All-Manager Polls
More New Player Prizes for Managers? Community Says No!
Every season we have a random prize draw for three lucky managers who arranged all their friendly fixtures and set their teams correctly every match day in the Youth Cup and Shield. The draw winners get a free pick of any new player added to the database throughout the following season.
Should we roll this out for full participants in the World Club Cup (and Shield), and winners of each division and the Top 100 Cup and Shield?
Please vote below!
New player prizes for division winners?
New player prizes for playoff winners?
New player prizes for Top 100 Cup and Shield winners?
New player random prize draw for World Club Cup full participants?
(i.e., managers who arrange all their fixtures)
Outcome of the Player Concerns Vote Revealed
The Player Concerns Vote was a close one.
Here on our blog, it was 50:50.
On Facebook it was the same.
On WhatsApp there was a clear majority in favour of scrapping the rule.
However several managers voted in both the FB and WA polls. Taking those votes into account, the vote is still just in favour scrapping the rule, 16 to 12.
36 managers voted anonymously on the blog.
26 managers voted publicly on FB.
39 managers voted publicly on WA.
11 managers voted on both FB and WA polls.
Removing their duplicate votes still leaves 36+26+39-11=90 maximum number of unique votes. Minimum 26+39-11=54 votes (assuming all blog votes are duplicates). It's likely that the true number of unique votes is in between 54 and 90, probably around 70.
The other factor to take into account now is the concerns bug which has seen players developing concerns despite playing all matches. SM issued a fix today, but we likely won't see if this fix works until turn 12 of next season.
UPDATE: SM posted more on this in their April update:
...the cause of these issues was related to the changes we made to the transfer ban. A fix was put in place off the back of this work and we are continuing to monitor the system to make sure the desired effect was achieved.
Therefore, we will scrap the L3 concerns rules with immediate effect and keep the L5 concerns settings as normal.
Vote: External Transfer Rule
Last night I did a couple of polls on WhatsApp and Facebook to confirm what I thought we already knew: that we want to keep the new player rule, and change the temporary external player rule.
This was confirmed.
So now we will vote here for a new external player rule.
Player Loans Vote Results
Player loans vote results (see explainer and my maths at the bottom):
A clear majority (44 - 5) voted TO BAN NEW LOANS for the PLAYOFFS.
A majority (29 - 20) voted to BAN ALL LOANS for the YOUTH CUP AND SHIELD.
The smallest possible majority (25 - 24) voted AGAINST banning ALL loans (i.e., including loans for the first team for the regular league season).
40 managers signed up to be part of the Managers' Panel.
I had another 29 email addresses from blog author/subscription sign-ups, or other personal correspondence, which I also (somewhat presumptuously) included.
The vote was sent, therefore to a total of 69 out of 100 managers.
Response rate is 49 out of 69. I don't know how many responded from the Panel as I didn't collect emails on this occasion (which ensures a private, anonymous, but still "one manager, one vote".
I could ask for and collect emails in future votes, but then managers' votes would be visible to me (and anyone else with vote form editor permissions).
Anyway, these are the results.
Adding in the 24 who voted to ban ALL loans:
24 + 5 = 29 managers voted to ban ALL Youth Cup and Shield loans, against 20 who voted to keep loans for the Youth Cup and Shield.
24 + 20 = 44 managers voted to ban NEW playoff loans, against 5 who voted to keep them.
Player concerns vote results
Last week, we proposed holding a vote on a suggestion by some Top 100 managers for a new rule:
Players on Level 3 concerns MUST be sold to an external club.
- Players must be sold for cash, and the selling team cannot bid on the player when he becomes available again.
We used StrawPoll for the first time (thanks to Beddows for his advice), and used the "unique token id" feature to ensure one manager one vote.
In less than three days, we had 92 votes out of 100.
One manager told me he couldn't decide which way to vote, and so didn't vote at all. Another tried to vote, but couldn't work out how to do it (sending the hyperlink isn't directly possible via SM private messages). Another quit (Partizan). Five didn't respond at all to any messages I sent them (one of those because he hasn't logged into SM during this time).
A very impressive turnout!
