A Guide to Feeder Clubs

Some people don't bother using the many features of the new Football Manager, sometimes due to them not knowing what each one does, and how it can help your team in many ways. In this guide I will explain how to use feeder clubs and how they can boost your team's fortunes in more ways than one.

You'll be able to choose a feeder club for one of two things, money or experience for your youngsters. Below is an in-depth review on which can be better and what the downsides are to each option you can choose.

How to Get a Feeder Club

- Go on to the Board Request menu
- Make a Board Request - Request Feeder/Parent Club
- Wait a while for a response
- There will be a list of choices, and you can choose what one you want, it can be hard choosing sometimes though, this is where I will try and help

Sending and Receiving Players

This can be very helpful, for clubs on both sides of the link. When you are the parent club, you have the ability to send a player from your team on loan to your feeder club for the remainder of the season, with recall status on and you paying all their wages. During this, it will help your feeder club grow into a bigger and better team and your young players can get valuable first team experience, coming back as a whole new player on occasions.

If you are the feeder club, receiving players from the parent, it can also be a great bonus. Throughout the season they will be able to send you any of their players on loan and you don't always have to play them. They can sometimes send non-useful players, but usually they'll send a player that can really turn your team's fortunes around. Even if they don't send you anyone, you can also put a a loan bid in for one of their players, they might accept and the player will be more likely to come due to the link between both clubs.

The Transfer Side

In some cases the transfer side of feeder/parent clubs can be very useful, mainly to the parent club, though. When the feeder club accepts a bid from a club for one of their players, they will inform the parent club of the bid. The parent club then has a choice whether to match the bid or just to ignore it. If they decide to match the bid, the player is more likely to go their, again, due to the link between the clubs. It can also be useful to the feeder club if the player ends up going to the parent because it will increase the bond between each club and they will send more of their better players on loan to you.

The Merchandising Money

There are reason for and against choosing a club for endorsement sales. The best reason to choose a club in the likes of Asia and the USA is definitely for the money you can get in the long run. With each club you get in those areas, you can get around £3-5M per year which can be a very healthy sum depending on how big your club is.

There is a downside, however. The club that you have chosen, will usually be a developing team, which has a rather low reputation in the football league. This means that not all of your players will want to go to a club so small, and reject the offer of joining them on loan. It can be a loss when your youngster don't get their annual first team experience out on loan at a feeder club if it's one like this, but apart from the reason above, the merchandising side of feeder clubs can be the biggest bonus of all.