How about putting in a talent scout?
Someone that you either pay with golden balls/recruiting points or money.
There work: you tell them that you want a 10 star quality player with a salary of 2000 and he goes and scout for you all available players with the specs you gave -even if he is playing for another team- then you can make that team/player a offer to come play for you...

Some players can't always buy from the auction house because there is bigger teams that can afford more points and so you have to be stuck with what you have till one day that you get lucky...

+1

Only issue is that this is a bit of a freemium game... So more recruitment coins are something that they might like you to buy - so paying players get a better chance at success... So they might not like this idea..

True, but if you make it on the same principal as with the auction house then they don't loose anything