Youth recruitment

Hi,

I've been quite frustrated with the fact I can't improve my youth recruitment and so have looked back through the forum to try and work out why. I've read all the previous threads I can find and see a few issues that seem to need more clarification.

Firstly, this article discusses how youth recruitment was implemented in the game:

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opinion/blogs/football-manager-2010/Exclusive-Football-Manager-2011-blog-with-Miles-Jacobson-day-20-How-newly-generated-players-work-part-two-creating-the-stars-of-tomorrow-today-article620851.html

The article seems to make it quite clear that youth recruitment is related to catchment area, a fact that rarely seems to be commented on in the forum. Does anyone know how the catchment mechanics work? For example, I manage Droylsden. Does the fact that there are five Premier League clubs within a 25 mile radius (ish) of my stadium have a significantly negative impact on my own potential recruitment network? More worryingly, is the fact that Man City are within walking distance going to have a major impact?

How big is the impact of catchment areas? Sheffield United, Wednesday and Leeds all have youth academies and are within 40 miles. Does that affect me as well?

I would expect that catchment and reputation are interrelated but does anyone know that this is true? If you get a team from Kent into the Premier League would it be easier to upgrade your recruitment network? Once I make Droylsden the best team in the world will that have a negative impact on Manchester United's catchment area?

The second question relates to a comment in this thread:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/281463-Increase-youth-recruitment?highlight=recruitment

Stu Coleman says that to improve your youth recruitment "...your board will need to be committed to youth development ". Does anyone have any idea what this means? Is there an invisible 'youth development' stat somewhere? If so where? It would seem rather bizzare to me that my board, who have accepted nearly every request I've ever made to improve facilities and constantly agree that we should have an infastructure that enables our youth to flourish, should be dead set against the concept of recruiting young players - but I'm never even given the option to ask them.

Thirdly, game importance. In this thread:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/269930-Youth-Recruitment-Network?highlight=recruitment

it was confirmed that game importance affects your youth recruitment network. This makes some sense but seems to be a pretty badly implemented feature, as the comments from the rest of the thread discuss. This thread was from last year and it was suggested that many improvements would be made in the future. Does anyone know if game importance still works in the same way it used to and what its effect on youth recruitment is? I would expect that England are still considered 'highly important' but then again, it seems you can't rely on assuming the figures will reflect reality...

Finally, given the importance of geography in youth recruitment, can you compare recruitment networks? Does Man U's good network compare with a hypothetical Hungarian team with an identically described good network? Will they bring through similar numbers of young prospects? Also, does geography somehow have an impact on our ability to request improvements?

usually it comes down to what club you are managing in what leage. In a recent save on FM12 I was manager of Blyth. The board wouldn't expant the Scouting Range until I was in The Championship

Mind you I started in Blue Square North. So it took 4 years for them to expand it to Continental from just England/Scotland/Ireland/Wales

I'm asking about youth recruitment, which is nothing to do with scouting range as far as I'm aware - although to some extent the same principles may apply.

I've been manager of Droylsden for 10 years and have taken them from the Blue Square North to the Premier League and Europe. In all those years I've only once had the option to increase spending on youth recruitment, and the increase was so small that it's had no impact on the description of my facilities. From looking at other threads it seems this is far from a rare occurance.

In my staines save I have had it go up around 3-4 times. Mainly right after doing well in the leagues. I will say it is really rare to even get the option to talk about improving it which is annoying.

I think youth recruitment network improvement links to the location of the club. Size of the city, other clubs in the area etc. I may be wrong but always assumed this had something to with it.

Droylsden way to go mate!! I am on Droylsden too in my current save, 15 years and running. My main gripe is with the rented youth facilities, youth coaching and youth recruitment.

I have manage to upgrade the youth recruitment annually in the last 3 years. But never the facilities and youth coaching only twice. Currently its "average youth recruitment".

Not sure if this will help in your save, it seems that on my save the option to request an increase in youth recruitment spending only appears once a season. Usually right after the season ends and occasionally during the season in Nov/Dec. Cheers.

Not sure if this will help in your save, it seems that on my save the option to request an increase in youth recruitment spending only appears once a season. Usually right after the season ends and occasionally during the season in Nov/Dec. Cheers.

Maybe the logic behind is as following: at the end (or close to it) you get the intake of new youngsters. When you have a look at them and you seem not too impressed, you might want to expand your youth recruitment network, hence in this moment it's an available option. When the new season has started or anywhere else during the season, it doesn't make that much sense to ask to improve youth recruitment?

Maybe the logic behind is as following: at the end (or close to it) you get the intake of new youngsters. When you have a look at them and you seem not too impressed, you might want to expand your youth recruitment network, hence in this moment it's an available option. When the new season has started or anywhere else during the season, it doesn't make that much sense to ask to improve youth recruitment?

No, at the end of a season, if you have done better than expected your reputation will increase. Just like all other facilities upgrades are only available when the board believes that its current facilities are not good enough for the club's stature. There might be other factors to youth recruitment, but I haven't noticed anything that would allow me to come to a specific conclusion regarding that yet.

