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As many of you may have noticed by now, third-party ownership of players is one of the new features in Football Manager 2014. In this guide I intend to tell you what third-party ownership is, explain how it works and show you how it can be both beneficial and a source of frustration for you as a manager.
So what is third-party ownership?
To put it simple third-party ownership is when someone other than a football club (i.e. an outside investor) owns a player. The investor enters this arrangement in hope of profiting from future transfer fees while the clubs see it as an easy way to acquire talented players without having to pay expensive transfer fees for them. These kinds of arrangements came into existence in the early 2000s as a result of the ever growing transfer fees and have become particularly common in South America, especially in Brazil.
While in real life the investor can be anyone from a businessman to a multinational corporation, in Football Manager 2014 the investor is always the player’s agent.
While third-party ownership isn’t without benefit, it is highly controversial in the footballing world and a few leagues have banned it outright, one of them being the Premier League.
As we have now covered the basics of what third-party ownership is, let’s take a look at how it works in Football Manager 2014.
This is Réver:
As you can see in the screenshot 50% of his rights are owned by his agent Alex Fontes Paiva.
I am managing Atlético Mineiro and I want to own Réver outright, so this is what I will do:
I click on the transfer tab and then on the “Make An Offer” line and a modified version of the transfer page will come up:
As you can see, rather than negotiating with a club I am instead in a negotiation with Réver’s agent Alex Paiva. On this screen I can choose how much of the agent’s ownership I want to buy and how much I want to offer for it. As I want to own Réver outright I will offer €2,7M for the 50% Alex Paiva owns.
Within a day the agent will either accept your offer or come with a counter offer of his own:
In my case, the agent has come with a counter offer. He wants €3,4M for his share of Réver. I could reject this offer and try to negotiate further but I as I find his offer acceptable I will simply accept it. As there are no contract negotiations involved the deal will be concluded as soon as you click on accept.
We have now seen how to buy out a third-party owner. What if I want to sell one of my players to a third-party instead?
As you can imagine, paying €3,4M to own Réver was a large hit to my transfer budget, so I will look to sell a percentage of one of my other players to a third party to cover the loss.
This is Jô:
As you can see he is currently wholly-owned by my club.
I want to sell part of him to a third-party, so I will open the transfer tab and click on the “Offer to Agent(s)” line.
Doing so will bring up this box:
Here I can choose how much of Jô’s rights I want to sell and how much I want for them.
I think €2,5M would be a fair price for 25% of his rights.
As soon as you make the offer you should get a reply from the player’s agent:
In this case the agent was only willing to offer €2,4M for 25%. I have little room for negotiation here so I will simply choose to accept the bid and again as with the Réver deal, the transfer is concluded as soon as you click accept.
So far we have looked at how third-party ownership works within your own team and now we have come to the really cool part, how to encourage third-party ownership of other teams players:
This is Lucas Romero:
I think he would be an excellent addition to my midfield but unfortunately he is a bit too expensive for my budget, however, thanks to third party ownership there is a solution:
By clicking on the “Encourage Agent Ownership” line on the transfer tab, I can declare my interest in buying the player if the agent pays part of the fee:
In this case I am much more interested in adding Romero to my midfield than I am in profiting from his future transfer, so I’ll ask the agent to buy 80%.
As you can see, the agent was interested in this arrangement, now it is just down to the club.
Velez simply could not resist the lure of easy money.
Now that his agent owns most of his rights, Romero is well within my budget:
In the end I was able to buy Romero for a mere €1,4M thanks to third-party ownership, well below the initial asking price.
As you can see third-party ownership has two major advantages, it provides cash-strapped clubs with an opportunity to add some vital cash without having to sacrifice players and it lets clubs with limited transfer budgets acquire talented players at reduced prices at the cost of future transfer profits.
This is all good stuff of course, but third party ownership also has a downside, and depending on what league you are playing in it could be a big one.
Remember that I said third-party ownership is controversial in real life and banned in many countries? I am now going to show you the impact of that in Football Manager and to do that I have started a game with Tottenham.
This is Eric Dier:
As one of few top English talents playing abroad, he will be a transfer target for most Premier League clubs. His contract with Sporting has a €5M release clause, but he is also owned to 50% by his agent.
If you try to buy Dier or any other third-party owned player as a Premier League club or in any of the other leagues that do not allow it, you will be met with this message:
Pay what the agent wants (which is often quite a lot) or cancel the transfer. Extortion basically.
What this means in real terms is that teams in England, Italy or France are at a competitive disadvantage against their peers in Spain or Germany, who can acquire equal or superior talent for significantly less than they can.
To summarise, third-party ownership can be both a curse and a blessing, mostly depending on where you are managing. In some leagues it offers a great opportunity to squeeze as much as possible out of your transfer budget or provide a quick boost to your cash-flow while in others it will multiple your costs of acquiring some players.
And finally, a list of leagues that either permits or don’t permit third-party ownership:
Leagues where third-party ownership is permitted:
Argentina
Brazil
Spain
Germany
Portugal
Holland
Turkey
Russia
Ukraine
Belgium
Denmark
Norway
Sweden
Leagues where it is not permitted:
England
Scotland
Italy
France
MLS
This list in non-exhaustive. If you are playing in a league that isn’t listed and want to find out if it permits third-party ownership, just click on the transfer tab for one of your players, if the “Offer to Agent(s)” option appears it is permitted, if it doesn’t it isn’t.
So what is third-party ownership?
