new to lower league management

I have never managed in the lower leagues before and really fancy taking a french side from cfa2 to ligue 1.
But Im not sure what happens with the operating status etc.

The team im going to pick are amateur, now for them to become proffesional will it automatically happen as i go up the divisions, i.e go up 1 division and they become semi-pro then proffesional in ligue 2?

They have no reserve or youth team, will these appear further up the tables or will i have to make do with no reserve or youth squads for the whole game?

thanks for any help

I'm not sure about the reserve/youth side situation, Usually your asked at the start of every season if you want to enter sides into competition but I think you have to have them to start with.

With regards to operating status, Yes that will improve as you go up the league ladder.

You will be asked to enter a reserve/U18 team when you reach higher levels, but it depends what country you are playing in on what level that is. for example - SI have limited U18 leagues to BSN/BSS which is the 6th level in England.

As with previous editions of football manager, you cannot normally manage in the cfa in the standard un-modded version of the game. You may be able to get a mod that makes it playable or if you know how to use the game editor, you could do it yourself, If you already have a mod sorted then feel free to ignore what I just said.

For professional status, it will change to semi-professional and to professional if the leagues require this. In England I know this is the case for teams moving up into League 2 from the Blue Square Premier (if they are not already professional) there may be a similar system in France but not checked. There is also an option to request a change by talking to the board but this is often greyed out if your team doesn't have the finances in place to make this change.

Also France does not have a reserve league as far as I know, their reserves play in the CFA and below so that could be an issue as your reserves would need to get promoted up to the CFA before you would see there matches.

For youth teams, France has a few leagues that seems to be for teams in the top 3 divisions (therefore excluding teams in the CFA). You should be invited to it once you reach the National division as you will simply replace a relegates teams youth team.

You can manage in the CFA if you get a team relegated into it, makes it kind of pointless really.