Rule 9A - A club may Transfer a player to another club in the same League using the Transfer order. The Transfer order can only be used in the Draft process and from rounds 1-15 inclusive. Each club is allowed one Transfer order per round, non-cumulative. There is no cost involved in Transferring. A player subject to a Transfer order cannot compete for any club nor can he be purchased using the BuyUP order in that round.

In most cases a Transfer will be part of a deal struck between 2 clubs. A simple example would be the purchase of a player from one club by another. Let's say Club A agrees to sell a player to Club B for $400,000. Having reached agreement, Club B uses the Pay order to transfer $400,000 to Club A, and Club A uses the Transfer order to move the player to Club B. It's important to remember that you can't use the Transfer order to specify a deal. You can't "Transfer J Coleman to Club B for $400,000." The Transfer order only allows you to nominate the player and the club to which he is being treansferred. Have a look back at Rule 3B to refresh your memory.

The other significant factor in the Transfer Order is that during the round when the order is made, the player involved can't play for either club. But neither can he be poached, and as we discussed in Section 8, that can be a tactical advantage.

For such a straight-forward rule, the Transfer order brings up all sorts of interesting scenarios, which we will now discuss. The first involves the Transfer Limit.

Rule 9B - Each club may Transfer a maximum of 2 players per year to each other club. A Transfer order that would cause a club to exceed the Transfer Limit is not processed.

This is essentially a safeguard against any attempt to create a superteam by 2 or more clubs combining their players. You can Transfer 2 players to every club in your league if you like, but you cannot transfer more than 2 players to the same club in each calendar year. Note the use of the term calendar year instead of season. Transfers occurring during the Drafts count towards the Transfer limit. And there is a second safeguard.

Rule 9C - Sim Football retains the absolute right to refuse to process any order that it considers to be anti-competitive.

That may sound a bit heavy-handed, and you may not have even thought of the idea of creating a superteam. But it's a fact that an attempt was made in 1993, aided by the claim that there was nothing in the fledgling rules to prevent it. There is now. This rule covers any type of transaction, and particular attention is paid to transfers of large amounts of cash for which there is little apparent compensation. Transfers of Draft Selections are also monitored.

Because there are a number of ways to acquire a player, we need to specify the order in which players are added to a Squad.

Rule 9D - Players are added to a Squad in the following order of transactions - Bid, Draft, BuyUP, BuyFA, Transfer In. If any acquisition would cause a club to exceed its Squad Limit or Salary Cap, or a club would remain over the Salary Cap after the acquisition, the relevant transaction is not processed.

This is basically an extension of Rules 7A & 7B. A club may be in a position to acquire 3 or 4 players in the same week or round. For example, let's say Aliens have done a deal to buy B Crosby from Tigers, have Bid on W Stills who was a PID from the previous round, and have made a BuyFA order for G Nash. And let's say their Bid is the highest, their BuyFA order is unopposed, the Transfer comes in as expected, and the OOM Values of Crosby, Stills and Nash are $200,000, $300,000 & $450,000 respectively. And finally, let's say Aliens have 31 in their Squad with an OOM Value of $9,300,000.

Clearly Aliens cannot take all 3 players, as they would exceed the Squad Limit of 33 and also exceed the Salary Cap of $10,000,000. So who do they get? By using Rule 9D we can work it out like this. Bid - had the highest Bid, so Aliens are able to sign Stills. That takes the Squad to 32 and $9,600,000. Draft - not applicable. BuyUP - not applicable. BuyFA - was the only club to nominate Nash so are able to sign him. BUT! His OOM Value of $450,000 added to the Squad Value of $9,600,000 would take Aliens over the Salary Cap. End of story - the BuyFA order is not processed, Nash remains a Free Agent and Aliens keep their $50,000. Transfer In - Because the BuyFA order didn't get processed, there is still room in the Squad and Crosby's OOM Value of $200,000 doesn't cause Aliens to exceed the Salary Cap, so Crosby is signed.

That sort of scenario is very rare but it can happen, so there must be a rule to cater for it. The order in which players are signed is designed to reflect the relative importance of the types of acquisitions. A Bid for a PID comes first because an owner clearly wants to sign a player if he/she is willing to pay more than the going rate. The Drafts are a fundamental part of the season and rank second. A BuyUP order is considered the next highest priority because - on average - it costs far more than any other type of acquisition. BuyFa comes next because you are basically paying the lowest price. Transfers In are processed last for two reasons. First, because they are the transactions that are most likely to be able to be repeated the next week. Most Transfers are a part of a deal, so if you fail to sign a transferred player, you can have the transferer repeat the order the next week, while you Delist a player to make room. Secondly, the threat of a "Sabotage-Transfer" is eliminated. A club could potentially disrupt an opposition club by transferring an unwanted player, thereby filling the opposition's Squad and preventing them from recruiting a player - say a PID. Because Transfers In are processed last, it ensures all legitimate orders are processed first.

That covers just about every possibility involved in the signing of a player, but how do you get rid of one? There are 2 ways a club can dispose of a player. We've just discussed the Transfer order, so all that remains is the Delist order.

Rule 9E - A player may be removed from a club's squad by using the Delist order. Players can be Delisted via the Bulk Delist process prior to the start of each season, or via the Delist order on the Teamsheet at any time. Each club is allowed one Delist order per round, non-cumulative. The Delisting club receives $25,000 in compensation from the SFL and the Delisted player becomes a Free Agent.

