Youth recruitment network

Is anyone able to tell me what factors are responsible for this.

I would expect it to be primarily reputation and this is the reason the board give me for not improving it but this does seem to be true.

Currently i'm playing as Budafok in Hungary in 2028. The youth facilities and training facilities are excellent + academy and top. My finances are £40 million and i have won the title for the last 8 years along with most of the cups in this period and reached the QF of the CL last year. In other words i am comfortably the richest and best side in Hungary. My youth recruitment network is just fairly basic.

However 4 Hungarian sides in top league have average networks and i have some feeder clubs (which i would assume are lower rep) with better networks, 2 of the them are above average!

As well as finances and reputation I think your chairman's ambition hidden attribute might have an effect on the chances of getting facilities upgraded.

have you tried:

Boardroom -> networking -> ask for youth recruitment network

have you tried:

Boardroom -> networking -> ask for youth recruitment network

Yes, its always been greyed out. by hovering the mouse over it, is how i know that 'the club have the best network possible for a club of our standing' which is what the board give as a reason and as i've explained above seems untrue.

I would also like to find out what factors comes into play when trying to upgrade youth recruitment network. Currently in 2025 with SAFFC in Singapore. I dominate the league, the domestic league cup, and even the continental cups. I've also had some good runs in the World Club Cup; usually i place 3rd, but I've also been the runner-up. I have 19(!) scouts constantly scouting every corner of the earth, I've got several feeder club, and top training and youth facilities that also includes an academy. But not once have I been able to request a recruitment network upgrade, my board always says that the club's got the best network possible, which really seems to be false.

Is there anyone who could shed some light on this subject?

I would also like to find out what factors comes into play when trying to upgrade youth recruitment network. Currently in 2025 with SAFFC in Singapore. I dominate the league, the domestic league cup, and even the continental cups. I've also had some good runs in the World Club Cup; usually i place 3rd, but I've also been the runner-up. I have 19(!) scouts constantly scouting every corner of the earth, I've got several feeder club, and top training and youth facilities that also includes an academy. But not once have I been able to request a recruitment network upgrade, my board always says that the club's got the best network possible, which really seems to be false.

Is there anyone who could shed some light on this subject?

What standard is your recruitment network? Bear in mind that this has nothing to do with your scouting network (unlike irl).

I think the game is telling you that for a club your size, you arent going to improve the youth you get in any further.

The next level of recruitment might be used by clubs such as Man Utd and Barcelona and you aren't a big enough club to get to this next level.

Youth recruitment network basically tells you how large pool of young players you have to choose from when you decide which of them you take into your academy. As such there's some important things to consider. For example, a team from London is likely to have a good youth recruitment network seeing that there's millions of people living in the area. A team from some small place however won't be able to ever have a good youth recruitment network seeing that there's not that many players around.

So you have to consider the location of a club and the amount of competition for the youth players in that area along with your reputation and facilities. If these things don't go your way then the best you can achieve might indeed be quite average.

(Not saying that I'm 100% right by the way.)

Menion,

The current status of my recruitment network is "Basic youth recruitment". I did not know scouting network had nothing to do with it, I've only read on other threads that people mention that when talking about recruiting networks.

bigdanio,

I believe it should be "fair" that I'm at least level with the clubs with similar reputation as my club. I do not expect to have the same network as United, Barca, etc., because obviously they are much larger than a Singaporean club will ever be. But at least one upgrade should be realistic.

deserter,

I have had the same thought. It would be realistic that the next Messi is unlikely to be found in Singapore, but there should still a chance though. I am a little uncertain how recruitment network works and if it's really neccesary to have it maxed out as much as possible. I thought it was linked to the amount of foreign players joining your team, but when I think about it, it could make sense that it is a factor of how good your talents are, rather than where they hail from. The Ivorian team ASEC has an extensive network, but only gets CIV newgens.

