My scouts suck

Hey I have a question. I dont like to use genie scout, cause I consider it cheating, so I only use my own ingame scouts to find players. I have been playing with Leeds for about 7-8 seasons and the ammount of players my scouts are finding have been declining since season 2-3. In the begging every scout found about 20-30 players each, now 7-8 years later 75% of the scouts cant find a single player and the rest will find about 1-3 players each. Thats kinda annoying. I have tried to hire new scouts, lower my demands and stuff, but still my scouts cant find any players anymore. I have been playing FM since 2002 or so, and have always been using my scouts the same way and this is the first time I have this problem. Anyone have an idea on why my scouts just refuse to find any players?
PS. I only scout for players under the age of 23 with the potential of 3.5 stars. In the begging it was 21 years and 4.5 stars but when the scouts stopped delivering I lowered my demands. The game makes plenty of regened players and I am sure that at least some of them must be over 3.5 stars in potential.. All my scouts ar at least at 19 in player potential and 15 in current level and I scout all over the world in both specific countries, continets and that "new talent" option with the same pathetic result.. Help!!

Well I think your problem is that now you are well in to your save with Leeds, and I will presume you have considerably improved the club, there are less players in that top bracket which you are searching for. Your scouts will recommend players whom they think would be good for your team, but as your team improves, the amount of players good enough for your team reduces. At this stage, it really is about finding those hidden gems if you can. It will be a struggle, but that's to be expected.

I wouldn't be disheartened by this, as it means you are moving in the right direction. It just means that your scout's expectations of players have risen.

Hey, thanks for the reply. Ye I am safe in top 4 in PL and have been for the last 4 seasons, so that might be the reason, but I still think its strange for 2 reasons. 1. I lowered my demands for the players the scouts are supposed to be scouting for to 3.5 stars in potential. So basically the scouts still should be able to find lots of players, maybe who are not good enough to be in the start 11 in my team, but still should be decent signings. So the scouts still should be finding players. And 2. As I mentioned earlier I have been playing fm for about 10 years now, always done the same thing with my scouts and never had this problem before. I understand that there are changes in each version but this seems more like a bug to me so it should have been fixed in one of the updates? I dont know. I just think that its a bit frustrating and making the game more boring since buying young talens and making them into stars is one of the things I love doing the most in FM.

PS. YNWA! :-)

Another reason could be that the scouts are finding quality players but maybe they aren't interested in joining your club? Sometimes it is hard to find players who will be good players for you and will want to join. A perfect example is Liverpool atm. They want to sign the top players, and have the money to do so, but players would rather go to a Manchester club or Chelsea, etc. because they are in a better place.

Well, in my mind, that makes even less sence. Why would they want to join me when I played in the championship then? The amount of players my scouts were finding when I was a championship club was much higher and the quality of the players are more of less the same. As i mentioned earlier, I only scout for young playrs. On top of that, lots of players my scouts were finding at that time didnt want to join my club. So it has nothing to do with whether or not the players want to play for me. If that was the case, the amount of players my scouts were finding should have increased over the years - not decreased.