Foreigner problems in Ukraine, Croatia, etc ...

I noticed this huge gameplay problem after running 4 seasons with all European countries (many added, edited, some original).

In countries like Ukraine, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, who are not in the EU (in FM) have rules for max foreigners in match squads, but the AI ignores that and buys everything, ending up with a match squad including sometimes more than 10 15-16 year olds in the league.

First of all this ignoring is rediculous, it happens with the standard leagues without editing anything.

Also I think those rules aren't correct as in real life, I mean everyone except Ukrainians are foreigners in Ukraine, while in Belarus, Ukrainians and Russians aren't counted as foreigners (but the same problem exists, they just happen to buy more of those countries, or it's correctly coded that they buy according to the rules).

Anyway you can't manage a team in most of as the league standard is so low you can get better players just buy buying only natives, removing any domestic challenge.

Is this being looked at or did I miss topics?

I never have issues in Bulgaria and am quite active in testing whether that league with a few others are running right. I saw some issue with the number of imports in certain nations but they were more or less sorted by 10.2

Well I'm using 10.2 and Ukraine Premier League is the biggest joke in the game atm, hate to remake it myself, and like 4 other leagues to make it a bit fun, doubt it will be fixed in 10.3.

Tested a few games, one with only highest league, one with highest and lower, and one with original (no custom xml). All the same problems, even in the lower leagues they buy full foreign player squads in a matter of 3 seasons

These are some screenshots from random teams in the leagues in 2016 (not even the best teams)

Croatia

Hungary

Romania

Russia (only 2 not foreign in the full A squad !)

Slovakia

Slovenia

Ukraine

So no one else noticed this problem? Then i'm doing something wrong, can't start my Europe game with about 10 leagues being unplayble due to stupid player transfers.

They did it a lot in an extended Hong Kong database that I played on. In the bottom tier you arent allowed any foreigners at all, but some clubs were still trialling and signing tons of Argentinians and Brazilians...

IRL with croatia serbs and bosnians arnt considered foreigners they just need to show their national id cards to cross the 3 borders but in fm im not sure how it would work inc montenegro for the same 3 etc

Well in 2017, in Croatia, Serbians are considered foreigners in game. I don't know how it's IRL but the gameplay is ruined by the fact that the AI just ignores any foreigner rules in those countries. If we could just edit the league rules ... I made Bosnian, Montenegro league myself so they have no problem of course, I made some Homegrown rules as foreign rules really mess up if the AI just ignores it.

Post it in the bugs forum if you want it looked at

It definitely seems wrong to me.

Bulgaria is considered an official EU country in FM, for what it's worth. With that said, I've noticed something along the lines of this in my game as well, as I have the Bulgarian leagues loaded.

The top 3 teams in that league (Levski, CSKA Sofia, Litex) all have a ton of foreign (non-EU) players. The rules of the league state that the match squad must not have more then 5 non-EU players.

Here's a photo of Levski's team;

As you can see, only 1 Bulgarian player, which is funny, to be honest. The same scenario for the other 2 teams. They have players who hold dual citizenship (one of which is EU), however after taking a look at their tactic's screen, the majority of their players are left outside the match squad (first 11 and subs). It's a bit odd that the AI would consider doing this, buying foreigners and completely ignoring the domestic players.

Edit: What's even funnier is they manage to get most of their players a decent number of games via massive squad rotation. They've been the champions of the league for 6 consecutive seasons, so whatever they are doing is working, albeit wrong.

yea im in ukraine and i find that too, Dinamo Kiev are on the verge of relegation for filling their squad with non Ukrainians

How come some of those foreigners aren't considered foreign when others are?

not sure about other countries but any player in ukraine with out ukrainian nationality either first or second is classed as FGN

How come some of those foreigners aren't considered foreign when others are?

They've probably gained citizenship of that country which stops them counting as a foreign player. Been a blessing for me in the Ukraine. Same with getting many players from all over the place on a search filter of eu nationals. This thread reminds me of a time in 05 when I was in the Spanish D2B, where no non-eu players can be registered (at least back then, not sure about now) and one side had a turkish manager who bought a fair few turks even though they couldn't play.

Disappointed that this hasn't been fixed. Was a big issue in FM 2009 already.

