Poaching youth intake: clever, sneaky or just plain stealing??

I've played FM for many years and like most people I like to see new gens and youth players rise through the ranks and become stars. New youth intake day is always a lottery and most of the time I don't have the winning ticket. I never thought to search through other clubs youth intake and try and poach their possible stars , instead focussing on the making the best with cards I was dealt. But after a few years of investing millions into training and scouting I was still bringing average youngsters far below what is expected of my set up so I decided to see if it was just me or was everyone struggling for new talent.

I started scouting the youth intake of all clubs with a history of finding young talent (Southampton, Everton, man Utd etc) as soon as the intake arrived and offering a contract to any half decent prospect. Being QPR (despite winning the 18/19 premier league) I struggled to attract most of the players I tried to poach but a couple were persuaded by my flattery and ambition and jumped ship before boarding.

I know this happens all the time IRL but it still felt dirty. So despite bringing in the FM holy grail of decent young English blood I didn't feel great. I try to play FM with a moral compass heavily influenced by my real beliefs and don't believe clubs poaching from others is the prettiest way to go.

It goes without saying I won't be poaching again.

Just wondered how rife poaching is in FM or if anyone feels the same as I do?

I feel that it's cheap & dirty but I also imagine that it's not uncommon among some long standing FM'ers.

I sometimes pull up the youth intakes by country (often weeks or months later) and scout some likely prospects, but I've always been more of a home-grown manager. I've watched youtubers show how to poach on intake day, but to me it just seems bush-league to tell your youth prospects "I like the kids from our rivals better."

Well even if i manage a club with great youth system i never get more then 1 decent player a year, usually less then that so i se no reason not to sign talents from other clubs.

I do buy all players thou after they have signed a contract since it feels wrong to go by some list that shows youth intake the same day they arrived. So I leave it up to the scouts to track down any decent player.

You said something just right "Being QPR (despite winning the 18/19 premier league) I struggled to attract most of the players". Does your team rating affect player interests you bet it does. So do facilities and youth academy. As for players not wanting to join you i had to basically get my team into high standings performance wise to win some of those youth talents over to my club. You also have to show an interest in the player by chatting to him et. etc.

I'm not saying it will always work, my main goal was to make my team very rich standings wise. This then started to attract a lot of players. So thats my experience. i look at economics more than filling the cabinet with silverware. Once i have a fat wallet then i will think about going on a spending spree but only if it increases team reputation and improves economics.

I sometimes pull up the youth intakes by country (often weeks or months later) and scout some likely prospects, but I've always been more of a home-grown manager. I've watched youtubers show how to poach on intake day, but to me it just seems bush-league to tell your youth prospects "I like the kids from our rivals better."

I've always read about people dong this but never seen how...care to explain/point in direction of videos?

Facilities are just a quarter of the quality of the youth intake. You need a great HOYD and you need to have a high youth rep. It means that if you are coming up the rakes as a club like QPR, you probably need to win the champions league at least once to increase your rep therefore encouraging young players to come to the club instead of the arsenals, man utd or chelseas of the world

I'm not saying it will always work, my main goal was to make my team very rich standings wise. This then started to attract a lot of players. So thats my experience. i look at economics more than filling the cabinet with silverware. Once i have a fat wallet then i will think about going on a spending spree but only if it increases team reputation and improves economics.

How do you go about creating a fat wallet without winning champions leagues and league titles?

There's absolutely nothing wrong with it, it's completely realistic and the clubs usually get a decent price in compensation.

I'm coming towards the end of my fourth season with United, I have great coaches & facilities that can't be improved any more; yet I still get loads of useless players on Intake day. I'm not asking for all of them to be wonderkids, but I see clubs like Bayern, Dortmund, Juventus, Leverkusen, Bilbao, etc. pulling in at least four Potential To Be Quality regens a year, so why should I just be limited to one? It's not like the rest of the class makes up for it with potentially good or even useful players either, because I usually only have one or two for each of those.

So yeah, I've "poached'' several regens to make up for it, as well as triggered release clauses for a couple of PTBQ Spaniards. I'll usually look at the Youth Intake page once or twice a month throughout the year, until March comes, that's when I start checking every other day and my inbox gets filled with scout reports. The funny thing is though, out of all my regens, the two with the most appearances so far are homegrown, from my first intake and only have potential to be good .

I've always read about people dong this but never seen how...care to explain/point in direction of videos?

Search overview > World > Transfers > Click on All Transfers and change that to Youth Intake.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with it, it's completely realistic and the clubs usually get a decent price in compensation.

I'm coming towards the end of my fourth season with United, I have great coaches & facilities that can't be improved any more; yet I still get loads of useless players on Intake day. I'm not asking for all of them to be wonderkids, but I see clubs like Bayern, Dortmund, Juventus, Leverkusen, Bilbao, etc. pulling in at least four Potential To Be Quality regens a year, so why should I just be limited to one? It's not like the rest of the class makes up for it with potentially good or even useful players either, because I usually only have one or two for each of those.

So yeah, I've "poached'' several regens to make up for it, as well as triggered release clauses for a couple of PTBQ Spaniards. I'll usually look at the Youth Intake page once or twice a month throughout the year, until March comes, that's when I start checking every other day and my inbox gets filled with scout reports. The funny thing is though, out of all my regens, the two with the most appearances so far are homegrown, from my first intake and only have potential to be good .

