With Free Agents, you are bidding on the wage you wish to pay the rider. It will therefore all come out of your salary cap.

This is conducted in the Transfers: Free Agents forum.

1. To make a bid for a rider, you must first use the forum search function to find if a bid has already been made on him. Search for a rider's full name - including any accents.
2. If a bid hasn't been made, then you should open a new thread. The thread title must be correctly named with "[Free Agent]" followed by a space, and then the full name of the rider you wish to make a bid on, including the accents on letters. If the rider name is incorrect then the thread is invalid. Suggestion: Copy a rider's name directly from the database. e.g. "[Free Agent] Théo Vimpere". While special symbols have been cut from the game, there still are some, e.g. ö, ä, ü or some others.
3. When making a free agent bid, state your full team name, followed by the wage you wish to offer the rider.
4. All free agents have a minimum wage of 50,000.
5. To make a counter-bid on a free agent you must reply in the same thread, with your team name and your bid. There is a minimum allowed increase.
6. The winner of the free agent will be the highest bidder after a 48 hour period with no bids.
7. You should not be bidding on a rider if you dont want them. If you are leading the bidding on a rider and change your mind and dont want him, you are not allowed to try to convince someone else to outbid you. This includes making posts suggesting that you have made your last bid on the rider.
8. Do not attempt to influence any other team. Even if you are trying to be helpful. You should only do something if you believe they have broken a transfer rule. Do NOT attempt to stop someone bidding on a rider.
9. Not important how to do this! No telling other ones, that you are going to outbid them! Don`t suggest alternative riders! Don`t offer an incentive - such as a loan or trade deal!
10. Those two rules (8./9.) include attempting to make arrangement to not bid on certain riders, in order to avoid competition! This is NOT allowed neither. Bidding can be discussed in the Transfer Discussion - as long as you are not attempting to influence future actions!
11. It is your responsibility to ensure that all of your bids are valid. If you have not included your full team name in your bid, or if the increase amount is below the minimum allowed, then it will not count - and the 48 hour count will be running of the previous highest valid bid.
12. A rider signed as a free agent cannot be traded or loaned out. The only exception is if their Level/XP is less than 4.100, in which case they can be loaned out. If you change your mind on a free agent signing, your only option is to sack them.
13. Any FA bid must be in full thousands! e.g. 50.000 €, 52.000 € or 125.000 €. Changing the last 3 digits (.000) make the bid invalid such as 52.250 €.
14. There are limits on the number of bids you can make each day, see below.


Bid Limits

There are limits on how many free agent bids you can make during a 'British' day. (Time offset of 0 in the PCM.daily Profile page)

1. You may not bid on more than 8 different riders
2. You may not make more than a total of 20 bids across all riders in a single day

Noting that for the first few days.

Friday	19th August	20:00 BST	Start of first bid limit window
Saturday	20th August	00:00 BST	Start of second bid limit window
Sunday	21st August	00:00 BST	Start of third bid limit window
etc

Bidding Patterns: Minimum Increase

Each time you bid either for a free agent or in a transfer, you must increase the last offer by the following amount as a minimum:

€50,000 - €100,000	€5,000 increase
€100,000 - €300,000	€10,000 increase
€300,000 - €600,000	€20,000 increase
€600,000 - €1,000,000	€30,000 increase
€1,000,000 +	€50,000 increase

As an example, if the previous bid is 99,000, the minimum bid increase is 104,000. But if the previous bid is 100,000, then the minimum bid increase is 110,000.

This is conducted in the Transfers: Free Agents forum.

1. For the last days of the transfer period (see transfer time line) it will be possible to buy up to 4 Stagiares for your team.
2. They must be riders born in 1999 or later, and have a minimum wage of just 10,000.
3. A stagiare has 15 race days, regardless of OVL, and will be able to be selected in teams from August onwards as also in all U23 events.
4. PCT stagiares will get to ride C2 races in any month of the year.
5. In terms of bidding process for Stagiares, there can be multiple bids, with the minimum increase of 5,000 - but once the price reaches 50,000 he becomes a full free agent transfer and not a stagiare.
6. They will count as half a rider in terms of the minimum rider count for CT (15) and PCT teams (20) - but you still can't have more than 30 (for PCT) or 20 (for CT) combined riders/stagiares. For PT teams, a stagiare will not count towards the minimum limit.

This is conducted in the Transfers: Deals forum.

Negotiations will typically take place in either the Transfers: Adverts forum or by personal message. When a deal has been agreed between two teams, a [Deal] thread can be posted in the Deals forum.

