-70m-bid-for-moises-caicedo-rejected-by-brighton) which means that eve IRL you have situations where the initial offer is around 50/60% of the asked price (in this case, release clause).

Moreover, I don't know how PSG finances are on 2033. They may have financial issues (or they are not rich as now IRL). In this case, it's more than acceptable that they try to start from a lower bid. A part from Premier League clubs (who spend a lot and very badly), most of the clubs cannot go to a very rich club (as you are) and saying "i'll pay whatever you want for one of your players".

This isn't one player, though - these are just specific recent examples. In another save it was a 21 year old striker at Anderlecht with consecutive World Golden Balls/Ballon d'Ors and a Champion's League win, it's an entire range of players in different positions over time with offers from all the major clubs.

The transfer market is predictable - never have I had a club offer anything close to replacement value for a player compared to what can be bought on the market OR close to what the offering club would have to pay a comparable AI club for a player. The former makes some sense for smaller selling clubs (sell 'em up the ladder - Anderlecht to Dortmund to Liverpool), of course, but it's illogical for the AI to think it can buy star players from the richest and most reputable clubs for less than replacement cost.

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