Signing players (otherwise team building) is crucial to winning trophies in Football Manager 2024. Your club’s youth academy might provide some exciting future stars, but it probably won’t give you enough of them to win trophies without signing new players. Managing a club with a bigger budget will make it easier to sign more and better players. However, that much alone doesn’t guarantee silverware. Players who utilize their clubs’ financial resources more efficiently in the transfer market will generally do better. Here are some FM24 tips for signing players better in Football Manager 2024.
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Hire Decent Scouts
Hiring superior scouts will make it easier to sign better players for your team. Scouts grade potential transfer targets based on their current playing ability and future potential. It’s worth taking note of player gradings from decent scouts to help you decide what players to shortlist for signing in the present or future. However, second-rate scouts who don’t judge player ability and potential that well aren’t so helpful.
So, make sure you hire superior scouts who better identify good transfer targets for you to sign. The most important scout attributes are for judging player ability and player potential. Try to recruit scouts with the highest attribute ratings for judging player ability and potential you can. You can’t always hire scouts with maximum ratings for those attributes, but 15 is a good minimum JPA and JPP rating to look for.
Scout attributes in a staff search
Utilize the Player Compare Tool for Transfer Targets
The player comparison tool is a godsend for signing players in Football Manager 2024. This tool enables you to compare one player’s attribute and position/role ratings with that of another. Using this tool is the best way to see whether a transfer target is better than a current player in your team he could replace. Your decision to sign a transfer target should be primarily based on how his average attribute and position/role ratings compare to a first-choice player in your team. If the player comparison tool shows his average attributes are generally better, you should probably sign him.
If you don’t know how to utilize this tool, click Comparison on the attributes screen for a transfer target. Then select the Compare With option and a player in your squad. This will bring up a screen where you can select the Attributes and Positions & Roles tabs to view the player comparison.
The Attributes tab in the player comparison tool
Disable Attribute Masking
I’m not a big fan of the masking feature that hides attributes for many players, which is supposed to enhance realism in Football Manager 2024. Having this feature enabled means you’ll need to scout players to reveal hidden attributes, which is more time-consuming and annoying. Disabling the attribute masking feature will make your life easier when signing players in FM24.
However, the option for disabling attribute masking is quite well-hidden. You can disable that feature by clicking Advanced Setup when starting a new Football Manager 2024 game. Select the Disable Player Attribute Masking checkbox within the advanced setup options.
The Disable Player Attribute Masking checkbox
Offer Additional Fees in Transfer Bids
When placing bids for players, don’t always restrict yourself to offering lump sums. The additional fee options can be useful for spreading the cost of a transfer with monthly instalments. You can even add an extra fee dependent on a player playing 20-50 games for your team.
Note that additional fees aren’t extra costs when you reduce the lump sum offered to compensate for them. By adding some additional fees to reach a player’s overall valuation, you can reduce the immediate lump sum offered. Doing this is a good way to reduce the initial transfer costs while offering the same approximate overall amounts for players with extra fees on top.
Additional fees in a transfer bid
Grab Players for Free During the Mid-Season Transfer Window
Signing players with expired, or nearly expired, contracts is one of the best FM24 tips I can give you. Out-of-contract players are free agents you can sign without making any transfer bids for them. These players can still have signing fees, but aside from that they’re freely available when you can select an Approach to Sign option for them.
You don’t need to wait for contracts to have expired to make free transfers. Select to view players with only six months left on their contracts during every mid-season transfer window. Then you’ll likely find at least a few top-class players you can sign for free shortly before their contracts have expired. Grabbing decent players for free like this can save your club many millions in the transfer market and is all the more profitable when you sell them.
An out-of-contract player
Look for Minimum Release Fee Clauses
Minimum release fee clauses are useful things to exploit when signing players in Football Manager 2024. These fee clauses force clubs to accept bids for players that meet their values, which makes it easier to sign players on the cheap. The best minimum fee clauses to look for are those with values that are less than or at least match a player’s approximate transfer valuation.
There are some great players with minimum fee clauses available from the first 2023/2024 season in Football Manager 2024. Check out our FM24 players with release clauses guide for further details about some of the best ones to sign. That guide also tells you how to search for and find players with minimum release clauses.
The minimum fee release clause condition option
Check Promises in Contracts
Contracts offered when signing players often automatically include additional promises beyond basic playing time. These can be promises about player roles, strengthening the squad, recruiting new staff, or long-term team aims. Breaking extra promises made in players’ contracts undermines your team’s morale.
Always carefully check you can keep promises automatically made in a contract offered and remove those you can’t. Removing additional promises usually has little impact on a player accepting a contract. So, it’s better to remove any promises when you can.
An additional promise in a player contract offer
Talk to Agents
Agents can be invaluable for lowering players’ contract demands before you sign them. They’re especially useful for reducing salary demands in contracts. You can negotiate players’ contract demands before bidding for them.
Try talking to agents before signing players by right-clicking their names and selecting Ask Agent About Availability. Tell the agent you’re interested in signing his player and would like more info about his demands. Then select a contest dialogue option for reducing the player’s salary expectations. Selecting that option can sometimes result in an agent convincing his player to scale back salary demands for a potential contract.
Remote chat with a player’s agent
A better transfer strategy will enhance your team on the pitch and your club’s overall budget in Football Manager 2024. The FM24 tips above will help you sign better players for your teams, reduce transfer expenditure, and negotiate more favorable contract deals.
