Help for the November patch update


A lot of people have been having scouting issues after installing the game’s November update. In particular, it now seems that players in your youth academy can sometimes refuse any contract offer you give them, even those with huge weekly wages.

In my post on developing youth players I said that one way to easily sign youth players is to raise the contract length from 3 to 4 years and leave the weekly wages alone. Well, now it seems that after installing the game update you can no longer offer a contract longer than 3 years (the default length). Thankfully, there is a solution.

In fact, there are two potential ways around this bug, the first of which I talked about in the aforementioned “help with developing youth players” post. The second one was neatly summarised by k-man_1990 on the FIFA 12 forums.

Method 1

  1. Wait until you are in a transfer window
  2. Release the player(s) in question from your youth academy
  3. Look in the free agents list. They should be in there
  4. Re-sign the player! Often his wage demands will be lower than when he was in your academy (although sometimes they are higher)

*NOTE* You must not try this method after the January transfer window has passed. This is because youth players released after this point very often disappear from the free agents when the new season starts. You will therefore have lost them before you have the chance to resign them. Consequently, you must be very careful with this method!

A second warning is that you should go to the free agents list straight away, as you don’t want to give other teams a chance to sign your future Messi!

Method 2

  1. After offering a youth player a contract (and having it rejected), wait a couple of months. No one is quite sure how long, but 2 or 3 months should do it
  2. Make a new contract offer to the player with the same terms as before (i.e. on the one that was rejected)
  3. The player should now accept the contract

Mysteriously, waiting a few months seems to change the player’s mind, and often they accept the contract, even if it is unchanged from before! Maybe they are worried they will be released…

If you don’t have 2 or 3 months and are about to end the season, no problem. Simply try offering a contract when the new season starts. It seems the player’s attitude towards the contract offer is reset at the start of the new season.

If 2-3 months is not enough (or is too much), and if you have any other thoughts and observations, please let me know in the comments and I’ll correct the article.