FIFA 22 Best Pre-Contract and Free Agent Signings: Where to find the best free transfers

The sweetest things in life are always free

Guide by James Billcliffe Guides Editor

Published on Oct. 14, 2021

For a few years in FIFA, pre-contract signings were incredibly overpowered.

After just half a season, your mediocre mid-table team could pillage the benches of Europe’s top clubs and stack their squad with players that would usually be far outside of their financial capability for the upcoming year.

In FIFA 22 pre-contract signings are much rarer, but can be just as powerful when taking your team to the next level.

This year, teams are much, much more proactive in tying down their wantaway talent before they leave for nothing. So while lots of fantastic players have just months left on their deals, most, if not pretty much all of them will likely sign on the dotted line before you even have a chance to tempt them away.

However, even though the best pre-contract signings in FIFA 22 require a lot of luck, there will hopefully still be some interesting deals to strike in the first season.

As for free transfers, they’re just as fickle and you will likely have to wait until you’re a few seasons deep before finding anyone worth snagging.

How to make pre-contract signings in FIFA 22

To contract a player to your club for the upcoming season without paying a transfer fee, you have to find a player whose contract expires at the end of the current season.

Then once you reach the January transfer window, you can approach them from your Transfer Hub and directly offer them a new contract.

You can tell which players have just a few months remaining on their contract, because when you search their name in the transfer tab, it will say “Contract Expiring in [however many] months” under their match fitness and morale.

To identify which players have their deals up in the summer, go to your Global Transfer Network Scout Instructions in the Transfers tab of the Career Mode menu.

Set Position, Attributes, and Age to Any, then reduce the Contract field to 0-1. This will give you an updating list of the players with less than a year on their deal.

If you get players in there who don’t have the “Contract Expiring…” tag, it means their contract either expires in the following winter, or they renegotiated their terms after they were added to your list.

Another thing you need to bear in mind, is that you can only sign players older than 23 on a pre-contract deal.

In January, all you need to do is select the desired player in the Transfer Hub and go through the normal contract negotiations.

However, while this mechanic was very overpowered in previous FIFA games, it seems to have been quite aggressively nerfed in FIFA 22. Most players with only a short time left on their deal seem to renegotiate well before the transfer window when you can approach them.

This is especially true of improving players and can be a bit frustrating. The best thing to do is track all of the players you’re even slightly interested in, then cross your fingers and don’t look again until the first day of the January window. Then after Christmas, open up the transfer menu and see who’s still available.

While most of the players you can sign on pre-contracts tend to be on the wrong side of 30, you can still add some 80+ rated players to your squad this way.

How to sign Free Agents in FIFA 22

Just like pre-contract signings are mostly re-signed by their current clubs, the best free agents get snapped up almost instantly.

To get the top deals, you will need to search the free agents pool on literally the first day or first couple of days of any transfer window.

If you see a player you like, you’re able to go through the normal contract negotiations without jumping through any more hoops.

However, the real utility of the free agents pool isn’t to sign genuine players, but powerful regens FIFA populates your save with as older players retire.

Once you’ve completed a couple of seasons, scour the free agents pool immediately on the first day of the new season to see if there are any good new players with good stats to be found - there are some real gems sometimes.

The best pre-contract signings in FIFA 22

Like we mentioned, it’s very likely that most of these players will have signed a new deal with their clubs by the time you’re allowed to approach them. But add any that you’re interested in to your transfer targets and you could get lucky - there are some great players potentially up for grabs.

