[Suggestion] Semi-pro clubs to be able to sign full-time players from abroad

[Mons]

Appreciate this may be a bit of a niche request; this is related to my Maltese league file. I'd like it if it were possible for semi-professional clubs to be able to sign full-time players not from the country in which the league is based.

In real life, Maltese clubs are semi-professional and yet they can sign foreign players on full-time contracts, even lower-league teams do this. Top-tier clubs can, and often do, have up to 8 foreigners in their matchday squad, second-tier 4 foreigners and so on and so forth. Every year, dozens of foreign players are signed by Maltese clubs, most of which are already in the FM database. 

FM does not currently allow this, at all. To be precise, in-game you are permitted to offer full-time contracts to foreigners only in the case of free agents whose last club was in Malta. It's not a question of adjusting club or player reputation or a question of loading a particular set of database options, it's simply and plainly not possible. I certainly don't expect fifth-tier teams to be capable of signing Serie A or Premier League standard players, but at present even unattached foreigners are unwilling to negotiate terms, which clearly flies in the face of reality. It's like the fact that a club is part-time in FM automatically precludes them from signing foreigners, which I believe could be tweaked slightly to better reflect real-life and the fact that if the financial parameters are acceptable, then the club's operational status is immaterial to a player's willingness to join. For the purpose of comparison, roughly around half of FIFA's associations have had at least a player try his luck in the Maltese football pyramid, including New Zealand, Chile, Japan and South Africa, so it's clearly not a geographical constraint.

I have tried changing the contract restrictions section for each club in the editor to allow key players to be signed only on full-time contracts as a way of circumventing the current restrictions, but it doesn't work. The only fail-safe method to be able to attract foreign full-timers from abroad is to have clubs set as professional. The standard is inevitably shit, but that's to be expected, obviously...

This is not only an issue with the Maltese league but also with the Welsh and Northern Irish leagues, who have semi-professional clubs. For some reason, this is not an issue with Icelandic clubs, who can freely sign assorted freebies from across the world on part-time contracts.

[jWaSiMhE]

I think the transfer preferences system could be expanded upon in game and this is just one good idea. 

[Neil Brock]

Reviewed so locked.