There are 3 ways I can think of, and all are cheating. You can use FMRTE and add transfer and wage budget money (to convert into transfer money) or to adjust the club's asking value of the player; use the Data Editor to lower the players Reputation which will lower the value of the player, but will not effect his Personal Stats or just simply add the best players to your club and start with a world class team; or in your game you use the "Add a Manager" function and add a Manager in a club like Man City that have a lot of transfer money available, tell the board you'll win the league, adjust the wage budget to add more transfer money, then you make huge bids for all your weak players (which you will except when you play with your club) to add even more transfer money to your club, or you add a manager to a club like Real Madrid and make 0 bids for Kaka and Ronaldo etc, and when you play as the Real Madrid manager, you lower their club status to "transfer listed" and "not needed by club". So when you play with your club, and you offer them a contract, they will sign for you. I dont like cheating and I dont do it, but this is what you can do if you want to, and some people probably do.
There is another sneaky way of getting good players (that is legal) but unfortunately only works with a player playing in a club with a lower reputation then your club. Case study: Edin Dzeko (prime example).
You interact with the player in the media and praise him like crazy (Dont overdo it too much as he'll grew tired of your comments). Later on you'll become one of his favourite personnel. Now here is the tricky bid as in previous versions of FM the player became unsettled and wanted to leave, but this dont work a lot in your favour in FM2010: You make a huge bid for the player that you know the club will except. Then you offer him a huge contract and just when the transfer must go through, you cancel (This also wards off clubs like Chelsea that are interested in Dzeko). Sometimes Wolfsburg offer Dzeko a new contract after this, sometimes they dont. If they do, just repeat the above the whole season (and praise him every once in a while). At the end of the season Dzeko will tell Wolfsburg he wants to move and Wolfsburg will offer him to you for what his value is at that time. The badder Wolfsburg did in the Bundesliga, the lower his value wil be. I got him for 7.5mil.
Other then this there is no other way of getting a world class player for cheap in the first season that I can think of. You can get Ribery at the starting of the 3rd season on a free transfer as his contract runs out at the end of the second season, but you start to watch him from December of the second season for when starts contract talks with Bayern, just to praise him some more to unsettle him, and you must not be in a club with a low reputation, etc.