Scouting knowledge

I have been wondering something for a few days now.

What exactly does a full bar of scouting knowledge for a nation/region signify?

I would assume that having a full bar in England, would mean that I have just as much knowledge of the english players as is possible. Is that correct?? ... if so I think it is a bit too easy to gain full knowledge of a nation in the game.

Below is how my club's (Bath City in the BSP) scouting knowledge is, a few games into pre-season of a brand new save. As a new manager, should I really have full knowledge of the country that is my first nationality automatically?? .... if I start the game as an english manager of a BSS side, with a background as a Sunday league footballer, should I really have total knowledge of England?

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2690754/FM/FM12_ScoutingKnowledge.PNG

I would think, it would take years to build up that kind of knowledge, and most managers never will (which is why they rely a lot on scouts, even inside their own country).

It seems to me that all staff in the game have the same knowledge of their own nation, as anyone else of that nationality. The only thing that differs are how good they are in judging the players. But should a 32 year old scout with no history have the same knowledge as a 58 year old veteran, who has been in the game for 30 years, and have a vast network??

I was thinking, what is the knowledge of a nation was split into categories like this:

National, Regional, Local

That way, my inexperienced Bath City manager could easily build up a great knowledge of local players, slight knowledge of regional players, but almost none on a national level (besides the bigger profiles). Why should I know that a 20 year old youngster exists in Yorkshire, without a scout with knowledge of that area, or without sending one there.

But then I guess it would be difficult to manage how much each staff member knows of each local region in any nation he knows. Maybe just make it for only the nation and region you are currently in.

Also, should full knowledge of a nation be hard to keep? .. if my scout has full knowledge of France, but I don't send him there for 5 years. Should he still have full knowledge then?

A full bar means that your scout will usually return with a report after a couple of days. It may also mean you can see every player in that region on your player search screen, yes. From how I understand it, the smaller the bar the longer it'll take to compile and return a full report. Also, as scouts go to new places or build upon their existing knowledge, they'll gain new bars or existing ones will go up. This can decrease over time though. For example, send a scout to France with no previous knowledge and he'll eventually have full knowledge of France (though you may have to send him multiple times). Don't send him for a while and that bar will decrease over time.