Salary Cap & Budget

Managing a club means managing two very different pots of money. Keep them straight and you’ll never get caught out.

The salary cap (wages)

Your salary cap is the total wage bill your roster is allowed to carry:

• Team salary cap: $1,200,000 across your whole roster.
• Highest individual wage: $192,500. No single player can earn more than this.
• Lowest individual wage: $24,000.

Every player on your books counts against the cap for as long as he’s there. Sign a player and his wage is added; release or trade him and it comes off.

Stay under the cap to play

You must be under the salary cap to field a team. If your wage bill is too high, the Schedule will warn you and you won’t be able to play your match until you get compliant — usually by moving a player on. Don’t let it sneak up on you.

Because no one player can earn much more than a good regular’s wage, you can’t simply stack your roster with superstars — the cap forces you to balance quality across the whole squad.

The transfer budget (your war chest)

Your transfer budget is completely separate from wages. It’s the cash you spend on transfer fees to sign players from the market:

• You start with $2,000,000 to spend.
• Each offseason adds another $2,000,000 on top of whatever you didn’t spend.
• Your banked budget can grow up to a ceiling of $10,000,000.

Wages come out of the cap; fees come out of the budget. A player you sign hits both pots — a fee now, and his wage against your cap for as long as you keep him.

Build a war chest

Because unspent money carries over year to year (up to the ceiling), a frugal season sets up a big one later. Bank your budget through a rebuilding year and you can strike hard in the market when your club is ready to contend.

The two pots at a glance

	Salary Cap	Transfer Budget
Pays for	Player wages	Transfer fees to sign players
Limit	$1.2M total roster	Up to $10M banked
Refills	As players join/leave	+$2M every offseason
Must stay under it?	Yes — to field a team	Yes — a fee can’t exceed your balance