Youth Development; An Exploit

I've seen people talk about this on the forums and naturally, it wasn't long before some of our more cheeky managers had a chat with us regarding the possibilities in Altobelli. I'm talking about Senior ranked competitions, set up as private competitions which only allow U17 teams to enter.

This is, in my eyes, an exploit because the system is designed so that players ratings are an indication that you are playing them at a level that they can cope with. The higher level means better progression but only if they perform well. By limiting the quality of the opposition and thus ensuring decent ratings, people are exploiting the youth development system.

Don't get me wrong here, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a manager playing their entire youth team in a Senior Ranked competition, as long as other managers are allowed to use their Senior teams in these competitions as well.

In most cases, a youth team entering the fray against senior teams will lose and get bad average ratings so there is no gain and no exploit. If the Youth players are good enough to play well against Seniors (like Arsenal's youths in for example the Carling Cup) then that is fine, but by limiting entries into private competitions to U17's alone, people have found and are exploiting a backdoor of the system.

The issue here is not Youth teams playing in Senior competitions versus senior opponents, but Youth teams getting a good rating in a Senior rank comp because they ONLY play other youth teams. If you are intent on fielding Youth teams in a private competition versus other Youth teams, make the competition reflect the strength of its members by setting it to U21 or U19. These competitions should be YOUTH competitions, not SENIOR ones.

I mentioned this earlier but this acceleration of youth players attributes (and the fact they are playing in "senior" games) clearly affects their Acquisition Fees and as a result their Market Values as well. If their stats go up faster due to them performing well in "senior" games, their ACQ and MV are bound to follow.

It's a way to make youth trading an even more lucrative business. So far, we've already seen multi-million offers for youths and with this stat boosting going on, the prices for youths will become more inflated. This could literally kill off the whole economy.

Imagine if you will the following situation. Spanish midfield maestro Jose Manuel Jurado happens to be one of my players. Valued at 1.4 million, on a 20k a day wage and at only 24, he's a talented and world class midfielder. However, when I see 16 and 17 year olds with an MV of 400k exchange hands for over nearly 2 million, why would I settle for anything less than such a sum for Jurado?

He's obviously five times the player these newgens are, as he is much older, can be fitted into first team instantly and generally has the same wages as these super newgens. If a 400k player can go for 2 million, thus five times his MV, why should I settle for anything under 10 million for Jurado?

Just hypothetically speaking ofcourse. There is no way on this planet that I am selling Jurado, especially not with these inflated prices. Either way, it shows the long term difficulties this exploit might bring.

I've strayed a bit off-topic though and I would like to get back to the original exploit. When I first noticed these competitions popping up, I immediately edited or removed them entirely, whilst asking for an official stance on this subject. Well, I got my official stance for now. Allow me quote a mailing I sent out in Altobelli after receiving word on our official stance.

If it's a senior ranked competition then any team can play in that providing it's not been set to stat pad. If we have proof that it was set for this reason then action can be taken - if we don't have proof but when checking results we see it has happened then we send a written warning saying don't do it again.

It's a grey area with many different parts to it, but playing youths in senior games is not against the rules.

There is a discussion going on about these competitions, as technically they are exploiting the game engine, but until there is no official ruling in place, we have to wait and allow these competitions.

So here's to hoping there's a speedy resolution, either SI coding something new or creating a rule which shows what we are and what we aren't allowed to do.