Search overview > World > Transfers > Click on All Transfers and change that to Youth Intake.

Cheers...do you find the clubs sign the PTBQ intakes straight away or do they often wait until the Intake vs. youth game?

How do you go about creating a fat wallet without winning champions leagues and league titles?

Simple. Bring up youth players and sell for hard cash. Don't spend it, but replace with youth instead.

I don't poach the intakes but I do have continuous -19 assignments running and 12 scouts roaming all usual suspect countries.

Cheers...do you find the clubs sign the PTBQ intakes straight away or do they often wait until the Intake vs. youth game?

They usually wait. American regens are the only ones I've noticed being signed up immediately.

Just curious how you go about scouting the hundreds of regens on intake day

World>Transfers>Youth Intake

How do you go about creating a fat wallet without winning champions leagues and league titles?

I'm a slave trader. sorry to use the word. I like fattening up my players and selling them to the highest bidder. I don't care about winning I have to make sure i don't get relegated and everything else is a win. I have a number of scouts on duties seeking youth prospects only. I do my best to get them and bring them in. Whilst in youth squads i get offers but i don't sell them that fast. Obviously it takes a few season before you start seeing things in green (dollars). I make sure my scouts are the best i can get, i make sure my youth coaches are the best i can get as well.

I make sure that whatever comes into youth squad will also play in seniors in a season or two. Once that happens i make sure youth squads are always full of talent so you can have a chain reaction of talent leaving the seniors and being quickly replaced with youth prospects. It takes a while to get this formed in the first few season but once you have laid out the foundations it's cake from there on-wards. I love playing the game not for winning it's silverware only but for becoming a financial fat cat.

I'm an occasional poacher. I don't spend hours trawling through, but on my youth intake day I look at other teams in my country to swoop for a gem or 2. Rarely do I go out of my borders though. And remember, even the best youth system in the world nicked a certain diminutive Argie from Rosario (?) so if they can do it anyone can.

They wouldn't be able to do that now & there is ever code in the game to stop club instantly poaching under 18 from overseas which was a much need change & means more deals are delayed until a player turns 18.

They wouldn't be able to do that now & there is ever code in the game to stop club instantly poaching under 18 from overseas which was a much need change & means more deals are delayed until a player turns 18.

I just put in a rare contract offer for a foreign youngster from a foreign team who is 15. So what would happen in that instant? Would he be transferred to me in 3 years time?

If they are outside the EU then yes, if your club & their club are in the EU & your club has top rated youth facilities & coaches then the age they can move reduces to 16.

As an examples Arsenal will be able to immediately sign a 16 year old from France but Charlton* will have to wait until the play is 18.

*I've not checked their youth rating or facilities but I'm sure you get the idea.

I tried to do this today (poach youth intake)

Problem was on the day I got my intake I looked through other teams, but nobody would sign for me as they had all signed contracts recently.

Yeah. I find that pinching youth players is difficult. Especially from top sides. I think you have to go to lower rep sides to pinch them.

The moment the message comes in on my inbox that its youth intake day, I immediately go on a poaching spree to hoover up 10 of the best youngsters I can find to increase the numbers of youth I have. Its abit a of a gamble as I don't have the time to scout them (their clubs will offer contracts by then) so I don't always get it right.

I tried to do this today (poach youth intake)

Problem was on the day I got my intake I looked through other teams, but nobody would sign for me as they had all signed contracts recently.

Yup, I get this as well. I'm sure it's something they changed 2-3 versions ago so that you couldn't do it any more. Or am I mistaken?

There were changes made to FM14 to make youth poaching much harder as it was considered to be an unrealistic practice that gave the user a massively unfair advantage.

Whats PTQB?

There are two easy ways to find young players but both are exploity.

The first one is that when you check a club overview page, the player listed as Hot Prospect is usually a player with high or even the highest potential of the younger players (usually up to age 21). So you can ask your scout to give you a report of him. This is usually good for "scouting" lower leagues if you are a bigger club. Most listed there will already be old and not very good, but when the 15 or 16 old ones are listed they are usually worth a look. To confirm their potential just use a scout with high jugde potential ability. Being in lower leagues they are usually easier to unsettle and buy as well.

The second method is even more cheaty. On youth intake day go to world > transfers > youth intake. Best thing to do there is filter to the same country you are managing since the dates will probably be similar and they will still be on trial contracts. There will probably be more than 200 players and it would be too time consuming to look at each one. What you can do is save the game and select all of them and ask your scout pool to scout everyone. Continue the game for a while and see the reports and take note of the names those with high potential stars and those who the scout say would be interested in signing for you. After you are done, go back to the save you made and go directly to those players and try to sign them. Most of them, especially those from more reputable clubs will not want to sign or will want very good offers to do so. The ones from lower clubs will be much more likely to sign for you. After doing that you save the game again.

When you go forward, a lot of them will still sign for their clubs, and even if you load back and up the offer significantly, most of the time they will still go to their starting club. The ones from the lower leagues however are quite possible to get. I tested this second method in this season to see how much it can work, and out of about 30 names i took note of, 18 or more i offered contracts. I am playing as the champion of the top league and i only managed to sign 5 players (3 with 5* potential, 1 with 4.5*, and 1 with 2.5*). All of them from lower leagues. So yeah it's very hard to steal the players, but not impossible.