FIFA 22 Pre-contract Signings
Player Name	Age	Team	Position	Overall	Potential
Luis Suarez	34	Atletico Madrid	ST	88	88
Paulo Dybala	27	Piemonte Calcio	CF, CAM	87	88
Paul Pogba	28	Man U	CM, LM	87	87
Angel Di Maria	33	PSG	RW, LW	87	87
Luka Modric	35	Real Madrid	CM	87	87
Lorenzo Insigne	30	Napoli	LW, CF	86	86
Edinson Cavani	34	Man U	ST	85	85
David Silva	35	Real Sociedad	CAM, CM	85	85
Thiago Silva	36	Chelsea	CB	85	85
Franck Kessie	24	Milan	CDM, CM	84	86
Marcelo Brozovic	28	Inter	CDM, CM	84	84
Felipe	32	Atletico Madrid	CB	84	84
Matthias Ginter	27	Borussia Monchengladbach	CB	84	85
Josip Ilicic	33	Bergamo Calcio	CF, ST	84	84
Fernando	33	Sevilla	CDM, CM	84	84
Dries Mertens	34	Napoli	CF, ST, CAM	84	84
Ousmane Dembele	24	Barcelona	RW	83	88
Andrej Kramaric	30	Hoffenheim	ST, CAM	83	83
Antonio Rudiger	28	Chelsea	CB	83	84
Juan Cuadrado	33	Juventus	RB, RM	83	83
Sergio Asenjo	32	Villarreal	GK	83	83
Alex Witsel	32	Borussia Dortmund	CDM, CM	83	83
Niklas Sule	25	Bayern	CB, RB	82	87
Alessio Romagnoli	26	Milan	CB	82	83
Isco	29	Real Madrid	CAM, CM, LW	82	82
Alexandre Lacazette	30	Arsenal	ST	82	82
Jesus Corona	28	Porto	RM, RB, RW	82	82
Yuri Berchiche	31	Bilbao	LB	82	82
Gareth Bale	31	Real Madrid	RM, RW	82	82
Lorenzo Pellegrini	25	Roma	CAM, CM, CDM	81	86
David Soria	28	Getafe	GK	81	82
Darwin Machis	28	Granada	LM, RM, ST	81	81
Andrea Belotti	27	Torino	ST	81	82
Adnan Januzaj	26	Real Sociedad	RW, RM	81	81
James Tarkowski	28	Burnley	CB	81	82
Hector Herrera	31	Atletico Madrid	CM	81	81
Jiri Pavlenka	29	Werder Bremen	GK	80	82
Denis Zakaria	24	Borussia Monchengladbach	CDM, CB	80	86
Jonathan Rodriguez	27	Cruz Azul	ST, LW	80	80
Jason Denayer	26	Lyon	CB	80	83
Corentin Tolisso	26	Bayern	CM, CDM	80	81
Andreas Christensen	25	Chelsea	CB	80	85
Thomas Strakosha	26	Latinum	GK	80	83
Luiz Felipe	24	Latium	CB	78	85
Nicolas De la Cruz	24	River Plate	CM, CAM, LW	78	84
Robin Le Normand	24	Real Sociedad	CB	78	83
Cesar Montes	24	Monterrey	CB	75	83
Jeremie Boga	24	Sassuolo	LW, LM	77	83
Luis Romo	26	Cruz Azul	CDM, CB, CM	77	82
Zack Steffen	26	Man City	GK	77	82

The best free agents in FIFA 22

Again, as we said above, these players are often instantly re-assigned to new clubs, but it can be worth searching on the first day of your save if you need some extra talent.

FIFA 22 Best Free Agents
Player Name	Age	Positions	Overall	Potential
Toby Alderweireld	32	CB	83	83
Grzegorz Krychowiak	31	CDM, CM	80	80
Artem Dzyuba	32	ST	78	78
Magomed Ozdoev	28	CDM, CM	77	78
Aleksandar Dragovic	30	CB, RB	76	76
Viktor Claesson	29	CAM, LM, CM	76	76
Daler Kuzyaev	28	CM, RM, CDM	75	75
Vyacheslav Karavaev	26	RB	74	75
Laszlo Kleinheisler	27	CAM	73	73
Jakub Brabec	28	CB	73	73
Sebastian Szymanski	22	CAM, RM	73	81
Milos Degenek	27	CB, CDM	73	76
Matvey Safonov	22	GK	72	82
Daniil Fomin	24	CDM, CM	72	77
Andrey Mostovoy	23	LM, RM	69	75
Andras Schafer	22	CDM	68	79
Fran Karacic	25	RB	68	73
Michael Woud	22	GK	65	75
Elijah Just	21	LW, RW	65	76
Nando Pijnaker	22	CB	64	74
Marko Stamenic	19	CM, CDM, CAM	63	80
Charis Chatzigavriel	17	GK	58	84