Improving friendlies

Every offseason I go through the same routine. I try to secure at least 4 friendlies with Premier teams in order to churn up money for my squad. Over the seasons, I've determined a handful of teams that are always willing to accept my invitations, and I've managed to get some of those teams to accept an invite to a cup that I hosted.

What I would love to see is a more efficient way to set up these friendlies. Even with the group of teams that traditionally accept my invites, I still go through a lot of teams that refuse. For future iterations of FM, I'd like to see a couple of things in regard to this:

1. Streamline the friendly request process. Currently I have to click through several windows in order to even send a proposal. Maybe I should see about bookmarking the friendly invite page? If this isn't an option, a specific page dedicated toward just scheduling friendlies would make the process take up a lot less time.

2. And after clicking through those several windows, it's irritating to have a team decline an invite. I would like to see some sort of notification that says how likely or unlikely a team would accept whatever invite you are proposing. That way, you don't burn through the process several times trying to find a team that will accept. If this were added, maybe then we could have a filter option that allows you to filter teams depending on their likelihood of accepting an invite.

3. Kind of piggybacking off of #2, I'd like to be able to filter teams by how much revenue a particular friendly would bring in. And again, I'm not sure if this option is available already. Please disregard this if it already is. (=

hmm im not that fond of friendlies to be honest, i mean of course i make lots of friendlies at home when i am playing with a lower league team and need every penny i can get my hand on.

but other than that i PERSONALLY dont care so much about friendlies and would like the gameplay and tactics improve and of course graphics to improve in FM 2010. ':)

See, I'm on the opposite end and I definitely need all the money I can get. With all of the improvements the board has made in my game, we're running in the red every month of the season except for the first - when tv revenues are doled out. I knowingly try to offset the losses we will incur throughout the season by scheduling a ton of friendlies rather that having an operating loss at the end of the year. I'm hoping this will impact future transfer and wage budgets positively for my team.I'm also hoping it will help spur on continued stadium expansions. I know our most recent one that added ~300 seats put our team into a huge financial hole.

That said, I've only had two teams that have consistently accepted my friendly invites over the course of 7 seasons. Some teams don't want anything to do with a team of such low stature as mine, and that could be reflected to help save the hassle of having invites rejected. As my team has progressed upward, however, there have been teams that are now interested in my invites. This most recent season, for example, Celtic accepted an invite and I bagged a cool 120k. That's more than my transfer budget typically is in any given season. :shock

I want to see testimonials. They have become such a big part of modern football. Say a player who used to play for you retires, have a friendly against his last team, massive sell out. I agree that the friendlies need to be changed, they are annoying, I don't even bother anymore, the AI doesn't seem that interested either, think I have been once invited to a cup, that was Man U, Bayern and Villareal.

its a good idea, maybe incorporate a tour option, like real life where when you are a big club, you make merchandise tours e.g. man utd going around asia.

testamonials would be awesome, its rubbish when they just disappear without a good bye, not even being a coach.

I miss a lot of players who leave. I always miss Larsson. I think there should be ex-players who come back for testimonials, like staff at the club. The recent Tommy Burns testimonial at Celtic, Roy Keane, Lennon. Having staff involved would be amazing, having the retiring player or staff playing also, even if it was their way of becoming a coach.

I would like to see the inclusion of the freindly comps that already exist ie Emirates Cup etc maybe through a invitation or something. I know you can set up a cup/league but maybe the inclusion of these comp's could add realism to the start of the season????