u/Intelligent_Owl6745

I’ve been trying to do a vanilla save as a new player on FM24 in the National League North. Because I was struggling to find players, I decided to watch some YouTuber livestreams and videos to see how the pros do it.

However, watching Zealand’s streams and Lollujo’s videos completely confused me. They both always seem to have a massively inflated scouting budget, allowing them to easily scout the whole of England in the very first season.

I actually did the sums on this to make sure I wasn't going crazy. The senior England scouting package in the game costs roughly £7,500 a month. Over a full 12-month calendar, that is exactly £90,000 a year. On their finance tabs in the first season, Lollujo has £87k and Zealand has £101k sitting purely in their scouting budgets.

As a new player trying to manage a tiny, realistic budget, this math is physically impossible. A regional non-league club simply doesn't have that kind of overall cash to convert, even if you drag the wage and transfer sliders to the absolute maximum. Surely they are just using the In-Game Editor behind the scenes to give themselves a massive financial injection?

For those of you who play lower-league saves, is inflating the scouting budget a normalized thing that regular players do just to make recruitment functional, or is it strictly a "YouTuber thing" because they need to progress as fast as possible for viewer retention?

Because I’m new and I’m wondering whether I should do this because it makes it the game more reasonable for
Example loan player are stupidly difficult without scouting England because you don’t know which are good or bad without scouting individually which cost £250 each time which is a lot at that level.

I need some serious advice because the transfer market is completely breaking me right now.

I’m trying to upgrade my team, so I am targeting 3.5-star players (and above), which is the exact quality I need to actually improve my squad. The problem is that every single time I make an offer, multiple other clubs swoop in and the player always chooses them over me.

Finding the players isn't even the issue here. I’ve found some great bargains, yet every time I try to get them, another club swoops in and pays more. I simply cannot afford to match them because I only have £440 spare in my wage budget, and I can't justify spending anything above £250 of that on a single player. My absolute maximum offer for one person is around £240.

It’s not like I’m being unrealistic either. I’m not bidding for players with League 2 potential or National League ability and then getting confused when they reject me. I’m bidding for perfectly reasonable players for my level—like a 3.5-star left-back who is considered average for the National League North. Yet, every single time, no matter who the player is, if they are rated above 3 stars, I get rejected because the AI can afford to throw stupid wages at them that I just can't match.

I’m not rushing my signings either. I know the unwritten rule that you don’t need to rush in non-league because there is no transfer window. But this issue happens throughout the whole year, no matter when I put the offer in.

It feels like a completely broken, never-ending loop. If I can't sign permanent players, I can't do well on the pitch. If I don't do well, I can't get promoted or get a bigger wage budget from the board. Because of this trap, I'm just permanently stuck working with scraps while the supply of good players vanishes.

What am I doing wrong? Do I just need a lucky season where I overperform with a weak squad to progress, and then try to build the second season? But won't the exact same problem just happen in the second season anyway? Are there specific clauses, squad promises, or hidden negotiation tricks I should be using to win these permanent players on such a tight budget?

Hi everyone,

I’m currently doing my first proper lower-league save with Banbury United on FM24 (after a test save with Celtic), and I am completely stuck on how to recruit players.

Budget isn't the issue here. Thanks to some great cup runs, the club has £450k sitting in the bank, and I currently have £2.5k available in wage budget.

Despite having the financial power, I’m running into these major roadblocks:

I have my Senior Scouting Package set to England, but my scouts aren't finding anyone useful. What am I supposed to set my actual scouting ranges and recruitment focuses to so they look in the right places?

Even with the England package active, my scouts only bring back players labeled "Good for National League North". I cannot find anyone labeled "Leading" for this level. Meanwhile, content creators like Lollujo easily find 3.5 star, leading national league north level players at this exact same level. Why is this happening? Is it my staff?

I know I can ask my Director of Football for transfer and loan recommendations, but the players he suggests are hardly ever good enough for the first team.

Overall I don’t know what to do I’m completely overwhelmed because it’s my first proper save and I don’t wanna screw it up please if anyone can help I’d really appreciate it.

I’m doing a non league save in FM 24 and am struggling too find good loans I can find players too loan like I use the DOF too offer signing idea’s but the loan options are always mediocre and nowhere near good enough too start, I know you can scout players but the number of players I’d have too scout just too find 1 good player is huge and I’ve only got 10k in scouting budget because I’m in non league, sorry if this seems like a stupid question.