To put it simple third-party ownership is when someone other than a football club (i.e. an outside investor) owns a player. The investor enters this arrangement in hope of profiting from future transfer fees while the clubs see it as an easy way to acquire talented players without having to pay expensive transfer fees for them. These kinds of arrangements came into existence in the early 2000s as a result of the ever growing transfer fees and have become particularly common in South America, especially in Brazil.
While in real life the investor can be anyone from a businessman to a multinational corporation, in Football Manager 2014 the investor is always the player’s agent.
While third-party ownership isn’t without benefit, it is highly controversial in the footballing world and a few leagues have banned it outright, one of them being the Premier League.
As we have now covered the basics of what third-party ownership is, let’s take a look at how it works in Football Manager 2014.
This is Réver:
As you can see in the screenshot 50% of his rights are owned by his agent Alex Fontes Paiva.
I am managing Atlético Mineiro and I want to own Réver outright, so this is what I will do:
I click on the transfer tab and then on the “Make An Offer” line and a modified version of the transfer page will come up:
As you can see, rather than negotiating with a club I am instead in a negotiation with Réver’s agent Alex Paiva. On this screen I can choose how much of the agent’s ownership I want to buy and how much I want to offer for it. As I want to own Réver outright I will offer €2,7M for the 50% Alex Paiva owns.
Within a day the agent will either accept your offer or come with a counter offer of his own:
In my case, the agent has come with a counter offer. He wants €3,4M for his share of Réver. I could reject this offer and try to negotiate further but I as I find his offer acceptable I will simply accept it. As there are no contract negotiations involved the deal will be concluded as soon as you click on accept.
We have now seen how to buy out a third-party owner. What if I want to sell one of my players to a third-party instead?
As you can imagine, paying €3,4M to own Réver was a large hit to my transfer budget, so I will look to sell a percentage of one of my other players to a third party to cover the loss.
This is Jô:
As you can see he is currently wholly-owned by my club.
I want to sell part of him to a third-party, so I will open the transfer tab and click on the “Offer to Agent(s)” line.
Doing so will bring up this box:
Here I can choose how much of Jô’s rights I want to sell and how much I want for them.
I think €2,5M would be a fair price for 25% of his rights.
As soon as you make the offer you should get a reply from the player’s agent:
In this case the agent was only willing to offer €2,4M for 25%. I have little room for negotiation here so I will simply choose to accept the bid and again as with the Réver deal, the transfer is concluded as soon as you click accept.
So far we have looked at how third-party ownership works within your own team and now we have come to the really cool part, how to encourage third-party ownership of other teams players:
This is Lucas Romero:
I think he would be an excellent addition to my midfield but unfortunately he is a bit too expensive for my budget, however, thanks to third party ownership there is a solution:
By clicking on the “Encourage Agent Ownership” line on the transfer tab, I can declare my interest in buying the player if the agent pays part of the fee:
In this case I am much more interested in adding Romero to my midfield than I am in profiting from his future transfer, so I’ll ask the agent to buy 80%.
As you can see, the agent was interested in this arrangement, now it is just down to the club.
Velez simply could not resist the lure of easy money.
Now that his agent owns most of his rights, Romero is well within my budget:
In the end I was able to buy Romero for a mere €1,4M thanks to third-party ownership, well below the initial asking price.
As you can see third-party ownership has two major advantages, it provides cash-strapped clubs with an opportunity to add some vital cash without having to sacrifice players and it lets clubs with limited transfer budgets acquire talented players at reduced prices at the cost of future transfer profits.
This is all good stuff of course, but third party ownership also has a downside, and depending on what league you are playing in it could be a big one.
Remember that I said third-party ownership is controversial in real life and banned in many countries? I am now going to show you the impact of that in Football Manager and to do that I have started a game with Tottenham.
This is Eric Dier:
As one of few top English talents playing abroad, he will be a transfer target for most Premier League clubs. His contract with Sporting has a €5M release clause, but he is also owned to 50% by his agent.
If you try to buy Dier or any other third-party owned player as a Premier League club or in any of the other leagues that do not allow it, you will be met with this message:
Pay what the agent wants (which is often quite a lot) or cancel the transfer. Extortion basically.
What this means in real terms is that teams in England, Italy or France are at a competitive disadvantage against their peers in Spain or Germany, who can acquire equal or superior talent for significantly less than they can.
To summarise, third-party ownership can be both a curse and a blessing, mostly depending on where you are managing. In some leagues it offers a great opportunity to squeeze as much as possible out of your transfer budget or provide a quick boost to your cash-flow while in others it will multiple your costs of acquiring some players.
And finally, a list of leagues that either permits or don’t permit third-party ownership:
Leagues where third-party ownership is permitted:
Argentina
Brazil
Spain
Germany
Portugal
Holland
Turkey
Russia
Ukraine
Belgium
Denmark
Norway
Sweden
Leagues where it is not permitted:
England
Scotland
Italy
France
MLS
This list in non-exhaustive. If you are playing in a league that isn’t listed and want to find out if it permits third-party ownership, just click on the transfer tab for one of your players, if the “Offer to Agent(s)” option appears it is permitted, if it doesn’t it isn’t.
- Date Created
- 15 Nov 2013 23:50:33
- Date Updated
- Unknown
- Last Comment
- 03 Dec 2013 12:39:27
Comments
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Tommo.
Poe
JKM110
I personally think this should not be allowed at all in the real game. But hey what do I know
LokiMogli
can i part-own a player?
Franck
Yes.
More or less every major nation in the game except England, Italy and France supports agent ownership of players.