1. The thread must contain "[Deal]" followed by the full name(s) of the rider(s) involved in the trade.
2. If this is a rider swap deal involving riders from both teams then either team can open the thread. For a rider sale deal, only the person who currently owns the rider may open the thread.
3. The content of [Deal] threads must be formatted as follows, please using the Table formatting:


4. The other team in the deal then needs to post the exact same thing, with their own confirmation line. You must send mangame-admin a personal message to show that you have read the rules.
5. A 24 hour countdown will begin once both teams have confirmed the trade.
6. It is not possible to withdraw from a deal, once it has been made.
7. During the 24 hour countdown, any team can still make a better offers for any of the riders involved.
8. If the rider's owner decides to accept a higher offer, then a new confirmation post must be made - containing the details of the new deal. If other riders become involved in a new deal, then a new thread must be made. Make sure to post a link to the new thread in the old thread to ensure the initial one is not mistakenly confirmed.
9. Both teams in the new deal must confirm the deal before the original 24 hours have expired, using the correct confirmation format.
10. Once 24 hours from the deal being confirmed by both sides passes, the deal is made permanent.
11. Riders transferred will receive no wage increase - the team the rider is transferred to will now pay the wage of the rider
12. A rider can only be involved in a maximum of 2 transfers. Once a rider leaves a team, he cannot return to the team. This also includes with loans. As previously noted, free agent signing can not be traded.
13. No rider can be traded for 0€. For riders of 100.000€ wage or less, minimum rider transfer fee is their wage!
For riders with more than 100.000€ wage, minimum transfer fee is 100.000€.
14. You cannot ask, agree, (or otherwise) for no further offers to be considered or accepted, during any part of trade negotiations. If it appears that you are not accepting the best offer for a rider, you may be asked to justify why.

This is conducted in the Transfers: Deals forum.

Negotiations will typically take place in either the Transfers: Adverts forum or by personal message. When a deal has been agreed between two teams, a [Loan Deal] thread can be posted in the Deals forum.

However, a [Loan Deal] thread may only contain 1 rider.

1. The thread can only be created by the owner of the rider. Same rules on thread title as with [Deal] threads.
2. The content of [Loan Deal] threads must be formatted as follows, please using the Table formatting:



Team A will always be the team owning the rider. Team B will always be the team loaning the rider.
3. Loans can only last for a year
4. A rider can only be loaned once. A rider cannot be loaned out by a team if they already have him on loan.
5. The salary of a rider being loaned can either by paid in full by one of the teams, or be split.
6. You are allowed to put certain clause on loans. e.g. Rider must ride at least 50 race days, must gain an XP level, must ride a GT etc The team that you are loaning the rider to must then follow the these terms.
7. Remember, that for a free agent that you have signed this transfer season, you may only loan them out if their XP level is less than 4.100.
8. You cannot ask, agree, (or otherwise) for no further offers to be considered or accepted, during any part of loan negotiations. If it appears that you are not accepting the best offer for a rider, you may be asked to justify why.

Loan Fees

Level 1 and 2 riders:
The loaning in team will never pay a transfer fee.
The loaning out team will pay a transfer fee that is at minimum the amount of salary cap that the loaning in team is using up. They can of course pay more.

Level 1 riders, with a clause to reach Level 3:
There is an extra fee for this clause to happen, in addition to the normal fee for Level 1 riders. The extra parts are the full wage of the rider, and an extra 100k fee.
i.e. Minimum fee to agree a 'Level 1 to Level 3' clause is: "Amount of wage paid by loaning in team" + "Full wage of rider" + 100k.

Note that without this clause, it will not be possible for a rider to develop from Level 1 to Level 3 as part of a loan. Level 1 riders born in 2001 are also not able to progress to Level 3, whether loaned out or not.

All other riders:
There are different kind of wage sharing for those kind of riders as seen in the examples below.

Examples:


If the wage is being split 50/50, the transfer fee is up to the two teams involved (it can be nothing). There is no minimum transfer fee.

If Team A and Team B share the wage, but not 50/50, then the transfer fee must be minimum the difference between wages paid.
e.g. Team A pays 40k and Team B pays 10k, then Team B needs to pay minimum 30k fee to Team A.
Loan Cap

All teams have a loan cap of 200,000. This is the amount of wage from riders you are 'linked' to which you are not paying. A few examples are:


Exemption: If you only use your loan cap on one rider, and this rider is a Level 1 rider, you may exceed the loan cap.

Example:


No [Deal] or [Loan Deal] thread may be posted during the first 48 hours of the transfer period.

This is conducted in the Transfers: Free Agents forum.

If you have a rider who you do not want, and are unable to sell, you are able to sack them. The thread title must start with "[Sack]" followed by the name of the rider. The rider then becomes a free agent. and other teams can bid on the rider - but you cannot. When telling us to have understand all the rules, put your team`s full name in the title.

Fines

There is of course a fine involved with sacking a rider.
For the first rider that you sack, the fine is equal to that rider's wage.
For the second rider that you sack, the fine is equal to two times that rider's wage.
For the third rider that you sack, the fine is equal to three times that rider's wage. And so on.

