Long term planning and boardroom requests

I usually play a journeyman save, so the long-term health of my clubs didn't concern me but this year I'm sticking with one team.

So, what's the priority for boardroom requests?

Youth facilities, general training facilities or stadium improvements?

If im planning a long term save I usually go for youth and try to hunt out regens and train them up. So thats what I'd say first. Depending on your team stadium improvements are not important. united for example dont need a new stadium. But getting MK Dons to the Prem you probably will if you see what im saying. Saying that once my game gets full of regens i usually quit and start again, not a fan of playing with players that arn't real

Average attendance was 91% last season, with 13 sell-outs, so it's getting pretty full up.

Average attendance was 91% last season, with 13 sell-outs, so it's getting pretty full up.

ahhhh right I see, who are you playing as and have you been promoted division etc etc? Youth facilities are a lot easier to get upgraded than a stadium upgrade so you have more chance of that suceeding and it's useful, but as you said 91% attendance 13 sell outs, can't really argue with that. I've not yet managed to get a stadium upgrade. (Owners are tight fisted ********)

Fortuna Sittard, started off as Div 2 no-hopers, after four duff seasons promoted as champions, and our reputation went whoosh! through the roof. Then finished 5th and won the Dutch Cup so European football next year (another rarity for me.)

Meanwhile, my regen quality has gone down the toilet.

My preference is to go for youth training. On the other hand, bigger stadium = more money = more money for upgrade.

Training facilities first for me since it will improve faster the players you sign which you can sell later to improve everything else.

Training facilities > Stadium > Youth Facilities IMO.

I enjoyed a save with Fortuna Sittard on FM11(gulpen was a great prospect), the dutch league is fun though i hated the european places playoffs

That's the EXACT opposite of what I thought. Now I am confused.

(Yeah, well, Gulpen's currently playing in the German THIRD Division after refusing to sign a contract. Explanations will be gratefully accepted.)

My point of view is that the youth facilities only affect the players under a youth contract and the quality of your regens, unless you are using mostly the products of your academy it's better to invest in the training facilities since they affect the training quality of all the players under professional contracts.

That way, all the players you've signed that are older than 17 will develop faster and improve your team and make good sales as well, after you have top training facilities then you can start investing in your youth facilities and academy.

Just my opinion

Depends on the general financial health of your club of course. Stadium expansions / builds are expensive, so you need to be very much in the black before the board will agree to an expansion. In addition, as hinted at by robertcornell68, you generally need to have a track record of having filled your stadium for at least 1 season to at least 90% of its capacity before the board will consider any sort of upgrade, so given that really you'll not be looking to do this until season 2, I would put the stadium requests last on the list. (As an aside, stadium upgrades can impact on your transfer budget, so if you have a first team you plan to re-mould with transfer market activity, then stadium needs to wait).

The toss up between Youth and 1st team training facilities then really depends on your attitude to youth development. If you decide youre going to try to consistently bring youngsters through and get away with minimal transfer market activity, then you need to start improving youth facilities straight away if they arent already top notch, otherwise you could be waiting a while before your youth strategy starts paying dividends (also look for options regarding investment in youth recruitment, so that youre attracting the best possible quality newgens).

If youre not so fussed about delving deeply into youth recruitment / development, then upgrading your 1st team training facilities is the logical thing to do.

i try and get a merchandising affiliation first as well as youth facilities. I usually start with villa and their training facilities are top notch so don't need to worry about them. On previous versions I have been easily able to find a merchandising club first but on fm12 they don't seem to find 1 until end of 2nd season.

Training facilities are usually my first priority too.

Just recently I managed to sell a player for 2.1 million Dkk after having him in my club for about 2 or 3 seasons. I bought him initially for 240k Dkk.. The player was happy too since he had a 10% earning cleause on the sale

I admit I invest in youth when I got nothing else to do, but usually I just get my young players from all over the world via my extensive scouting network. I like scouts working all the time seeking out players that are below 30 years of age, and specifially targeting tournemants with youngsters for scouting as well. You can get some great deals that way, especially cause the youngsters don't demand as extragavant salaries as established players do.

The stadium? I wish I could, but my board seems stuck in 'we can do with renting a stadium rfom someone else" mentality... Even thought that means I only got 1400 attendance to my home champions cup games -.-

It's a disgrace towards the fans, but they don't care. They feel the club is working in an acceptable manner :-/

My point of view is that the youth facilities only affect the players under a youth contract and the quality of your regens, unless you are using mostly the products of your academy it's better to invest in the training facilities since they affect the training quality of all the players under professional contracts.

That way, all the players you've signed that are older than 17 will develop faster and improve your team and make good sales as well, after you have top training facilities then you can start investing in your youth facilities and academy.

Just my opinion

I never actually thought of that, training facility improvements here i come

i try and get a merchandising affiliation first as well as youth facilities. I usually start with villa and their training facilities are top notch so don't need to worry about them. On previous versions I have been easily able to find a merchandising club first but on fm12 they don't seem to find 1 until end of 2nd season.

What's a merchandise affiliation?