How to sell players in a football manager without giving them away

Knowing how to sell players is just as important as knowing how to buy them. A squad full of players who never get a game still picks up wages every week and adds nothing, and leave a player too long and their value drops with every birthday. In ELDT, sales also happen by auction, so the key decision is different: when to sell and at what starting price. Here’s everything you need to know.

How to sell players: the step-by-step guide

From your squad, click on the player and choose Auction. Set the starting price and that’s it: the auction is published for 3 days. When it ends, the player goes to the club that bid the most and the money lands in your account automatically. If nobody bids, the player stays in your squad and you can list them again.

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Before you publish, the screen shows how much you’ll receive net at the starting price you chose, with commissions already deducted.

Which players can be sold

Not everything can be put up for sale. The rules are these:

• Minimum squad size: you must keep at least 13 players.
• Age: the player must be 18 or older. Youngsters from the academy can’t be sold directly: first they have to be promoted to the first team.
• Lock after buying: a player you bought can’t be sold again for 14 days.
• One at a time: if the player is already in an auction, they can’t be listed again.
• Loan players: if you still have any from the days when loans existed, they can’t be sold.

The starting price

The starting price is the first bid that will be accepted. It has two floors:

• It can never be less than $1.000.
• It must be at least 30% of the player’s market value. That stops players being flogged off for next to nothing.

The game suggests a starting price based on market value. A low starting price attracts more bids and, if there’s interest, the auction rises on its own. A high starting price guarantees a minimum, but it can put buyers off, and if nobody bids, the player returns to your squad after 3 days.

There’s no single right answer. It depends on how badly you need to sell that player and how much interest you think they’ll attract. A young striker with a good OVR almost always has takers. A 33-year-old veteran, not so much.

As long as your auction has no bids, you can cancel it. Once someone has bid, it runs to the end.

How much you really get paid

The seller receives the auction price minus a 10% commission. If your player sells for $10M, you get $9M.

If the player came through another club’s academy, that club also gets 3% of the final price, taken from what the seller receives. In the example, you’d get $8,7M. And the other way round: if you developed a player in your academy and another club later sells them, you get that percentage.

Who buys what you sell

The market has real managers and clubs run by the computer. The bots buy a good chunk of what goes on sale: they bid in auctions where no manager has placed an offer. That means a sensible player, at a sensible starting price, very rarely goes unsold.

When a manager joins the bidding, things change. The bots have a ceiling when they’re up against a manager, so the highest final price is almost always set by another manager who wants that player. That’s why it pays to make sure your auctions get seen: young players, good OVR, positions in demand.

When it makes sense to sell a player

Some situations where selling usually makes sense:

1. Before they turn 31. Market value drops sharply at 31: with the same OVR, they’re worth 30% less. If a player is no longer a starter, selling them at 29 or 30 brings in a lot more money.
2. Players who aren’t getting minutes. On top of the wage bill, a player without minutes trains worse, because the minutes they play during the week multiply their progress. We explain that in how to train players.
3. Duplicate positions. If you’ve got four centre-backs for two spots, one is surplus to requirements.
4. When you need cash for something better. A stadium upgrade or a key staff member can be more valuable than a backup.

And some situations where it’s worth thinking twice:

• Selling your only goalkeeper or your only player in a position without a replacement lined up.
• Selling high-potential youngsters as soon as they join the first team, before they’ve reached their best level.

What to avoid: emergency selling

If your bank balance goes into the red, the game gives you two ways out: a loan to get you out of the red, or an emergency sale. In an emergency sale, the game picks players at random and pays you only 40% of their value. It’s the worst way to sell: you don’t choose who goes, or for how much.

The way to avoid that is to sell in good time. If you can see in Finance that the next payments will leave you right on the edge, list a player you can afford to lose before it happens. You’ll find more detail in the guide to club finances.

Selling youngsters

Youngsters from the academy can’t be auctioned directly. To sell them, they first need to be promoted to the first team, and for that they need to be 18 years old and have an OVR of 12. After that, they can be sold like any other player. If you want to build an academy that also brings in money, have a look at how to bring youngsters up from the academy.

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More information

The full rules are in the market help and on the transfer market page.

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