The contract clauses inserted into Pompey transfer deals - according to Football Manager 2024: gallery

Pompey's summer transfer business so far looks to be a masterstroke, with John Mousinho’s side top of the League One standings.

Transfer fees were paid for Christian Saydee, Terry Devlin, Anthony Scully and Kusini Yengi, while Will Norris, Conor Shaughnessy, Jack Sparkes, Ben Stevenson, Gavin Whyte, Regan Poole and Ryan Schofield were all picked up for free. Abu Kamara, Alex Robertson and TIno Anjorin, meanwhile, came in on season-long loans from Norwich City, Manchester City and Chelsea respectively.

A lot goes on behind the scenes to make a transfer happen, with some not as straightforward as you would think. Some clubs like to structure deals in instalments and pay a transfer fee over a few months or years.

In addition, there’s also some bonuses that can be included in a player’s contract - like winning the league, being called up for your country or the amount of games that they play.

Sports Interactive’s popular Football Manager series tries to replicate the real-life world as best as it can, and has a dedicated team of researchers who try to reflect what is actually happening outside of your computer or laptop screen.

Real-life football managers and players such as Alex McLeish, David Moyes, Ole Gunnar Solksjaer and Wayne Rooney have admitted using it to help find players. It’s also been a resource tool to help national team managers find which uncapped players who are eligible to represent their country.

When you load up the game and choose your specific team, you can explore all kinds of things and there is a ‘Clauses’ section on the transfers tab, which throws up some interesting information.

We must stress that this is only based of the game, and may not be a real reflection of how deals are actually structured.

Here, we take a look at the intriguing payment plans and/or sell-on clauses inserted into the transfer contracts of those currently at Pompey players - again, according to FM24!