Youngsters Being Poached

I am playing as Crewe, the team I support in real life. As a lot of people know, Crewe have a very good youth set up, and have a reputation of producing good quality players.

I have just completed my first season, and got a pretty decent intake of young players who will no doubt challenge for first team roles in the coming years..

What frustrates me is that I'm constantly fending off bids from other clubs for about 80% of that intake. Seriously, I've signed terms with some of the better ones putting them on a pro contract when they're old enough, but the others I barely get a chance to do anything with. One particular kid has had bids of £2.5m his way...! and once I've signed pro terms with one, the bids just come in for a player who plays in the same position.

I can't seem to do anything to stop these approaches, and I've lost two or three of the players without realising a club has just gone and offered a contract to them. My U18 squad is now pretty depleted and I just find it really annoying. Yes, I get compensation - but I don't think that quite does the trick for me. It's not like they've even gone to brilliant clubs (Aberdeen and Dundee United x 2). They're all local kids, from Crewe and the surrounding area, and most have favoured personnel working for Crewe, or have Crewe as the team they support.

I know this happens in real life, but really to this extent? Especially with Crewe, a lot of their youngsters develop there, get game time and leave when the club feel the time is right for them (usually aged about 20-22).. I just feel that having so many youngsters taken away ageed 15/16, I have no hope of producing a squad like they do in real life..

Offer them contracts as soon as the intake is finished. After that, they're on professional terms and have to bid on.

baronia. The basic crux of the issue is that you need to protect your young youth players. If you don't do this, then they will be available for other clubs to come in for and nick on the cheap. It's pretty easy to do.

1. When you get your new batch of youngsters through, sign everyone that you want to keep, onto a youth contract.

2. You have to leave it a couple of days, (but there is no harm in trying daily), to sign these youth players onto a pre-contract deal. The idea behind this is that as soon as they sign a pre-contract pro deal, (that will come into effect on their 17th birthday), they are in effect protected from these Sharks that are trying to sign them from under your nose on the sly.

3. You also have to consider the length of this initial contract. Obviously you want it to to be as long as possible, but you can also include a cause called "optional contract extension". This means that you can at any time during the contract, opt to extend it for the length of time mentioned in the clause, (1, 2 or 3 years). Obviously players are not that keen to be tied to a club for such a young age, (and at a low wage), so you often have to sweeten the deal. I offer to pay them considerably more up front in order to secure a long initial contract, and a 3 year clause on top of that.

The longest I have managed is a 5 year contract and then a 3 year option on top of that. That basically means that I have the player "protected" under contract between the ages of 17 and 25. If you can imagine the savings in terms of wages that you could make during that time, (it's enormous), and then you can just flog the player or offer him a new contract if you so wish.

Without protecting them like this, anyone can just come in and offer them a contract and you just have to be satisfied with compensation.

How do you evaluate a 15-16 year old to see if you want to offer them a contract? When I open my players the only thing showing up is Offer Contract, but no scouting information.

If they are your own player, then you have an assistant or coach report available and you base your decision on that.

If they are at another club then you scout them.

You just treat then like you do any other player.

If you want to get them to accept the Extend Length of Contract option (I typically pick 3 years) I suggest adding the following clause:

* Wage after reaching career league games for club (or whatever it's called), setting it to 30, and putting what you would accept as a reasonable salary for someone who is getting regular games in your first team, or whatever the lowest he'll take is. Whichever is lower. So you can sign a youth player to a really cheap deal, if they develop and break into your first team they will be locked-in to a reasonable contract for a long time. If they are sold, or they never break into your first team, they never get that salary bump.

Don't pay them more up front. Put incentives into their contract you'd be happy to pay if they earn them.

Won't they require a new deal though? 8 years is a loooong time. I've had plonks who require a new deal after 4-6 months on their old one, and they were making plenty good money then too. If they were on 'nothing' youth wages, I don't want to think about their anger after 4 years :shifty:

Just sign up every decent youth batch prospect to pro deals though, right away. They usually accept a pittance, and then you can re-evaluate later based on how they develop.

I try to play a bit realistic though, so instead of pinching them for every penny, I give them new contracts when they break into the team, or earlier if they develop well. It just doesn't sit all that well with me to pay a great youngster that's on the cusp to break into a top division team the likes of £1-2k a week, never mind the 'default' value of ~£100 p/w.

The blood prices to the agents are annoying though. It's best not to look at the x millions I've paid them over the last few seasons :|

Won't they require a new deal though? 8 years is a loooong time.

Well that's up to you I suppose. If they are performing well and are becoming a key part of the team. then yeah, you might want to offer them a new deal. (On the other hand you might want to challenge them to prove that they are worthy of a new deal). It's really up to you. The point is that you are the person in control. They are contracted and there is absolutely nothing, zilch, nada they can do about it.

If you want to sell at any time you can.

