Blackmailed
The deal I didn't want to make
Blackmailed
I really didn’t want to do this, but it looks like I have no choice.
I’m going to have to renew Kawaguchi Naoki’s contract.
He’s not a bad player. But he’s 29 years old, and he wants a lot of money, and we don’t have a lot of money, and it’s driving me nuts.
Here’s his player profile at the moment:
It’s not too bad. He’s not quite as fast as I would like, but it works for a right wingback. He’s got good mentals and pretty good technical attributes.
But he’s not going to be good enough — especially once we’re promoted.
I don’t like the dislike of big matches, of course. However, the thing that really concerns me is that he’s considered a “leading player” at our current level. This means, of course, that he’s probably going to be average or even marginal once we are promoted.
And he’s not going to get any better, either.
We’re trying to move away from this sort of player. But it’s hard. After all, Kawaguchi is quite influential:
I tried to enter into contract negotiations, was upset by the money he asked for, but then a group of 10 players expressed their displeasure. I’ve reopened negotiations, and am just going to give him what he wants.
Now, we don’t have the money for it:
However, since I’ve got everything set to Japanese Yen, the deficit isn’t quite as extreme as you might think.
There are also a few salaries we want to get rid of:
I think it’s actually harder to move on older players with fat salaries in Football Manager 2024 than in prior versions of the game. Selling players seems somewhat delayed this time around, and I haven’t had any luck hiring an intermediary to help out the process.
I should also note that the club has an unusual amount of debt — and that it isn’t my fault:
We’ve actually got negative transfer debt, which I suppose means I could buy a player on installments if I really wanted to. We don’t have the wage budget for that, though — especially since we’re giving Kawaguchi a new contract.
Oh, the headaches of Football Manager.