Exploits in Football Manager have been a subject of discussion here on our forums, so I thought I might as well revive one of my old ideas and write an editorial about it.. In fact more than one editorial. About 5 editorials!
First I will name some of the exploits I encountered in my several years of playing the beautiful game and share my feelings regarding them, hoping you will enjoy it and it will open up a whole new wave of discussion.
And the first part of the bunch is..
How it works?
Thought it would be nice to start with something fresh, encountered in Football Manager 2010. If you don’t know what it is, read Tubey’s lil’ guide. To summarize it, you can arrange a lot of friendlies in the few days between the end of the season and the date your players go on holiday. If you make sure you arrange them away from home, against higher caliber teams, you will get a lot of much needed money, to help your upcoming season. Just read through the forum thread of Tubey’s guide and you will see how much you can make. A lot. You have the “Recommended Teams” tool to help you with this as well. Simple to use and effective.
Why is it an exploit?
First of all, you play about 6 matches in 6 days, even if you need to travel around the globe. As far as I am aware, you don’t even need to pay for plane tickets in Football Manager, making it even more unrealistic. You don’t need to worry about match fitness, as your players will go in holiday in a few days, so they will have time to recover. Other than this, chances are also pretty low that teams with a higher reputation will accept your proposal, right before the holidays as well. I would also argue about the fact that you get all the money, when playing away from home and despite probably “knowing” this, the opposition team will accept the proposal. We cannot argue the fact that it is unrealistic.
My opinion
Even though it is unrealistic, it is definitely one of the mildest exploits around. Technically it is all implemented in the game, with the recommended teams you can call up for friendlies and all. Also, you won’t be making millions of this, just some extra little cash from a source that you couldn’t think of, or indeed, couldn’t do in real life. The fact that Sports Interactive failed to take this out of the game, despite releasing a few patches, also tells a story. I bet they know about it and in terms of coding, taking this out would be easy as 1+1. If team already played one friendly in this period, they can’t play another one. Simples.
Would I use it?
I used it once and it indeed, worked. I made a lot of money with my little, yet legendary team from the South African 2nd, then 1st division. The question is whether I would use it again. Well, probably not. I felt kinda awkward getting an advantage over the teams in my league, even though they already had a great financial plus, compared to my piss-poor finances. I didn’t use it in my second season and possibly I won’t use it again, unless I will be desperate as hell. Chances are high that I will feel very bad about it, even if I will make up my mind and use it once more.
Do others use it?
Considering the answers the guide had in the forum thread, I would say that more than half of Football Manager players would use it. It is a nice way of getting money and I am sure that even some of the guys who would normally play in a very strict fashion, would venture into this area. One of the reasons could be the fact that SI failed to take it out from the game, despite having the chance, or indeed they consider it not to be that harmful and unrealistic. I wouldn’t condemn anyone who would take advantage of this, but I can see why some will just stay away from it as a whole. Each to their own.
Did this cross the line?
By Fuzzy logic, I would say..
Cheating – 0.30
Not Cheating – 0.70
Much closer to not cheating 
Part 2 coming soon..
