Football giants

Chapter 44 Bribery
"Live in a five-star hotel?"

On the first floor of St. Mary's Stadium, in Yang Huan's office, Nicola Cortes almost uttered the highest tenor of his life.

The purpose is to show his surprise and unacceptable at this moment.

"Do you know how much a night in a five-star hotel costs?"

Opposite him, Sun Yue smiled calmly, nodded and said, "Yes, I'm living in a five-star hotel now."

Nicola Cortez was taken aback for a moment before he remembered that this buddy had stayed at the Grand Harbor Hotel for more than half a month.

"You don't have to stand over there and talk without back pain. Since you know how much a five-star hotel costs for a night, then you should know that three referees in a game, plus the fourth official, their board and lodging is a huge expense in itself."

"Even if we play once a week, but if it is arranged in a five-star hotel, there are 24 teams in League One, and there are 46 rounds of matches, including 23 home rounds. You can calculate for yourself how much it will cost."

After speaking, Nicola Cortez sat down in another seat in front of Yang Huan angrily.

"Forget it, do you think the one hundred thousand pounds can be spent?" Sun Yue asked calmly.

Nicola Cortez smiled wryly, "Isn't one hundred thousand pounds less? And you said that you would give everyone a gift every game, my God, don't you know that we are heavily in debt now?"

Southampton is indeed heavily in debt this summer. Almost all the team's signings are paid for by Yang Huan. These are all included in the team's debts, but Yang Huan is the owner of the team.

"Don't be so nervous, the gifts are not worth much, and it's not a big deal to receive them in a five-star hotel, but doing so can help us establish a good image in the hearts of the referees."

At this point, Sun Yue paused, "At the beginning, when I said that I wanted to give gifts to reporters, you thought it was unnecessary, but now look, we have appeared in newspapers of all sizes in England every day for the past 20 days or so. This kind of attention is only available to a few top teams in the Premier League."

Nicola Cortez also has to admit that gifts are small gifts and worthless. Even now, whenever there is any news about the team, they will hold a press conference, give gifts and things, and even treat the reporters to a meal. This has made the relationship between Southampton and the reporters very active, and the reporters treat Southampton very high.

Sun Yue has extended some domestic styles to the UK, and this method can work anywhere in the world.

In recent times, Southampton's popularity has been far ahead in League One.

Not much else to say, the team is currently negotiating with the jersey sponsor Umbro, asking Umbro to increase the jersey sponsorship from the original 200 million pounds to 500 million pounds, especially after the team signed Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

I believe it is difficult for Umbro to refuse Southampton, because once Umbro refuses, Southampton will quickly switch to other sponsors.

Not only jersey sponsors, but in terms of chest advertising sponsorship, Southampton did not hesitate to reject some sponsors with less than 100 million pounds before, and the current sponsorship market has quickly increased to 200 million pounds.

But both Yang Huan and Sun Yue still rejected all sponsorship intentions, and they planned to hit the sponsors hard after Ibrahimovic's transfer was announced.

As long as Southampton maintains the current media attention, the sponsorship fee will certainly not be low.

Yang Huan silently listened to the quarrel between the two assistants. In fact, it was Nicola Cortez who was arguing, while Sun Yue calmly followed suit. As the owner of the team, it was difficult for him to say who was right and who was wrong.

After all, one is thinking about how to save money for oneself, while the other is for the purpose of publicity.

"Okay, stop arguing, both of you!"

Seeing that the two of them were almost arguing, Yang Huan also stepped forward to stop.

You can't let them keep arguing, can you?
"Nicolas, I think your idea is good, but Sun Yue's plan is more in line with my taste, so this matter is handed over to Sun Yue. In the future, marketing and external public relations matters will be handed over to him."

Yang Huan felt that it was necessary to divide the work between the two assistants and clarify each other's authority.

"As for you, Nicola, you are in charge of the team's daily operations and transfer operations, especially the construction of the training base and the community promotion plan we have drawn up before. These two are key projects for the team's development."

The community promotion plan was formulated before Yang Huan took over Southampton. The attendance rate of St. Mary's Stadium still depends on the support of local fans, so the community promotion plan is very important.

Nicola Cortez's wife is the person in charge of this project. After Yang Huan took over the Saints, he did not make personnel transfers and continued to use the previous team.

Nicola Cortes sighed helplessly after hearing this.

"I've told you a long time ago that Master Huan is a person who does big things. He's not so fussy like you. Can Master Huan see things worth hundreds of thousands of dollars? You have a small belly and a narrow mind. How can you do big things?" Seeing Nicola Cortez deflated, Sun Yue taunted with a smile.

Yang Huan was very happy when he heard this, but he coughed heavily, "If you dare to flatter me again, I will break your neck, kick your balls, and throw you to a gay bar to pick up soap. If you don't believe me, try it!"

When Sun Yue heard it, he was flustered and laughed immediately, "Don't dare to try, don't dare to try."

Nicola Cortez still shook his head and sighed, "You guys don't know. I looked at the team's financial situation last month. We lost more than 1000 million pounds last month. Several big signings this month, coupled with a series of expenses, I was flustered, full of financial deficits."

