Youth Facility
In the premier games your club can build a youth academy to bring through its own players. Start small and grow it over the seasons: the bigger and better the academy, the more talent it finds, and the better that talent is. You will find it under Club > Youth Facility.
Building your academy
An academy has a level, from a basic youth facility up to a state of the art youth academy, and a size, from very small to very large. You raise the level and the size one step at a time. Each step costs money up front and takes some weeks to build, and only one can be built at a time. The academy page shows what the next step costs and how long it takes.
An academy also costs money to run every week, and the bigger and better it is, the more it costs. The page shows the running cost now, and what it would be after the next step.
You can scale an academy back down to save on running costs, or close it altogether. Closing it loses any youth players still at the academy.
Two kinds of academy
Games run one of two youth systems, and your academy page shows which one yours uses:
- Talent points: your academy earns talent points every week, and you spend them to sign the young players it finds. The page shows your talent points and the available candidates.
- A youth programme: young players join your academy and train for 40 weeks, and the best of them graduate to your first team. The page shows your youth squad and how each player is progressing.
An academy with talent points
- The level sets how good the candidates can be, and how many talent points you earn each week. A higher level brings better players, but they cost more points to sign.
- The size sets how many candidates the academy finds.
If you are short of points for a player you want, you can buy extra talent points, though you then have to wait a few weeks before you can buy more.
An academy with a youth programme
- The level sets how good your graduates turn out: the higher the level, the more each week at the academy is worth to a player.
- The size sets how many features the academy can have.
Features are extra programmes you add to the academy. The community, regional, national and international programmes each make room for more youth players, and the international programme also brings in youngsters from abroad. A youth pitch helps players progress, youth physio facilities mean fewer injuries, and the individual programme gives the occasional player an extra boost.
The youth coach
Hire a youth coach on the Club Staff page to get more from your academy. See Youth Squad for what a youth coach does.
If you leave your club
When a manager leaves, the academy drops back one level, so the next manager inherits a slightly smaller one.