Although, despite not getting a network upgrade, my newgens are improving every year, which is somewhat relieving.

deserter,

I have had the same thought. It would be realistic that the next Messi is unlikely to be found in Singapore, but there should still a chance though. I am a little uncertain how recruitment network works and if it's really neccesary to have it maxed out as much as possible. I thought it was linked to the amount of foreign players joining your team, but when I think about it, it could make sense that it is a factor of how good your talents are, rather than where they hail from. The Ivorian team ASEC has an extensive network, but only gets CIV newgens.

Although, despite not getting a network upgrade, my newgens are improving every year, which is somewhat relieving.

To make it a little bit more chaotic:

I've read somewhere that having a good scouting knowledge from a country increases the chance of you getting a player of that country's nationality through your academy.

I've also read somewhere that the team's youth coaches (in addition to coaching players that have a youth contract) affect the quality of youth coming through your academy.

(Still a bunch of mights and mays naturally. I'm not sure we have a definitive answer anywhere.)

Good input, appreciate it. I've had several foreign youngsters entering my U18 team, although none of them really had any potential. They came from countries where my club had the best knowledge possible, so it would definitely seem scouting knowledge has an impact on where they are coming from.

I had a couple of great youth coaches for 3 or 4 years to see if there were any development on my intake. I did not notice anything out of the ordinary, but it could be that my youth coaches didn't have enough rep or abilities (I focused mainly on the working with youngsters stat when I hired them.)

Regarding YRN, I guess I'll just give it time. At the moment, I'm trying to build SAFFC to be an asian superclub, and YRN is basically the last thing I need. Can't leave just yet!

From previous FM's i've realised that the nationalities coming through are often the same as the coaches at the club. Some countries (like Belgium) also naturally have more foreign nationities come though. I also believe that youth coaches has a big effect on the standard of youths coming through, i have seen that as soon a particular coach leaves the standard of players coming dramatically decreases even while sometimes the facilities are increasing.

Deserter

You could be right regarding area and competition. My club is listed in the editor as being in Budafok (attraction 13), Budafok is a district in Budapest (attraction 20)!

the 3 other clubs in Hungary with a higher YRN had city attraction of 13-15 in the editor which i assume would not change. The competion for players would be fierce as a lot of clubs appear to come from and around Budapest.

interesting stuff, playing as celtic in my 5th year and i've only had scottish players, none any good. my scouting knowledge is good enough and my coaches are mostly english and good. But have only 1 scout.

I really hope FM can develop this part of the game.

interesting stuff, playing as celtic in my 5th year and i've only had scottish players, none any good. my scouting knowledge is good enough and my coaches are mostly english and good. But have only 1 scout.

I really hope FM can develop this part of the game.

I would think that scouting doesn't have much to do with the quality of your own regens.

You're missing the point.

Your club is never going to sign a wonderkid from Serbia - so why do you need a recruitment network to rival Barca and Chelsea when you are never going to be able to sign the players?

You're missing the point.

Your club is never going to sign a wonderkid from Serbia - so why do you need a recruitment network to rival Barca and Chelsea when you are never going to be able to sign the players?

Because there could be a chance that the wonderkid from Serbia starts with your club in the first place.

I would think that scouting doesn't have much to do with the quality of your own regens.

I'd agree it's just that it was mentioned earlier in the thread.

I'm beginning to think the youth coaches has an effect I've had dire youths for seasons straight and had 0 youth coaches, I'm going to sign a few now and see if the quality picks up in the next intake.

bigdanio,

YRN also increases the chance of getting high PA talents of the same nationality as the club. Recruiting a Serbian wonderkid isn't really as interesting to me as recruiting a Singaporean with 150~160 PA. From what I could see when playing around a bit with FMRTE, with YRN at 5 which it is right now, I could get a 130 with a combination of many re-loads and luck. With the YRN stat at 20, it was bringing in at least one 140-150 PA Singaporean newgen each time.

I'm also signing some youth coaches now to see if it affects the intake in any way.

I'm also signing some youth coaches now to see if it affects the intake in any way.

How did that turn out?