yes because if you promote to the next level you lose 20% of the quality of each player so your team becomes weaker than most are in the next level. People tank their teams so that by not promoting they keep their team at the same percentage it was, example say your team is 120% that's a very good team, then you promote to the next level suddenly your team is worth 100% so now you will compete with teams ( where managers spent a lot of money and tokens the season before and their team say was 140% now it's 120% so you will compete against teams that are in that range and therefore your team will suck, in addition as I started saying say a manager has a team at 120% and puts all its best players in the reserves and plays only with the actual reserves, loses most of the games and finishes between the last 4 and 10th place they do not promote and do not lose 20%, therefore, they stay in that level with a team that is still 120% then you come along and had a team at 120% but because you promoted to the next level now it's 100% and therefore you will compete against stronger teams all the time and unless you now spend money and tokens you will continue to suck. That's how it works. So if you want to keep your team at a competitive level you need to resign yourself to suck for a season not promote and retain the good quality players by playing the worse but then next season you will still have a competitive team otherwise spend or suck. Remember though that if you do not promote or finish under 8th place you will not be able to receive your association rewards. Basically, that is your punishment for tanking the team but be careful when you do it because unless you fall under 10th place they may promote you just the same and take 20% off your team just the same they did it to me, I arrived 9th and they still pushed me in the next level, still took away my 20% and I lost the association rewards for the next season. They can still find a way to screw you