Youth academy

🧒 The academy is a workshop, not a conveyor belt: it produces nothing until you commission an intake. It is one of the club's ten-level facilities — at level 1 there is no academy at all — and every intake is a payment you choose to make: the higher the level, the more prospects arrive and the better their potential ceiling.

The intake itself is exact, and priced on your club's scale: in division 10 of a strong football nation an intake costs about 350 at level 1 and about 875 at level 10. It delivers two prospects at levels 1 and 2, rising to six at levels 9 and 10, and a new intake can be commissioned once every 7 days. Each prospect arrives aged 15 to 17, of a random nationality, with current ability between 20 and 39 and a potential of current ability + 25, plus 2 for every academy level above the first and a random part that grows with the level, capped at 95. Prospects are paid like any player of their value — a few euros a week.

Upgrading is the long game: the academy is built like any other facility, paid up front and ready after a few game weeks — the second level costs about 1,400 and the tenth about 1.3M. Each level adds prospects and lifts the potential roll; the full ladder is in the wiki article on the ground and the facilities.

Promotion is free and immediate. The player joins the senior squad at full condition with a market value of ability × 15,000 and attributes generated around that ability, and his 500 a week moves from the academy bill to your senior wage bill. The only hard limit is squad size: the senior squad caps at 30. An academy is therefore also a stock of assets — the difference between a club that buys its depth and one that grows it.