I think the "token" fee is about right. Probably anywhere from $5k to $25K. I think every youth club would be excited getting that kind of money.
This compensation is not a transfer fee! A transfer fee involves the sale of a player currently under contract. This rule applies to players moving from one club to another even on free transfers. David Bellion was a free transfer. There was no transfer fee paid because he was out of contract. But Sunderland was still entitled to compensation for investing in the development of the player. All that Sunderland had to demonstrate was that they offered a contract and he turned them down. As a result, they were entitled to "developmental compensation". The rule is designed to prevent upper-level teams from making back-door arrangements with players they hope to sign from small clubs in which they agree to wait until a contract expires and they become a free agent so that they can avoid having to pay transfer fees. Small clubs don't have a chance at resigning their best young players, so these rules have been established to compensate them even if the purchasing team signs an under 23 out of contract player. I can imagine that Szetela's club may have a case for compensation if they can prove that they sunk more costs into Szetela than his parents or anyone else paid for. The compensation would be set by a tribunal or could be worked out in an agreement between the purchasing team and the youth team. If the club that Szetela is currently registered with cannot demonstrate that they have spent money to develop him (entrance fees, uniforms, equipments, medical bills, salaries of staff, etc) than they probably will not be able to make a case for this type of compensation. But again, the compensation is not a transfer fee. It is a separate arrangement. In Champ Man, you will occasionally see this issue come up (similar to a Bosman situation) in which a team is entitled to compensation when you attempt to sign (not buy) a player. But the money is not a transfer fee per se. Because you are signing, not buying, the player. Here is some relevent info: The official rules that spun out of the meeting mentioned above are located here. http://www.fifa.com/en/organisation/player/transfer.html See Section VII (articles 12 - 20) for a complete explanation of compensation for training. Note that it makes no exceptions for players who are "on scholarship" or "pay to play". The key point is that the player must be an amateur athlete (must not have received money apart from travel, hotel and equipment reimbursements according to section 2 article 2). As a result, athletes on college scholarships may not be considered amateur athletes under this ruling (I am not sure). The application process is described further in article 23. It covers what the club can rightfully request compensation for.
This comment pertains more to Superdave's comment on CM's commitment to getting the rules/business side of soccer right (although it won't matter anymore, since they can't include MLS or any US domestic-based players in the player database for future versions of the game): 1) Until CM4, they did not have MLS anywhere close to accurately depicted. It would have been almost impossible to have the system of discovery/SI and other player designations properly emulated. There is basically no way they could properly emulate the draft. 2) There have been so few actual transfers involving MLS players that player valuations are a complete stab in the dark. Unless MLS makes negotiations public and/or at least a small sample of field players under contract actually transfer - you would have to be clairvoyant to guess the value of Landon Donovan and/or DeMarcus Beasley. Sports Interactive basically just sets these numbers arbitrarily. Now they have the Tim Howard figure, but they didn't even have that around when they were setting the figures that you mentioned. Bobby Convey's transfer was reputed to be on for around £1,000,000. There are tons of issues that go into the actual transfer fee number apart from a player's actual value. How many years he has remaining on his contract makes a huge difference, for instance. Because when a transfer is made, it is separate from the new contract that is offered to the player. It is made with the club. This is why Liverpool almost offered £9,000,000 for Lee Bowyer at one point, but Leeds settled for about £100,000 from West Ham about six months later. They would have gotten nothing (ala Steve MacManaman) if he had left on a Bosman, so they sold him to West Ham just before the signing deadline was lifted (and to get his wages off the book). This is just one example. Wage requirements can also have a huge impact on transfer prices. Patrick Kluivert is a top-notch player. He is probably in the top 20 best strikers in the world. But because of his extraordinarily high wages (around £100,000/week), his transfer price is very low. I believe Barcelona had him on the market for around £1,500,000. At the same time, a relatively comparable player like Roy Makaay went for closer to £20,000,000. In fact, high wages can lead to players being outright released from their contracts. Patrik Berger (29 years old, seasoned international, left-sided wide midfielder) has been one of the best left-sided players in the EPL this season. Yet Liverpool released him on a free. They could not afford to wait around and haggle with another team on a price (because he made high wages). Teams that are relegated often sell players way below their seeming "market value" as well, in order to avoid paying them high wages. Transfer fees are determined by lots of different factors.