Youth Academies

Youth Academies have been brought in FML as a result of youth free agents going for silly wages since an early age. This was on of the best solutions prepared before the reset, if not the best. Although a treat for youth-minded managers, the Academies arent that popular troughout the GW. Because of that, I'll try to introduce you to the basic stuff about them. However, note that some things might change about them every now and then, so you might want to consult the manual or the game descriptions before starting anything.

Each Academy has a level range between 1* and 5* (including 1.5*, and so on, therefore 9 levels in all). The lowest rating Academy has an upkeep of £3,600/day, will take you 2 days to build, having a construction cost of £200,000. The best one comes at £14,000/day, and will get built in 10 days for a fee of £800,000.

A common knowledge error about Academy Rep. is that people think about it in terms of the quality of the outcome - wich is false, it only has to do with the number of graduates you will get. Therefore, a Level 1 one Academy will bring you around 4 graduates/season, whist a level 5 one, around 16.

Everyone can build one Academy, but if you want to build more, you must learn the Academy Operation Level 5 skill, and then one level of the Academy Expansion skill before you can make another one. The infrastructure skills will help you reduce building time, costs, and the chance of unforeseen complications when building them.

You can build an Academy in any country you might wish. The database is going to create more high potential players in France than it will in Djibouti. But, if there are loads of academies in France, and just a couple in Djibouti, you might have more luck getting a better player from the less approached country.

If you have a built Academy, you can upgrade it - paying the rating difference just - however, if the costs feel out of hand at the moment, you can also downsize it - without any refunds though - or either, if your finances are really wrong, you can close it.

Before starting any work on this, you should really check all the skills and their use, as well as your financial situation and think a few times before starting anything!

Advantages of Youth Academies: 

• The chance to sign a superstar without any competition;
• Possibility of maintaining a healthy youth sistem, with NORMAL wages;
• The increased likehood of better players to end up in Academies, rather than Free-Agents list;
• Improves the stability of the game and makes it possible for stronger CA teams to exist in FML, comparing to the past.