💰 Contracts, Salary & Market Value – The Money Behind Your Squad

Every player on your books costs you money every single week. That’s obvious enough. What’s less obvious is how wages, market values, and contracts are all connected – and how getting on top of that relationship can make a real difference to your club’s finances over the course of a season.

This sheet covers the three linked concepts you need to understand: what a player is worth on the open market (Market Value), what you pay them each week (Salary), and how long you’re committed to paying it (Contract). There’s also a critical decision buried inside every contract negotiation that most new managers don’t give enough thought to – whether to go Fixed or Linked on the salary. Get these right and your wage bill stays manageable. Ignore them and you’ll find yourself haemorrhaging cash on players you can’t easily offload.

📊 1. Market Value – What a Player Is Worth

Every player has a Market Value – the game’s assessment of what they’re worth on the open market. It’s derived primarily from their Rating, so as a player improves or declines, their market value moves with them.

Market value matters for three reasons:

• It sets the pricing band for transfers – you can’t buy or sell a player at just any price
• It forms the basis for their weekly wage
• It determines what the Supremos Circuit will pay if you sell directly to them

🎯 The Transfer Pricing Band

When you list a player for sale or make an offer on someone, the price has to fall within ±30% of their market value. You can’t massively underprice a player to do a mate a favour, and you can’t ask for the moon either. The band keeps the transfer market honest.

💡 If a player’s rating improves, their market value goes up – which means you might be able to sell them for more than you paid. The reverse is also true. A player who declines in rating can become very hard to shift at a price that makes sense.

💸 Selling to the Supremos Circuit

If you want a guaranteed sale with no haggling, you can sell directly to the Supremos Circuit. The trade-off is that you’ll only receive around 50% of market value. It’s the quick-and-easy option – useful when you need the cash or the deal slot, not so great if the player is worth real money.

💷 2. Salary – What You Pay Week to Week

A player’s weekly wage is based on their market value. The baseline works out at roughly 1/200th of their market value per week. So a player valued at £200,000 would earn around £1,000 per week as a starting point.

Wages can be adjusted by up to ±15% of the market-value-based wage. That gives you a little room to attract a player who might otherwise go elsewhere, or to keep a fringe player on something more modest. Beyond that flexibility, the bigger decision is not how much – it’s which type.

🔀 3. Fixed vs Linked – The Most Important Salary Decision You’ll Make

Every time you negotiate a contract – whether that’s a renewal or a new signing – you’ll be offered a choice: Fixed salary or Linked salary. Both have legitimate uses. The one you choose should depend on what you know (or suspect) about that squad member’s future.

💡 Think of Fixed as a bet that the player’s development will outpace what the game has already priced in. Think of Linked as paying market rate every single week – no more, no less, but no protection either if that market rate shoots up.

When Fixed Makes Sense

If you believe a player has significant untapped potential – plenty of room still to develop, a good learning ability, and a hidden potential score worth getting excited about – then locking in a fixed salary now could look like a bargain later. Yes, you’re paying a little over the odds in the early weeks of the contract. But if that player’s market value climbs well beyond what the fixed salary anticipated, you’re getting a very good deal for the rest of the term.

The longer the contract, the more this matters. On a 45-week deal, a player who develops strongly on a fixed salary could be costing you far less than their linked equivalent would by week 30.

When Linked Makes Sense

If you think a player has reached their ceiling – no great hidden potential remaining, rating unlikely to shift much, and possibly someone you’re planning to sell in the short to medium term – then a linked salary keeps costs proportional. If their value nudges down slightly as they age or decline, your wage bill adjusts accordingly. And you’re not sitting on an inflated fixed payment for a player you’re trying to move on.

Linked also makes more sense on shorter contracts, where the exposure to wage drift is lower and you get another chance to renegotiate sooner.

⚠️ A linked salary on a high-potential player who then has a breakout season can become painful quickly. You won’t see the wage creep until it’s already in your weekly bill. Keep an eye on the financial report – don’t let it sneak up on you.

The Knowledge Edge

Here’s the thing: the Fixed vs Linked decision is only as good as the information you’re making it with. The more you know about a squad member’s Hidden Potential and Learning Ability, the better placed you are to call it correctly.

A player with high hidden potential and strong learning ability is likely to develop faster than average – exactly the scenario where locking in a fixed salary early pays off. A player with modest hidden potential who’s already performing near their ceiling is a safer candidate for a linked deal, because there’s less upside for the wage to chase.

This is one of the reasons investing in finding out hidden potential early – through training camps, your Skills Coach, or scouting – pays dividends beyond just player development. It informs your contract strategy too.

🔍 See Hint Sheet #2 (Hidden Potential & Learning Ability) for a full breakdown of how these attributes work and why discovering them early matters.

📋 4. Contracts – How Long You’re Committed

Every player is on a contract with a set number of weeks remaining. This is shown in your squad listing as the CNT column. When a contract runs out, you need to have renewed it – or the player will leave.

Squad members will typically start negotiating 1 to 6 weeks before their contract ends. Crucially, the options available tend to shift in the squad member’s favour as the weeks tick down. Negotiate early and you’ll generally get a better deal.

🔄 Renewal Options

⚠️ Don’t let contracts expire. You’ll lose the player. Build a habit of checking the CNT column in your Manager’s Report each week – especially for players you can’t afford to lose.

🔗 5. How It All Connects

Rating → Market Value → Wage baseline. That’s the chain. Your contract length determines how long you’re locked into whatever comes next, and your Fixed/Linked choice determines whether the wage is sheltered from that chain – or exposed to it.

🧠 6. Practical Tips for Smart Managers

• Treat Fixed vs Linked as a strategic decision, not a default. There’s no universally right answer – it depends on the player. Think before you click.
• Hidden Potential and Learning Ability inform your contract strategy. The more you know, the better the call you can make. Invest in finding out early.
• Check your wage bill regularly. It’s in your financial report every week. Know what’s driving it and whether it’s drifting in a direction you’re not happy with.
• Don’t let contracts expire. The negotiation options get worse the longer you leave it, and at zero you lose the player entirely.
• Think twice before a long Fixed deal on an older player. A 45-week fixed commitment on a 33-year-old who’s already near their ceiling is a liability. That’s the one case where Fixed could genuinely hurt you – you’re paying the premium without the upside.
• If you’re planning to sell, think short and linked. You don’t want to be halfway through a long fixed contract on someone you’re trying to move on. Keep the commitment proportional to your intentions.
• The Supremos Circuit is a floor, not a target. Around 50% of market value is always available for a quick sale. Use it as a reference point, not an aspiration.