As a season comes to a close many of us have quite a bit of available money for IFAs and so we are having bidding wars for guys who are marginal MLers at best and the following scenario happened to me twice:

IFA:  "You've been out bid. Give me more money!"

Me:  "Here you go!  More money!"

IFA:  "I don't think I am going to be able to live up to the expectations of that money. I am going to sign right away with this other guy for less money."

WTF!!!
Something is wrong with this picture.  Did either player deserve the money they are getting, no.  If they would have been available early in the season they probably get less than half of what they ended up with.  But this still seems screwed up for them to ask for more money, get it offered, and then back out and sign for less.

What is your suggestion?

If they are going to ask for more money, they should accept more money.

There's a limit and my assumption is the limit is set so owners cannot "waste" cash with "oversigning".   This isn't new.   Happened to me in S1 of the 2nd world I joined.    Well, not so much happened to me as much as I benefitted from it.    We get the "My client only wants a 1 year deal" also.   I assume for the same reason.

I can see it for multi-year ML contracts, as a safeguard against crippling a franchise with a bad contract in future seasons for an undeserving player.

But if you're only talking about current season bonus money . . . limiting the cash probably serves less of a purpose.

A weak attempt to prevent transfer/tanking?

Point is, there has to be a limit where the IFA says "Whoa.  I'm only signing for this much."    I think OE was outbid by a mil or two then maybe jacked his offer by 5m   Then, when getting the message, lowered it below the other offer and lost the guy.

It's like I've said before, a player has to sign at some point.   FA have a limit, why shouldn't IFA?

In the last case, I was leading on the guy at $17M. I get a message that he wants more money. The very next cycle I bump to $20M and lose right away as he rejects me and signs for $17.4M.

That's kind of my point.    His limit was 17.4m.    I suppose you could have dropped to 19m then 18.5m then 18.2m and so on.   But, again, he has to sign sometime.   

But why have a limit when this is a one-time expenditure?  It harms my franchise more to have unused dollars than to overspend and at least get something.

Same reason you can't give out 50m bonuses to FA.  

Well with the fuzzier scouting, here is the new exploit to find good Ifa's with lower scouting dollars. Offer them 20m or more on the first cycle. If they reject, they aren't worth it and if they accept they are good.