I did spend tokens on building and even speeding it up. My main goal doing so, was to complete the research, sports and youth center.
To receive more packs on own account in a faster pace, and have top talents asap (As good as they come anyways) I use own youth players to train and relief my main players in matches that are less important or against lesser opponents.
This way they improve faster too, allowing me to give them Special abilities and after a couple of seasons sell them, as for the free players, I usually just take them to sell them. This gives me increased "revenue" All the other buildings were secondary and due to the order of building were mostly required to proceed to higher level of building.
My main players usually are scouts, making it easier to blend youth players in without giving in too much on quality and performance.
This allows me to eventually line up youth players in tougher matches and cup, giving them better stats overall .(also more experience , hence improve them even more)
You don't have to buy tokens at all nor spend it on speeding it up (pretty costly), However I like to play to win, and how Nordeus has the game. Spending more gives more opportunities, (however, just plainly spending tokens doesn't necesarily grant succes) It does highly favour the odds though.