Yeah you have to increase your rep above a certain point to increase it, in FM11 i was only allowed to increase it after 19 seasons with Aberdeen.

I'm at Ipswich in the Premier League (season 2015-16), classed as "rich".

My facilities are:

Training - "Top"

Youth Facs - "Excellent"

Junior Coaching - "Adequate"

Youth Recruitment - "Fairly Basic"

Corporate - "Good"

Barely a month ago my youth facilites were upgraded, so perhaps that restricts what I might be able to do for the rest of the season, but...

I'd like to upgrade everything except my "top" training facilites and "excellent" youth facilites.

Junior coaching seems to be in the "Finance" section of the board request, but is greyed out. Does anyone know if this is greyed out because the youth facilites have been upgraded, or is the wrong time of year, or is there something else I need to be doing??

Youth Recruitment is in the "Networking" section, but the only options I have are to cut back!!! Anyone know why there are no options to improve it? The youth recruitment upgrade this season? The catchment area I'm in (what about when the Catergory One to Four rules come in - Cat One clubs will be able to recruit from anywhere)? Or is there something else?

Corporate Facilites upgrade I can't find anywhere. Probably these have no effect on the game.

As far as club reputation goes, I'm currently eighth in the list in England, the first with a "National" rep' under the first seven that are all "Continental".

I'm at Ipswich in the Premier League (season 2015-16), classed as "rich".

My facilities are:

Training - "Top"

Youth Facs - "Excellent"

Junior Coaching - "Adequate"

Youth Recruitment - "Fairly Basic"

Corporate - "Good"

Barely a month ago my youth facilites were upgraded, so perhaps that restricts what I might be able to do for the rest of the season, but...

I'd like to upgrade everything except my "top" training facilites and "excellent" youth facilites.

Junior coaching seems to be in the "Finance" section of the board request, but is greyed out. Does anyone know if this is greyed out because the youth facilites have been upgraded, or is the wrong time of year, or is there something else I need to be doing??

Youth Recruitment is in the "Networking" section, but the only options I have are to cut back!!! Anyone know why there are no options to improve it? The youth recruitment upgrade this season? The catchment area I'm in (what about when the Catergory One to Four rules come in - Cat One clubs will be able to recruit from anywhere)? Or is there something else?

Corporate Facilites upgrade I can't find anywhere. Probably these have no effect on the game.

As far as club reputation goes, I'm currently eighth in the list in England, the first with a "National" rep' under the first seven that are all "Continental".

1 - If you hover over junior coaching it will tell you why you cannot upgrade at that time

2 - You will not have improved your rep enough to increase your youth recruitment area yet, like i said in my previous post it took me 19 seasons and having to win 2 euro cups, 2 super cups and 1 champs league before i was able to ask.

3 - corporate facilities take more money in on a match day and can only be improved with a new stadium i think.

Thanks for the feedback.

I've just hovered over Junior Coaching and it says "The club plans to DECREASE its junior coaching budget"!! How annoying is that? What possessed them to reach that conclusion?

Apart from that, I'll forget about corporate facilities and try and bump the rep' up to "continental".

Are you struggling to break even each season?

Last season I had a 4.8 million profit on the back of a 162 million turnover. Currently 36 million in the bank and this season was given 40M wage budget and 40M transfer budget. I'm under budget on the wages and only spent about 10M on transfers this year. We have one merchantising feeder club. There's a 2M bank loan which will be paid off in two months time!

I don't know how to check earlier years.

Have you sold some stars lately? Any possible reason your stature would go down?

Only other thing I can think of is that the quality of your team is not yet good enough, so the board wants you to focus on the first team. Where were you tipped in the media before the season?

I haven't sold anyone. I was tipped for 8th this season.

I have bought a fair few promising youngsters over the last couple of seasons from the likes of Charlton, Torquay, RC Lens and Santos (though he won't be turning up for a while). That may have a bearing but I doubt SI have programmed something into board parameters along the lines of "if youth purchases reach level x then get the hump with youth recruitment", though I could be wrong.

I had two very good seasons in terms of league position when I first came up, won the FA cup and qualified for the Champions League (got to the quarters), but last season finished mid-table due to thousands of draws. I didn't look at expanding youth recruitment back then, but if the logic is "indifferent 1st team form, therefore pay less attention to youth development" wouldn't pass muster with many, I suspect.

I haven't sold anyone. I was tipped for 8th this season.

I have bought a fair few promising youngsters over the last couple of seasons from the likes of Charlton, Torquay, RC Lens and Santos (though he won't be turning up for a while). That may have a bearing but I doubt SI have programmed something into board parameters along the lines of "if youth purchases reach level x then get the hump with youth recruitment", though I could be wrong.

I had two very good seasons in terms of league position when I first came up, won the FA cup and qualified for the Champions League (got to the quarters), but last season finished mid-table due to thousands of draws. I didn't look at expanding youth recruitment back then, but if the logic is "indifferent 1st team form, therefore pay less attention to youth development" wouldn't pass muster with many, I suspect.

Seems you'll just have to be patient. It is very unlikely that they will actually decrease the current youth recruitment budget like they say, as long as the club's stature continues to increase.