Why does the board keep refusing my attempts to hire new staff members, insisting that I offer only the starting price and not allowing me to bid higher?

Because you don't have enough money in the bank. They will always allow the first bid but to bid higher you need to have sufficient bank balance

Is there any way to influence the nationality of Youth players? I am asking because I only have one Greek player in my team, which is ostensibly a Greek team...

Nationality is random currently.
But in future there will be a change.

And what about names? The name database appears to be common for all nationalities, but it would be nice if players actually had names that correspond to their nationality...

If needed, I have a collection of Greek names that I had made for an older - not dead - game, which I can easily contribute if needed.

I think you can change players names but not their nationality

Samoa Steve wrote :
I think you can change players names but not their nationality

Changing nationality will soon be available. An update is planned for the youth system in a couple of seasons, nationality updates will go along with that.

Is the overall rating of a team the average rating of every member of the squad, or just the top 11 or top 16?

Just the top 11 - worked it out.

what does a player's flexibility affect?
does it affect a player's injury rate, or does it affect the player's ability to play in different positions

Angelo Alpha wrote :
what does a player's flexibility affect?
does it affect a player's injury rate, or does it affect the player's ability to play in different positions

His ability to play in different positions than his natural ones without a big drop in performance.

These are the natural positions of players in each position.
CB: DLC DC DRC
WB: DL DR DML DMR
DM: DMLC DMC DMRC MLC MC MRC
WM: DML DMR ML MR AML AMR
AM: MLC MC MRC AMLC AMC AMRC
WF: AML AMR FL FR
CF: FLC FC FRC

If a player plays out of these natural positions they will have a performance penalty depending on how far away they are from their natural position (and on top of that, they will perform worse if they do not have the required attributes high for their played position). Flexibility of the player helps to lower this penalty.

Also keep in mind that GKs will play terribly bad in outfield no matter what their flexibility is. Same for outfield players playing as GK.
And Tegimus had informed before that WFs playing as centre forwards (and vice versa) or WBs playing as CBs (and vice versa) will have the lowest penalty, and the penalty is zero if they have 5 star flexibility for this special case.

Alright Thanks

Thanks for the summary of positions, Fathima

"Your players can gain experience from 30 custom matches every season. You can decide which 30 matches you want to use for experience gaining ..."

I have a question because these two sentences to me suggest two different things.

Let's say I've already used 30 custom matches this season to gain experience, but player B played 0 of these.
If I now start using player B in custom matches, will he gain experience from his first 30 custom matches?

Wuton wrote :
"Your players can gain experience from 30 custom matches every season. You can decide which 30 matches you want to use for experience gaining ..."

I have a question because these two sentences to me suggest two different things.

Let's say I've already used 30 custom matches this season to gain experience, but player B played 0 of these.
If I now start using player B in custom matches, will he gain experience from his first 30 custom matches?

Thanks for pointing out the ambiguity in those sentences in the tutorial.
You can select which custom matches to use for experience gaining from Competition > My Matches menu and under the Custom Matches tab. Only the players playing in these 30 matches will gain experience. The players who play in custom matches with experience gains turned off will not gain any experience from those matches.

Tegimus wrote :

Wuton wrote :
"Your players can gain experience from 30 custom matches every season. You can decide which 30 matches you want to use for experience gaining ..."

I have a question because these two sentences to me suggest two different things.

Let's say I've already used 30 custom matches this season to gain experience, but player B played 0 of these.
If I now start using player B in custom matches, will he gain experience from his first 30 custom matches?

Thanks for pointing out the ambiguity in those sentences in the tutorial.
You can select which custom matches to use for experience gaining from Competition > My Matches menu and under the Custom Matches tab. Only the players playing in these 30 matches will gain experience. The players who play in custom matches with experience gains turned off will not gain any experience from those matches.

Thank you for the answer!

If I loan a player out, will I still be able to dictate the training that he is doing, or will that no longer be under my control once he is loaned out?

Angelo Alpha wrote :
If I loan a player out, will I still be able to dictate the training that he is doing, or will that no longer be under my control once he is loaned out?

you will still be able to dictate his training menu.

Angelo Alpha wrote :
If I loan a player out, will I still be able to dictate the training that he is doing, or will that no longer be under my control once he is loaned out?

There are a few points regarding loans which are unrealistic, but is necessary for them to be like that else no one would want to loan their players out.

1. Loaned out players still train with their own team, at the training centre and with the coaches of their own team, and their own team's manager will decide how they train.
2. Loaned out players gain experience based on the average experience gained by players in their own team, regardless of whether they play or not in matches with their new club.
3. Loaned out players continue to gain experience even if they are sent back from loan, as if they were still playing on loan.
4. When a loaned out player is sent back from loan, his own team does not have to pay their wages for the remainder of the season

Some of these worked differently when the game started but a lot of us complained, and it was tuned and tuned many times to reach where we are now finally.

What causes a training gain in a category the player is not training on? For example, he’s training on speed but his marking increases.