In order to guide your club to glory, you not only need to select the right players and tactics, you also need to manage all other aspects of the club properly.
Club's finances
You can find all the info about your club's finances under the "Managament" menu. When you first click on this option, you'll see the table that shows you different income and outcome sources for the current season (balance at the start of the current season is written on top of this table). And altough you are permitted to go into the red numbers(you have 250.000 £ of credit available), it is certainly not recommended to do so. If you go below -250.000 £ your club will be warned and given a 14 days period to go back above this limit. If you don't, your club will go into bankruptcy. This means that the club will get reset(you will start from the beginning, meaning new players, no buildings, etc...), you will be given 15 points deduction for the current season, a new budget of 1.000.000 £ and the rating of your club will drop to 1. So, it's not game over if you go bankrupt, but it's certainly not something you want to happen to your club.
Club's stadium
Although you can upgrade your stadium, we would advice you to only do so if you are really confident you can bring so much crowd to watch the games. Empty stadium results in lower income, but you still need to play maintenance fee for each seat on your stadium each and every week.
Ticket price management
Remember, you can set the ticket price for your next home game under the "STADIUM" menu. The price you set will eventually influence the number of supporters that will arrive at your stadium. But remember, ticket price is not the only factor in this case! Rating of your club and that of your opponents also influence the number of supporters that will gather at the match as is the weather on a match day (more people come to see the match on sunny day than they are on a rainy day). If you are still a beginner and not sure about what ticket price is the right one for a given match day, then you can use the ticket assistant. But remember, ticket assistant only helps you a bit and practically never sets the optimum ticket price!
Facilities
You have the chance to build a number of different buildings and facilities that can benefit your club. You need to be carefull though and you need to always take the size of your club into account before you decide to purchase one of these(especially because building a facility can be quite costly). If you are only a startup club of rating below 50, then we would advise you stay clear of anything but maybe a grass upgrade or two. Being so small team means that your fan base is not large enough to justify building a club shop(for example). And don't even think about hotels or other "fancy stuff" until you get much, MUCH bigger! You can buy the following facilities/upgrades:
Better pitch
There are 5 different levels of "grass" you can have. Why is grass important and which level of grass is the best for you? Let us start with the first level. The pitch is basically a field that has two goals and white chalk marks that outline the field. Absolutely no one is taking care of it. Which consequently means the pitch is uneven, there are large patches of bare earth, if it rains there water collects on it and if it doesn't rain the grass goes all yellow (burned by the sun), the occasional lumps of clay, dirt and rocks seem to find their way there and sometimes some annoying gopher makes a hole or two on it - which for you, the manager, means the chance of injury to your players is quite high. With the Second level you get a field technician (with the knowledge of an average gardener) that takes care of the grass. This means that he removes the lumps and holes, tries to repair the bald patches and occasionally waters the pitch. Third level gives you the benefit of the sprinkler system (meaning the grass will be green) and also adds a small number of assistants to your lone "gardener". This means that the pitch is at an adequate level for international competitions and that the risk of injury (under normal circumstances) will be negligible. Fourth level takes the whole art of keeping a quality pitch to a new level. The underlying layers are substituted with a perfect mixture to produce a nice even surface. The only worry for the manager, at this stage, is those dark clouds that have a tendency to drop their rain right in the middle of the game. Fifth level is the ultimate quality grass. Trimmed to the millimetre accurately, this even, not-too-hard, not-too-soft surface will ensure that your players have no worries about slipping, stumbling or dancing in a puddle of water. Perfect for all the top quality clubs.
Club Shop
have a nice, big enough fan club? Want to make some money from them? Wait no longer, build yourself a club shop. This little facility will bring you a certain amount of money each week. NOTE that if you don't have enough regular fans all you'll do is add another expense to your account - the staff and the merchandise still have to be paid, no matter how little or much profit they make. It costs 120.000 £ to build and 2.500 £ per week for maintenance. Club store is an upgrade of the club shop (basic info stand). It can hold many more articles and can bring more money. The same Note (see above in the Club Shop) applies here as well. It costs 400.000 £ to build and 9.100 £ per week for maintenance.
Training ground
This facility improves the effect training has on your players. The whole training ground is a complex enclosed field that consists of many specialised surfaces for various training regimes. And although the faster player improvement may be tempting, do not invest into the training ground until you are certain you have enough money to pay for weekly maintenance. It will cost you 500.000 £ to build and 17.500 £ per week for maintenance.
Hotel
This facility brings a variable number of fans to your home games. Hotel will also earn you a bit of money each week from other "non-football interested" guests. You still have to understand though, that the higher the rating of your club, the more famous your hotel will be(and you'll get more money if the hotel is more famous!). It will cost you 10.000.000 £ to build and 70.000 £ per week for maintenance. You can upgrade hotel into the Grand Hotel which will have even bigger impact on the fans and weekly income(but comes in higher bulding and weekly maintenance cost). Grand hotel will cost you a whooping 30.000.000 £ to build and 150.000 £ per week for maintenance!
Youth Academy
Want to base your team on the youth? Make future superstars out of them? This is the best way to do it – but there is a catch: it costs a lot of money to build it and a lot of money to maintain it. If you have youth academy available, your youth players will progress a bit faster each day. But again, do not build the academy if you are not sure you can handle the costs - otherwise the Youth Academy will be your club's downfall. It costs 5.000.000 £ to build it and 45.000 £ per week to maintain it!
