How to buy players in an online football manager game: auctions

If you’re wondering how to buy players in an online football manager game without bankrupting your club in the first week, this guide is for you. In ELDT there is no direct buying: every transfer between clubs is settled through auctions. That changes the way you think about signing a player, because you’re not negotiating with the other manager — you’re competing with everyone else who wants the same player. Here we’ll explain how the market works, what tools you’ve got so you don’t miss a thing, and what costs show up when you win.

How to buy players in an online football manager game: it all goes through auctions

Every player listed for sale goes into an auction that lasts 3 days from the moment it’s posted. The seller sets an opening price, clubs bid, and when the deadline arrives the highest bid wins. The close is automatic: the player joins your squad and the money changes hands straight away, even if you’re not online.

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There’s one rule worth getting clear from the start: anti-sniping. If someone bids in the last 3 minutes, the auction is extended to 3 minutes after that bid. There’s no such thing as “I won it in the last second”: while someone is still willing to go higher, the auction stays alive.

If nobody bids, nothing strange happens: the player stays at his club.

Finding the player: filters, followed players and saved searches with alerts

The Market screen has filters by one or more positions at once, OVR, age, maximum price and seller’s country, plus handy shortcuts such as auctions ending in under 3 hours, players with no bids yet, or players under 22. Each card shows the current price, market value, how long is left and whether you’re winning or have been overtaken.

Three tools save a lot of time:

• Follow: mark the players you’re interested in and see them all together in the followed tab.
• My bids: all the auctions you’re in, with your situation in each one.
• Saved searches with alerts: build your filters, save the search and every time a matching player goes on sale you’ll get an alert on the bell icon (and on your phone if you’ve enabled notifications). You can save up to 5 searches.

Saved searches with alerts are vital if you’re after something specific, for example a young full-back with a minimum OVR. Instead of checking the market every day, you let the game tell you.

On each auction page you also get Similar sales: what was paid in the last 14 days for players in the same area of the pitch and a similar level. It’s only a guide — you decide the price. If you want to go deeper into how to set a figure, check the guide on how much to pay for a player.

How to bid and how much each bid rises

Go into the auction, tap Bid and the game suggests the next minimum bid. You can offer that or more. The minimum increment depends on the amount involved:

• Up to $500.000: rises by $10.000.
• From $500.000 to $5M: by $50.000.
• From $5M to $20M: by $200.000.
• Over $20M: by $500.000.

If someone beats you, you’ll get a notification and can bid again.

The capped bid: bidding without being online

The most important market tool is the capped bid. On the auction page you set the most you’d be willing to pay. From there the game bids for you: if you’re not winning, it places the minimum; and whenever someone overtakes you, it raises just enough to put you back on top, never going over your cap.

A few details matter:

• Nobody can see your cap. Others only see the current bid.
• If two clubs set the same cap, the one who set it first wins.
• If another club sets a higher cap than yours, the bell icon alerts you and you can raise it.
• Every automatic increase follows the same rules as a manual bid: you must have the cash and you must have room in your squad. If you don’t have enough, the cap stops and you’re notified.
• You can change or cancel it whenever you want. Bids already made still stand.

The cap takes away the stress of staring at the clock and, above all, forces you to decide in advance what that player is worth to you.

What it really costs: fee, cash and squad space

The auction price isn’t the only thing you pay. The buyer pays the winning bid plus a 10% commission. If you win with $10M, $11M leaves your cash. The game already factors that commission in when it checks whether you can afford it.

There’s no reserve either: you can bid with all your free cash (counting the commission and what you’re already winning in other auctions). Be careful with that, because the Monday wages come round afterwards. If your cash goes red, the team performs worse and you’ll need to find a loan or an emergency sale. And if you go through two weekly closes in a row in the red, you lose the club. The guide on club finances explains how to read upcoming payments before bidding hard.

You also need space: the maximum is 50 players in the squad.

And one last detail: a player you bought cannot be resold for 14 days. The market isn’t designed for quick flipping.

Who you’re up against: managers and bots

The market mixes real managers with clubs run by the computer. Bots put a good chunk of the supply up for sale, generally with opening prices below market value, and they also bid. But they have a clear limit: when the current leader is a manager, a bot will only bid up to 70% of the player’s value. If you offer more than that, the bot drops out. It will never steal a player by overpaying.

It’s different with real managers: there’s no ceiling and the competition can be fierce for young players with a strong OVR.

Common mistakes when buying

1. Bidding without checking the week’s upcoming payments.
2. Forgetting the 10% commission when working out your cap.
3. Buying without thinking about which position he’ll play in (a player out of position performs worse).
4. Filling the squad with players who won’t get minutes.
5. Chasing the fashionable player every time instead of using saved searches with alerts.

If you want to see the market in detail, there’s the transfer market page and the market help, with all the rules. And if you’re just getting started, it’s worth reading what is an online football manager.

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Start building your squad

The best way to understand auctions is to jump into one. Create your club, see what’s on the market and try the capped bid with a player you like.

Create your club free in ELDT →