How come some of those foreigners aren't considered foreign when others are?

They're hardcoded even you change completely a new status. Usually its about customs of countries or Agreements.... Like Turkey you can have in lower leagues Kazakhs, Turkmens, Azeris, Uzbeks not considered as foreigns even 2nd league, 3rd league and Amateurs have strict foreign restrictions....

In Italy some African players and in Scandinavia again some African players not counted as foreign....

How come some of those foreigners aren't considered foreign when others are?

Dual-citizenship. Either Bulgarian or from another EU country.

Strangely enough Bulgaria in mijn game does not have the problem so much as the other 7 countries I refered too. I just noticed when you just start the game, teams like Shakhtar already have problems from the start, it's just plain stupid.

Only just new to FM2010 (spent years on CM4) but it seems a similar situation to that version too.

I could get around 'the foreigner rules' by signing all the foreigners at exactly the same time.

Could get around the 'transfer budget' by signing players at exactly the same time (meaning my budget actually went into millions of deficit, as seen with an editor).

So maybe the AI here signs them all at same time too for the AI controlled teams

Same problem in South America as well. Brazilian teams signed tons of colombian, uruguayan, venezuelan etc players but league allows only 3 foreigners.

I brought up this issue earlier, it's clearly something wrong and I am glad others have taken notice. SI have said they have fixed the domestic player bias so hopefully teams will abide by their league's foregiener restrictions as well

Well for all the posts on here highlighting the issue I see not one post in the bugs forum raised for this......SI don't trawl the GQ forum looking for bugs.

It's just that this ruins it all, I mean why even load these nations ? Just tested it for a last time with loading all players for Ukraine, didn't change anything, check this is 2015 (this time with embedded image maybe it will raise some more eyebrows :

As you can see only 6 starting 11 spots are assigned, the rest is always filled by youth or greyed out players.

Here : 100% foreign in Russian league :

Have you logged a bug??

NO!!!!!

Raise the bug in the proper place to get it noticed......

I refer to my post above about SI not looking through GQ for bugs.

Erm yes I did, like a few days ago in Russian league thread, no idea where else.

The only way this gets solved is by attention so they will realise it's a real gameplay problem, and you are saying I have to be quiet because ... you never load these leagues or don't notice stuff like this?

Anyway it gets better, even GREYED spawns can be foreign :

I am not telling you to be quiet more to log it in the BUGS section under TRANSFER/CONTRACTS.....as this is what the BUG appears to be regarding. here is a link to where to post it to get it noticed

I logged this bug earlier

Yep, I raised this issue in the Bulgarian league thread - no reply from SI there, let's hope this gets fixed for 10.3

This is similar to how in the Dutch leagues, there's a minimum wage floor for non-EU players - it's something that's ridiculous for the second division clubs (like 7000 pounds a week), yet the small clubs keep buying Brazilians who aren't much better than what they have and, presumably, destroying their wage structures.

FM AI does not seem to recognize the nationalities of the players it buys; either that, or it's a problem with complicated league rules.

Yep, I raised this issue in the Bulgarian league thread - no reply from SI there, let's hope this gets fixed for 10.3

Good that more people are reporting this ! Strangely Bulgaria in my games does not have these problems as much, but at least 8 other nations have.

Even in countries without foreigner restrictions the sight of squads without native players is highly unpleasant.

Even in countries without foreigner restrictions the sight of squads without native players is highly unpleasant.

Like looking at an Arsenal squad irl =P.

I know in Croatia it doesn't take long to get nationality (2 years i believe, although i could be wrong). So when I have managed there I did usually have more foreigners than I could fit in a squad because I knew some would be taking citizenship when they qualified (and they are a lot more likely too when you have too many foreigners).

Good that more people are reporting this ! Strangely Bulgaria in my games does not have these problems as much, but at least 8 other nations have.

Bulgaria was actually one I was working on in Beta Testing as I raised issues with foreigners in this league and it took a lot of soaks to finally get to a point I was satisfied with.

I only picked this up in this league due to an ongoing issue with Polish transfer from FM09 and as I was assigned to Bulgaria this was something I focused on.

What are the feelings on Poland, Romania and Czech Republic from others as they were Leagues I also had running in my soaks.