If you want to loan them out then you are more able to ask a fee for them because the wages are so low.

If you want to let them sit in the Reserves and stagnate then it is completely up to you.

The only way you have this choice is to sign them to a long deal. Obviously depending on how successful you are and what your club rep is compared to the relative ability of the player will play a part, but I have found it works well for me.

I am managing San Marino and I have just sold 3 players who I bought as 17 year olds and signed to long-term contracts. Their 1st contract was approx £5kpw and they stayed on that from the age of 17 to 23. I sold one for £41.5M another for £46.5, and the 3rd went for £13.5M. These players were bought for a combined £1.25M. I would have kept them but the 2 better players each wanted over £100kpw for a new contract. Forget about the money I have earned from selling these players. Just imagine for a minute the amount of money I have saved in recent years in wages on just the 2 big players?

They both had 12 months left on their contract and wanted a new deal and the bigger sale player had been after one for the previous 12 months. Yes his performance had dropped a little but certainly not so much as to think this wasn't a phenomenal bit of business.

You can sign them to new deals whenever you want. The point of the long contract + 3 year extension + automatic raise after league games approach is to be a starting point from which you (not another team, and certainly not their agent) remain in unchallenged control of their future. If they break into your team and they're performing to such an extent that you want to reward them (or prevent unhappiness), nothing is stopping you from re-signing them to a better deal. But your hand can't be forced by another club, and its hard to be strongarmed when you have them under contract for nearly a decade.

I play as Crewe aswell, offer them a new contract like the people above have said, works for me.

3. You also have to consider the length of this initial contract. Obviously you want it to to be as long as possible, but you can also include a cause called "optional contract extension". This means that you can at any time during the contract, opt to extend it for the length of time mentioned in the clause, (1, 2 or 3 years). Obviously players are not that keen to be tied to a club for such a young age, (and at a low wage), so you often have to sweeten the deal. I offer to pay them considerably more up front in order to secure a long initial contract, and a 3 year clause on top of that.

The longest I have managed is a 5 year contract and then a 3 year option on top of that. That basically means that I have the player "protected" under contract between the ages of 17 and 25. If you can imagine the savings in terms of wages that you could make during that time, (it's enormous), and then you can just flog the player or offer him a new contract if you so wish.

Without protecting them like this, anyone can just come in and offer them a contract and you just have to be satisfied with compensation.

This has transformed my current Chester save. I never knew you could do this. Has to be the single best piece of advice I've read in a long time. I've gone from being completely frustrated at having to sell players because of their wage demands or risk bankrupting the club and pay them what they want. I'm not only doing this with my new youngsters but I've done it with nearly every player in the squad. Granted I have to pay them a little more say, £45k per week instead of £30k a week, but they are tied to the club for between five and seven years now.

It's not only the huge savings I'm making, but it also enables me to have a steadier long term squad, and not to be a selling club, constantly having to do massive squad alterations each season. And that in turn has enhanced the squad harmony and allowed the team time to gel, not to mention tactical familiarity etc. It really is the most simple and best piece of advice and it has completely turned my save around. Thx Jimbo

so what age does this work up to? 17? 18?

And I don't see a pre-contract as an option. I just had my annual intake of youth talent and am looking at a striker that my staff singled out as the best player of the bunch. Trying to tie him up as noted here. Just trying to understand the exact steps.

So far I've signed him to a youth contract through June 2020 (currently in Mar 2017).

In looking at the various clauses (he was happy to get the 30 games at club level clause) it appears this over rides his youth contract so is still through 2020 June for the contract and then a 3 year (which is the max available) for the club option. So worst case is he's tied up for six years til he is 21. So am I wrong in reading that we still do this at an early age or do we wait until their youth contract is almost up?

After you sign them to the youth contract you offer them a professional contract. It won't kick in until they turn 17(I think). When it does they are under the new contract. This prevents other teams from signing them.

so what age does this work up to? 17? 18?

And I don't see a pre-contract as an option. I just had my annual intake of youth talent and am looking at a striker that my staff singled out as the best player of the bunch. Trying to tie him up as noted here. Just trying to understand the exact steps.

So far I've signed him to a youth contract through June 2020 (currently in Mar 2017).

In looking at the various clauses (he was happy to get the 30 games at club level clause) it appears this over rides his youth contract so is still through 2020 June for the contract and then a 3 year (which is the max available) for the club option. So worst case is he's tied up for six years til he is 21. So am I wrong in reading that we still do this at an early age or do we wait until their youth contract is almost up?

When you offer a youth player from the promotion batch a contract, it will (usually) by default be set at a youth contract. Change this to Full Time. Then he will be on youth contract until he turns 17, when the professional contract will kick in.

I don't recall if this was the same in England, but I've found that in Germany I can only offer them 5-year contracts after they have turned 18. Then I usually try to offer them five year contracts, provided they are in my long-term plans.