Anyway, without further ado, here are the results:
| Yes | 51 | 55.43% |
| No | 41 | 44.57% |
| Total Votes | 92 | 100% |
Strawpoll offers some interesting extra data:
And for Eurovision and conspiracy fans:
| COUNTRY | VOTERS | VOTES PER OPTION |
| United Kingdom | 55 (59.78%) | Yes : 28 (50.91%) No : 27 (49.09%) |
| Italy | 11 (11.96%) | Yes : 3 (27.27%) No : 8 (72.73%) |
| Portugal | 6 (6.52%) | Yes : 5 (83.33%) No : 1 (16.67%) |
| United States of America | 4 (4.35%) | Yes : 2 (50.00%) No : 2 (50.00%) |
| Romania | 3 (3.26%) | Yes : 2 (66.67%) No : 1 (33.33%) |
| India | 2 (2.17%) | Yes : 2 (100.00%) No : 0 (0.00%) |
| Argentina | 1 (1.09%) | Yes : 1 (100.00%) No : 0 (0.00%) |
| Switzerland | 1 (1.09%) | Yes : 1 (100.00%) No : 0 (0.00%) |
| Australia | 1 (1.09%) | Yes : 1 (100.00%) No : 0 (0.00%) |
| Hungary | 1 (1.09%) | Yes : 1 (100.00%) No : 0 (0.00%) |
| Croatia | 1 (1.09%) | Yes : 1 (100.00%) No : 0 (0.00%) |
| Malta | 1 (1.09%) | Yes : 1 (100.00%) No : 0 (0.00%) |
| France | 1 (1.09%) | Yes : 0 (0.00%) No : 1 (100.00%) |
| Bolivia | 1 (1.09%) | Yes : 1 (100.00%) No : 0 (0.00%) |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | 1 (1.09%) | Yes : 0 (0.00%) No : 1 (100.00%) |
| Greece | 1 (1.09%) | Yes : 1 (100.00%) No : 0 (0.00%) |
| Spain | 1 (1.09%) | Yes : 1 (100.00%) No : 0 (0.00%) |
Results of Top 100 Squad Cap Rules and Sanctions Survey
The survey is still open if anyone hasn't yet voted, but the results are already pretty clear with 64 managers having already given their opinion. There's a huge discussion about the same on the newsfeed in-game, if you haven't yet seen it.
1. Squad Cap
It's over two years since managers voted on whether to change the squad cap or not. The result then was actually quite close - 50 votes to keep it at 50, 40 to reduce it.
Although fewer votes are in, the percentage of managers wanting to keep things as they are is greater.
I think this indicates clearly that there is no general will to change the squad cap currently.
Full results and comments are here [PDF].
2. Sanctions
Two years ago, managers also voted to increase the sanction faced by those who go over the 50 player squad cap.
58 managers voted for some kind of increased sanction, with the majority choosing what we have now - a one month transfer ban, plus having to sell the player that took them over.
This time, 51 managers voted to retain this sanction, with just 5 voting for a return to the original 'transfer ban only' punishment.
As with the squad cap, a consensus to keep things as they are.
Survey on Top 100 Squad Cap Rules and Sanctions
This isn't meant to be binding, rather a preliminary survey to guide any further binding vote and/or rule change.
[crowdsignal type=“iframe” survey=“CE3BC995200D52F5” height=“auto” domain=“hamburgerda” id=“top-100-rules-survey”]
Poll Results: New Player Free Agents
UPDATE: Results of the poll.
New players are added to the Soccer Manager database every day. There's often one or more hot, new footballing talent among them who lots of managers want to bid for.
That's all fine for twenty four hours or so. Then, sometimes, players' values increase, and as they do so, the maximum bid increases, too.
For anyone who happens to be able to re-bid, that's fine, and a bit of a bonus. Some of the most sought-after young players can have half the game world or more bidding for them.
If half of those aren't able to re-bid because they're at work, or asleep, that improves your chances of winning!
But it's not really fair on those who, through no fault of their own, simply can't re-bid on a daily or regular basis.
Suggested new rule for Top 100:
All bids on new free agents must be public, and no bids higher than the first (maximum) bid.
Suggested sanction for breaking this rule:
One month ban on bidding on new player free agents, and having to sell the player signed illegally once they come off their transfer ban.
Sanctions increase as per regular transfer ban sanctions for repeat offenders
[crowdsignal poll=10280429]