This is purely scientific... I don't cheat, I only use scouts exactly for that purpose, scouting. But I want to figure out this DLR thing... Tools: FM2011 and FMRTE
I'm trying with Albania, KS Tirana, the team I used to support as a kid. Someone had configured the league, just had to download it and enable it in the editor. Did a little of my own editing... mostly to try and see if I pumped money things would change. So I increased the TV revenues so that the league winner gets about 1.2M USD and the last placed gets about 200K. Loaded South American databases, loads of much better players than the league has. FMRTE averages out the league at about 90 CA. After the transfer window was closed my team averaged at 115. Needless to say I won the league in my first try, but I did crash out of the cup at the QF, sadly at the hands of one of my city rivals. Now there are rules in this league about foreigners, 7 per team. I'm trying to maximize the odds as much as possible while at the same time trying also to keep this as close to reality as possible. So, I gave 4-5 of my South American players Albanian citizenship. Which, quite frankly, isn't that unheard of! About 2 years ago the Albanian president himself signed the order for two Kosovo players to become Albanian citizens 2 days before a big match so they could play for the national team. They had trained with the team for some time, the only thing missing was the legality of it. Now, both Kosovo and Albania speak Albanian and not to go too much into Balkan's 2500 year ****** history, Albania and Kosovo are technically the same. So I did the same thing. And sure enough, in about 3 months time half of my team is being called up, including some of the newly minted citizens, who are happy as clams to be earning caps, something they would have never achieved in their home countries.
Season 2 has just started. During the transfer window I picked up 3 guys, an 18 year old goalie from Nigeria with CA 138 and PA 187, a Dutch AM rated 127 and a CD also 127. Of course I didn't pick just anybody who was willing to come, though there aren't a lot of those... but after some tough negotiations I signed all 3. Had to murder all of my transfer budget into the wage budget to afford these guys. Immediate impact! They seem to have geled nicely. Breezed through CL qualifiers, kinda lucked out though. And now i'm in the group stages with Arsenal, Atletico Madrid and Rubin Kazan. I'm hoping to god for a 3rd place so I can go to Europa and see how far I can take it there. Rubin maybe I can ****** a draw and a win, Atletico maybe a draw, but Arsenal will murder me.
So, enough background.
I am analyzing all of the teams in my league. Finances mostly... we all play by the same 7 foreigner rule, though I've abused that once. All of the teams have a positive bank balance. It ranges anywhere from 2M to 5M USD. All of the teams have a large transfer budget, anywhere from 500k to 1.5M. Sadly, all of the teams have only used maybe 20% of that, at most. And I've been monitoring the league transfer market during the summer... all players signed for cheap and none of them really good. intentionally I let go one of my CD a guy rated at 117, nobody has picked him up. And he's there, in the country... I then looked at the wage budgets at all the teams in my league. Low, very low. My wage budget is 53K a week. The league average is about 12K. Then i looked at all the teams scouts and their knowledge. And that's the real reason why lower leagues don't progress. All of the scouting knowledge was limited to the Balkan countries only. Former Yugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. It would seem to me that in order to progress the league, a wider scouting base must be established. Not sure what'll happen but I'm going to keep at it and report every end of league with my findings. It usually takes me about a week and a half to 2 weeks to finish a season. Maybe longer if I get a GF
. But I couldn't be bothered to play more because I knew that the league won't grow. However now In fm 2011 they added dynamic league which is amazing. My coclusion is that it will take along time( I think more then 20 years) for the league clubs to grow and to be as good as premier league.