[NoOne]

think Syd hit it on the nail as to the cause.. .and staying away from "why?" or whether it hsould happen..

for whatever reason, if not the manager, the player under normal circumstances outside of arbitration doesn't want to sign with you.. it'smerely checking that qualification at the 'wrong' time in the code or lacks a qualification denoting club control years etc... semantical error somewhere.

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out of how many players that have rolled through arbitration, it can be expected at least a few irrational people have been involved in the process. it's illogical to try to prove non-existence, so anything along those lines is fallacious reasoning. if it hasn't happened, it will likely happen at some point, if given enough time.

even still, this is likely just a symantical error (very lightly used 'error') in the code, which has virtually zero effect ont the game in any way besides some ocd to avoid arbitration. probably saves you money more often than not if you put in a 'good' arbitration offer.