Please note: You can not sack any riders in the final 48 hours of the transfer period.

CT teams will sign two additional riders at no wage cost, when the main transfers window closes.

The squad requirements, of a minimum 15 riders, and a maximum 20 riders, do not include these two riders.

These riders will be assigned in a draft format. Teams have until the end of transfers to submit their prioritised list of preferred 'free riders'. This list can be as long as you like. The draft itself works in a serpentine way from A-Z, Z-A.

The draft order is listed below. It has been created as followed
- Random order of new CT teams
- Random order of existing CT teams
- Random order of teams who were relegated from PCT
- If another new CT team is yet to be added, it will get the spot onwards below the other new CT teams

This was introduced 2015 as an important change. It is automatically calculated in your transfer sheet.

This is a tax that will be applied to the income that teams receive through rider trades or loans.

A team's total income from transfers will be taxed at the following rates:

Less than 500,000: No tax
500,000 - 1,000,000: 10% tax
1,000,000+: 20% tax

Examples to show how this works:

Once the end of the transfers is reached, remaining bids on Free Agents will go into silent bid between those managers, that have had a valid bid within the last 48h period as also the manager of the leading bid with 48h to go.

All managers are sending their final, maximum offer to the Mangame-Admin. The manager with the highest maximum is winning the bid on that rider, the wage will be the minimum increase on top of the second highest bid.
The manager losing the silent bid, is allowed to make a new bid on any other Free Agent without a bid so far (before the CT Free Riders) to get up to the wanted number of riders.

If a loan was planned for that rider, a loan deal must be done directly within that silent bid! The loaning in and loaning out team therefore will be asked to confirm that loan.
As there is no chance to make any other updates afterwards, the transfer sheets from both managers should fit such loan deal!

1. You must end the transfer season without exceeding your salary cap (3.5 million for ProTour teams, 2.5 million for ProContinental teams, 1.2 million for Continental teams). If you are over, you will lose at least 1 of your best riders. The same applies to the overall budget and loan cap.
2. Bids cannot be withdrawn. If you bid on a rider and later regret it, then tough. For this reason, you are unable to edit posts or topics in the Transfers forum.
3. No comments are allowed in the Free Agents or Deals forum. Negotiations are allowed. Use the Advert discussion sub-forum to discuss any part of the transfers.
4. ProTour and ProContinental Teams must finish the transfers with a minimum of 20 riders and a maximum of 30 riders. For Continental teams this is a minimum of 15 and a maximum of 20. Riders loaned to another team do not count to this, while the representation of stagiares was described in the stagiares section above.
5. Tell us before you go away for a period greater than 48 hours. Bidding can be made on your behalf, to keep your targets available for when you return.
6. Your transfer activity is only valid if you include your full team name.
7. Once the sufficient time period has passed - 24 hours for Deals, 48 hours for Free Agents, then the deal is confirmed. If any aspect is invalid, then clearly this will not be the case. It is possible that invalidity will not be identified until after the time period - but this will not change that fact that it is invalid, and the deal/bid will be voided.
8. Suspicious activity or foul play is not allowed. You can and will be punished if you do such a thing. We reserve the right to disqualify bids from a manager on a certain rider, to prevent deliberately antagonising bids or other activity, whether for a Free Agent or Deal transfer.
9. You are not allowed to suggest that another manager should bid on, or look at, a certain rider in the first week of transfers. In the 2nd week of transfers, you can point out a rider only if they have not received any bids. In particular, you should not be sending PMs to other managers to try to get them to bid on riders that some of your rival teams are bidding on, in order to deliberately increase the price.
10. It`s no longer allowed to provide updated DBs mid transfers! All managers have the chance to go through the FA/deal threads themselves. A post transfer DB will be the first DB update. Make sure you have read the important rule for first hours of transfers and are aware of it. To show, include this rule into the text when writing the private message.
11. We also reserve the right to add new rules inside the transfers, if somebody is found manipulating the system doing something that 'technically' is allowed, due to not being in the rules initially.
12. Punishment for trying to get around the rules, cheating, being dishonest - be it try to advantage your team or disadvantage someone else - will be severe, and is likely to lead to your removal from this game.

As recent transfers have shown, too many new threads, lots of PMs and high activity in few seconds/minuntes, a new limitation of maximum threads per manager within a specific time period was considered.

To avoid such crash again, the limit for created threads per manager in the first 4 hours of the transfer season is set to 1 new thread every 20 min!
New managers can go for 2 new threads every 20 min!

With a 48h FA period, this shouldn`t hurt any manager a lot, but hopefully allows the site to recover, once the chaotic of the first minutes starts!

This rule does not change the maximum bids and number of threads limit in general. Just being an addition to slow things a bit in the early hours.