Help! The Computer bought my prized prospect at a price I thought they'd never offer

[LLCoolGrey]

Sorry if this has been discussed before, but I just had my prized prospect who shot up through my system as a 16 year old and played on my first team as a 17 year old, get poached by Norwich for 25M. 

When I got promoted to League One, I resigned my star 17 year old winger with an automatic release clause of 25M thinking the computer wouldn't risk going that high for an unproven 18year old prospect. As the preseason got started I kept getting offers for him for 2 million, then 4 million, slowly creeping up to 14 million, then 20 million I started getting worried. Then two teams came up and offered his 25 million release clause price and off he went to the premiere league. 

The 25 Million will help, but I'm wondering what are some of your strategies to holding onto your young stars? Should I have put it at 50 million? Should I just come to terms with the fact that the higher division teams will always come for my good players?

Any tips or stories about what you have experienced would be much appreciated. Here is what my prospect looked like:

[FrazT]

It is always sad to lose a top prospect, but as a lower reputation team, you are always going to have the big teams chase after  the best youths.  I am philosophical and use the cash to buy 3 or 4 good qulaity prospects and hope to find another gem to keep the finances going for several more years

[DMVian]

Release clauses are the devil. Pay extra to keep them off.

In this specific case, if you're a League 1 club and a Premiership club calls, for realism's sake you probably need to let the player go. I can't imagine a real scenario where a young star in the making would not one to move on up to an EPL side. Also on realism, if you're a League One club, even one on a meteoric rise, you have to take the $25 million. That is a club changing amount of money for pretty much any club in Europe outside the top clubs in the top flight of the top 7 or 8 leagues.

I have no idea how you got that awesome a player through youth. Well done.

[Maviarab]

On 18/01/2023 at 00:08, LLCoolGrey said:

but I'm wondering what are some of your strategies to holding onto your young stars?

Any tips or stories about what you have experienced would be much appreciated.

Remove release clauses for all players ASAP under new contracts or contract renewals.  May take some back and forth negotiating but can be done.  if signing a player and it's an unremovable clause....then take ya chances.

[Valencia7]

I used to set my asking price one million lower then the release clause. That way the AI will always offer your asking price and not a penny more. It used to work in FM21 but I havent yet tried it in FM23.

[Iggy Hassan]

When he played, did you're fans sing, "Prince Ali, fabulous he!" from 'Aladin'?