Limit to players taken for internationals

[OutlawPete]

Might I suggest a bit of a protective measure for teams having players poached for international tournaments, particularly at youth level where squad sizes are usually quite low. I have just lost 3 players to an international tournament, out of a squad of 14. So I can field a team for my next league game -- just!! -- but it won't be a competitive one and my league form is going to suffer massively. The squad for the international tournament in question has 32 players in it - why so many? Most of them surely will only be making up the numbers. Can't this be reduced to a more realistic number so league managers are not so drastically affected? Now I know a compensation payment will be made but frankly 20 grand does not cut it. I suggest that an international manager should not be allowed to take any players out of a squad where less than 13 players remain.

Regards,
Outlaw Pete, manager of Hudson Bay Traders in Canada

[GM-crowfan65]

touring squads are currently only 20 that go at any one time

[Cynic]

Every time I see this I have to ask: Did the person making the complaint try to work it out with the NT manager first? Did they explain their situation? Was it confirmed that the manager rejected the request?

[GA-James018]

The trouble is that the people most likely to have issues like this are those who have no interest in the NAT side of the game so are naturally unlikely to be in communication with NAT managers. As someone who focuses on my club, I've sometimes had my players called up to tour when I hadn't even known they were in contention in the first place. Of course, that's partly on me for not noticing the red star, but it illustrates that some people really don't pay attention to NAT stuff unless/until it affects them, which is something I think many people who are involved in NATs don't understand.

I've suggested before (and even put up a poll semi-recently) that the fairest way to deal with this would be for international players to be able to play for NAT teams and club teams simultaneously, with no adverse impact on fatigue (for example, by having separate fatigue for clubs and NATs). But that's consistently been an unpopular idea - I believe the main argument against is that many people consider management of NAT players' availability an integral part of managing your side in FTP, and removing that management decision would make the game less fun or interesting. As long as that remains the majority view, I don't think anything's changing; managers with NAT standard players are going to have to just deal with them being unavailable from time to time.

[Cynic]

People also want the money compensation even though they aren't losing their players for league games.