Don't think this is it chief, unless it has been changed for this year. We should at least be able to request the upgrade, and if the board is not interested in that then fine. But it has always been the case we are able to at least request an upgrade.
If it is now by design its pretty backwards from a games development point of view as it restricts the players gameplay as the average player will just assume they've hit their limit for youth training facilities.
Definitely a larger problem going on at the moment with board requests which needs attention.