Yang Huan and Sun Yue looked at each other, they both knew this was the truth, who made Southampton a League One team?

Moreover, Southampton did not have many commercial channels in the past, making this team's ability to generate income extremely poor.

Everything was created step by step from scratch after Yang Huan took over.

Nicola Cortes was born as a banker, and he has a natural resistance to deficits. Therefore, last season, although Southampton under his leadership did not make a profit, it did not have much loss.

And you must know that before Nicola Cortez took charge of Southampton, the Saints had just fallen into financial crisis and were deducted ten league points because of this.

"Don't worry, Nicholas, everything will be fine!" Yang Huan said reassuringly.

"Yes, we all understand your difficulties."

Sun Yue is not as careless as he appears on the surface. On the contrary, he was able to integrate into the entire management organization of Southampton in less than a month. His ability, especially his ability to deal with colleagues is very good.

Nicola Cortes and Sun Yue, one is good at business operations, the other is good at marketing and public relations.

With the help of the two of them, Yang Huan felt very relaxed and could spend more time chasing girls.

When it comes to picking up girls, Yang Huan thinks of Zhang Ning.

It's ashamed to say that he can't even make love to the woman he raised. He really has no face to see the folks in Longhai City!
…………

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Jonathan Moss, 39, is one of England's newly promoted young referees.

According to the characteristics of the English league, Jonathan Moss is not yet qualified to join the elite referee group that specializes in whistle-handling in the Premier League. In addition, he is young and needs to accumulate more experience. Therefore, he is currently randomly calling the whistle in the four professional leagues of League Two, League One, Championship and the Premier League.

This time, he was appointed as the referee for the opening game of the [-]-[-] League One season, Southampton vs. Plymouth at home, which is also an affirmation of his whistle-handling ability.

As usual, he arrived at Southampton a day early with the two linesmen and the fourth official.

The Saints picked them up at the train station in a luxurious Bentley.

"I've always heard that the new owner of Southampton is very rich. I didn't expect it to be true. They use Bentleys for connecting and waiting cars."

"I'm afraid this is the only one in the English professional league?"

"Well, not even Manchester City."

The two linemen in the car were laughing and talking about Southampton's high-level reception.

Jonathan Moss sat there but kept silent. He was used to this kind of scene, and he could even predict that this high-standard reception would continue in the future, and then some people from the club would come up to make friends with them.

This kind of thing has happened many times, and he doesn't find it strange.

But as a professional referee, he has his own bottom line, because he knows very well that there are fourth officials on the sidelines and game supervisors in the stands, and his every move on the court will be recorded by them one by one.

In the past, the referee was only a part-time job, and everyone didn't care about it, but now he is a full-time referee. Jonathan Moss didn't dare to joke about his career future.

Therefore, he has always remained wary of Southampton's high-level reception.

He even suspected that Southampton was going to bribe before the game.

"How people receive it is their business, what should we do, and what should we do."

Jonathan Moss' words were agreed by the two linemen. They all knew that their every move was being monitored.

To their surprise, the reception was indeed a high-standard reception.

Southampton arranged for them to stay at the Grand Harbor Hotel. According to the driver, this is the best hotel in Southampton, and the new owner of the club, Yang Huan, lives in this hotel.

This further increased the suspicion of Jonathan Moss and others.

But after they checked into the hotel, they found that the people from Southampton had never appeared in front of them at all.

Even the new owner of the club who is rumored to be staying at the Grand Harbor Hotel.

This made the three of Jonathan Moss a little ashamed, and he judged the belly of a gentleman with the heart of a villain.

At noon the next day, near the start of the first game of the new season, Southampton's driver drove the Bentley again, came to the hotel, and took them to St. Mary's Stadium.

When the referee team arrived at St. Mary's Stadium, there were not many fans here, and Southampton's executive chairman Nicola Cortes just came to meet them, say hello, and then arranged for a staff member to receive them.

Checking the playing field and the locker room, Jonathan Moss proceeded step by step according to the pre-match process, and recorded everything, which will be submitted to the referee company for filing after the game.

During the whole process, Southampton did not show any unprofessionalism, or showed the slightest sign of trying to get close to them.

This made Jonathan Moss and others breathe a sigh of relief, but they couldn't help but have a good impression of this team.

"If every English team is as professional as they are, then our job will be much easier." The fourth official said with a smile.

For them, it is very common for them to face the home team management or fans before the game to exert pressure through various means, even verbal intimidation, these are very common things, and even the FA has no way to stop them.

This situation has been repeatedly banned in low-level leagues, so the referee is often under great pressure.

But Southampton now feels to them that they are more professional than many Premier League teams, which left a deep impression on them.

"I've heard that the relationship between Southampton and Plymouth is not good either."

Jonathan Moss smiled wryly. Several cities on the south coast of England have a bad relationship with each other, especially Southampton, which can be described as the target of public criticism. Who made them always be regarded as the flag of the south coast?
Portsmouth, Plymouth, Brighton...who wouldn't want to take the flag instead?
"All in all, let's enforce the law fairly!"

(End of this chapter)