To Delist a player is to give him the flick. There are numerous reasons to get rid of a player, including long-term injury, Salary Cap problems or the fact that your boom recruit has turned out to be a complete hack. Whatever the reason, you automatically reduce your Squad number, OOM Value and Wages bill, effective the week the Delist order is made.

Finally, one last rule directly involving player movements.

Rule 9F - The Delist order is the first transaction processed in any week or round. A player who is Delisted is removed from the squad before any other orders are processed.

This simply means that any Delist order reduces your Squad Number and OOM Value before any acquisition orders are processed. For example, you have a full Squad of 33 and want to buy a Free Agent next week. You identify a player in your Squad you don't need, Delist him, and make a BuyFA order. Because the Delist order is processed first, the BuyFA may proceed because the Squad has already been reduced to 32.

As mentioned at the end of Section 8, we are now going to tie all the player-related issues together - Buys, Transfers, Delists, Contracts and The Squad.

By now you will be understanding that just about everything in Sim Football is inter-related. If you Buy a Free Agent you increase your List, increase your Squad OOM Value, increase your Wages bill and, if you Contract the player, increase your Contract Pool. Having the player may also increase your chances of winning a match, which in turn increases your Membership, which in turn increases the Gate receipts, which means you have more money to spend on players... and so on it goes.

We have seen how player acquisitions - Draft, Buy & Transfer In - affect the ability of a club to stay within the Squad Limit and Salary Cap. And how player disposals - Delist and Transfer - have the opposite effect. We have seen that higher OOM Value players cost more in Wages and Contract payments. And we have seen how clubs can trade players, and also protect them from poaching.

There is no Golden Rule that works better than any other when it comes to managing your Squad. It depends on many factors - are you near the Squad Limit or Salary Cap? Can you afford your Wages and Contract costs? Are you about to go In The Red? Are you in a rebuilding phase, or able to splurge to try and buy a flag? Everything must be taken into consideration. Which finally brings us to the discussion - To Contract or not to Contract?

A few bits of basic common sense apply. If you Buy a Free Agent (cost $50,000) with an OOM Value of $50,000 (an AFL first-year player for example), it would be silly not to Contract him because any other club could use the BuyUP order to take him off you for $50,001. To Contract the player would cost $1,650 spread over 22 weeks.

If you have players on your list that you can't afford to lose, you Contract them. It's as simple as that. If you absolutely don't want to lose the player, you pay the price of the contract. Then you can sleep easy.

That covers the common sense bits. The rest is up to you. To give you an idea of the tactics involved in Contracting and managing your Squad, I will explain, as owner of Aliens, what I had to consider when deciding what to do with Alistair Lynch at the start of Season 2000. His stats from the previous season didn't Qualify him to play anywhere in the Corridor, which meant I had to use him elsewhere, and by playing at full-forward for Brisbane, he was unlikely to gather sufficient scoring stats other than marks and goals. He wasn't an important player for me, his OOM Value was $218,801, he was 31 and there was still a chance that chronic fatigue would again severely disrupt his season. In addition, Aliens were broke and near the bottom of the ladder. The first thing I wasn't going to do was Contract him. If someone wanted to pay me $220,000 then let the good times roll! (No one did). Then there was the question of whether I Delist him or not. The compensation of $25,000 was tempting and I would also have saved more than $24,000 in Wages over the year. In effect, it was worth nearly $50,000 to get rid of him. In the end I decided that he had looked pretty good near the end of the previous season, he was still a quality player when he got on the field, and I could always play him at I2 where he should score a goal at least every now and then. Plus I had a severe shortage of players and needed everyone I could muster.

As it turns out, I made the right decision. Lynch scored quite a few goals at I2 and also at FP2, and Qualified for FF in Season 2001. However I would have also been happy if somebody had bought him off me for $220,000 because I needed the money at the time and could have used some of it to buy 3 or 4 Free Agents. The worst decision would have been to Delist him. So you can see how many things you need to consider and balance when deciding who you keep and who you Delist, who you Contract and who you don't. In the case of Lynch, by leaving him Uncontracted I was basically hanging a "For Sale" sign around his neck.

Now consider "The Strange Case of Barnaby French" which unfolded in Season 1999. It started simply enough with Coodabeens using the BuyFA order to sign French for $50,000. Being a first-year player, his OOM Value was $50,000. In the 2 rounds following, Coodabeens failed to submit a Teamsheet and had obviously forgotten that French was still Uncontracted. Devils (who had intended signing French the week after Coodabeens did) then signed French for $50,001 using the BuyUP order. This was not to the liking of Coodabeens, who retaliated by placing a BuyUP order for French the following week. It turned out Devils were somewhere in the middle of the desert in WA and couldn't lodge their Teamsheet, so Coodabeens again signed French, this time for $50,001. Of course Devils tried the old double-reverse payback poach the following week, but Coodabeens finally managed to get their paperwork in order, and Contracted French.

The management of your Squad is vitally important. Every aspect of your club's operations are affected by how your squad is handled. You need good players to win games, but the good players cost more and put strain on the Salary Cap. You need depth to cover injuries but the more players you have, the more it costs. I could go on and on but I think you will have got the point by now. Everything is connected to everything. And money pokes it's head into most aspects of Sim Football, which unfortunately is exactly the same situation as that in the AFL. Like it or not, money talks in footy - Sim and AFL. So let's talk Sim money.