Fitness studio
This facility increases the chance of players improving in Strength or Speed and Condition when they are doing physical training. The players also start to recover a bit faster after the game or training. It will cost you 100.000 £ to build and 6.000 £ per week for maintenance. Fitness Centre is an upgrade of the Fitness studio. It increases the chance of improving player Strength or Speed and Condition even more and the effect of faster player recovery is effectively doubled. Fitness centre will cost you 450.000 £ to build and 14.000 £ per week for maintenance.
Medical Department
Just the thing to have when someone gets injured. The medical department decreases the injury time by paying immediate attention to the problem. NOTE that you need to have at least 1 Phyisio employed to be able to get the benefits the Medical Department offers. It will cost you 650.000 £ to build and 19.000 £ per week for maintenance.
Research Facility
This facility is used by your whole staff. The high-tech gadgets that are inside help them to determine the best way to train and heal your players. NOTE that you need at least 1 coach to get its benefits for training and at least 1 physio to get its benefits in healing. Research facility will cost you 1.000.000 £ to build and 25.000 £ per week for maintenance.
Media Centre
This is your own little press room. Filled with all the gadgets you need to get to a wider audience. For you, the manager, this means you can count on additional fan support the next time there is a game in town. The media centre will also earn you a small amount of income each week from advertisements. It will cost you 500.000 £ to build and 13.000 £ per week for maintenance. TV studio is an upgrade from the Media Centre that will expose your club to a much larger audience. Obviously your fan base will grow even more than with just the Media Centre and you will earn more each week from advertisements. TV Studio will cost you 1.500.000 £ to build and 36.000 £ per week for maintenance.
Sponsors
The icon with a suitcase full of money on the "Management" page is your best friend as a manager. Clicking it leads you to Sponsors. First screen holds three slots for the main sponsors (obviously going from up to down in the money they offer - meaning first is your main club sponsor - the one that should offer you the most money, second and the third are the other 2 big sponsors of your club that should offer you little less than the main one - pretty simple). Of course it can happen that sometimes you get higher offer from the secondary sponsors than from your main one(but that would indicate that the offer you received from potential main sponsor is not very good). So, clicking on the "Get Offers" buttons will tell the sponsors that you would like to know how much they are prepared to offer you (this may take some time - NOTE also that you will get only ONE sponsor offer per day and that you need to answer this offer before you get another). The sponsors you get are virtual ad agencies and the amount of money and the number of seasons they are willing to support your club varies. Why ad agencies? Well, this is the best solution we (the creators) could come up with to make the game free for all and still get us enough money to run it and improve it for the enjoyment of you, the users. So what the agencies do is give you a certain amount of money per season. Added to that, the agency also gives you a pool of 5 (real-life) sponsors every day (just click on the agency banner to receive this offer). Out of these you can chose one to be your daily sponsor. Doing that brings additional money to your club every day (if you click them every day, that is). To get to the second page of the sponsors you need to click the "AD BOARDS>>" sign in the bottom right corner. Here you have six smaller slots for sponsors. As before, you need to click the "Get Offers" button and then wait. The money you get from these is a lot smaller than that of the main sponsors. The rest is basically the same as for the main sponsors. NOTE that the amount of money you get is proportional to your rating (although there is still a bit of margin between the lowest and the highest offer you can receive). Basically, as with most other things in Dugout, you need to use a bit of logic and common sense while deciding which offer you'll refuse and which you'll accept.
Team Events
The last of the icons in Management page is the Calendar icon. On the top you have two pull-down menus - Month and Year. This is so that you can look over the games that are still to come and those that have passed. The calendar contains all your scheduled games and it also has another feature - you can arrange 9 different team events. To do this, click on the "Click here to arrange an event" text. This leads you to another window that has 9 options with radio buttons in front of them. So let's see what these are;
Organize a local youth tournament
... and send a scout to look for local talented youngsters - By selecting this you organize a youth tournament in your area. Sometimes, if you are lucky, a talented youngster will show up. He will then (of course) be persuaded to join your youth setup. NOTE that this is not always so. You could hold 4 such tournaments with no results or you could get lucky the first time. Also take into consideration that this is a "local" event and after a number of tournaments you will see all the youngsters who are there - or to put it another way, holding more than 4 of these events per season is just a waste of your money!.
Organize a team and staff meeting in a local restaurant
- A joyful occasion for the whole club. Maybe to celebrate a good place in the league or in the cup. Will boost Morale if used at the proper time. Also note, that the morale boost is lowered for each consequent restaurant event you use in one season.
Organize a team and staff crisis meeting
- Things going badly for you? Almost the bottom of the league and still falling? Organize a crisis meeting to rally your troops. If successful, the Morale will lift. NOTE however, that organizing a crisis meeting for no reason at all, will most likely lower your players' Morale, so only organize this if you lost at least 3 official senior games in a row!
Day off for ... players (6 different events)
Want to give your players some rest after a hard season or maybe just a hard week or even a hard day? - then use this option(you can select who will have the day off, you can base this decision on the amount of the player's condition, etc..).