Teams not using loaned players

St Etienne want to loan my highly promising regen. They tell me he will be a valuable member of the first team. So, knowing that he would only be a substitute for me this season (he played about half of last season's league games, mainly as a sub and would do the same this time), I think he might benefit from some serious first team experience in a good league (French First Division), I accept their bid.

Three months later, he has played one cup game and is not even registered for league games, despite having been fit the whole time. And there is no 'recall player' clause (my fault, this one, of course).

Has anyone else had this kind of problem?

All the time. There's something rotten with the loan system. When you have promising players about 19 years old that you tutored for 2-3 years and you have the feeling it’s time for them to get some first-team squad matches, the most realistic thing you want to do is to loan them to a lower league side or a side at the bottom of your league so that they can have a chance of being first team regular. But they always refuse, feeling they’re too good to be loaned, so the only hope is to loan them to big teams where most of the time they won’t play a single game in 6 months.

The only trick I found is to take control of another team, try to send the players on loan (takes hours to take control, wait for the answer, reload the game, pick up another team and try again) and manage that team for a full season using only the players you’ve sent there on loan. Useless to say this is so boring, extremely boring.

All the time, it has never been fixed. Players don't even go to your feeder clubs.

Well the problem here isn't that he refused to go, it's that he went and they aren't bothering to give him any game time despite having said he'd be a "valuable first team player".

But yeah, I have the other problem too...

I think the last time it used to work, as we all want it to work, was in FM 2004. Strange they changed that loan system, maybe it was working too well and your loaned players were getting experience too fast.

Is the French league that St. Etienne in (i.e., if they got relegated, then Ligue 2) active? It sounds like what happens when I send players on loan to teams without active leagues.

Is the French league that St. Etienne in (i.e., if they got relegated, then Ligue 2) active? It sounds like what happens when I send players on loan to teams without active leagues.

It's Ligue 1, it's active and it's playable. They just haven't bothered registering him to play in it.

if it's in an unplayable league, the players don't even have match experience other than cup matches.

Always a good idea to have the recall option..So you could call him back and offer him to other teams.

I've actually not had this problem. Players never play a full season's worth of games, especially in inactive leagues, but they do get a lot more games than they'd get under me.

The issue you might have had; in Ligue 1 you're only allowed to register 4 Non-EU players. Hence they may not have registered your player, in favour of their own.

I've actually not had this problem. Players never play a full season's worth of games, especially in inactive leagues, but they do get a lot more games than they'd get under me.

The issue you might have had; in Ligue 1 you're only allowed to register 4 Non-EU players. Hence they may not have registered your player, in favour of their own.

He's Spanish.