The Godfather of Greenery

Chapter 664 European Youth Champions League
The conference hall of Zhenhua Hotel was crowded with people.

This is not the most luxurious conference hall in the hotel, because there are more high-end private conference rooms, but in this specially furnished conference hall, which can accommodate more than 200 people, everyone who comes to the scene can feel The decoration here is simple but elegant.

This is also the design style of Zhenhua Hotel. It does not pursue luxury and pays more attention to simplicity. It is in line with the theme of green and environmental protection that the whole Zhenhua Building gives people. At least the electricity used by this hotel is generated by wind power. To complete, and water resources can be recycled, known as the green benchmark in the skyscrapers.

At this moment, the reporters who walked into the conference hall were all discussing the big event that was about to be announced to the public. A number of officials at the meeting were discussing a cooperation, but they failed to find any clues about the specific cooperation project.

What kind of cooperation is it?
This has become a doubt in the minds of all the reporters who came to the scene.

As the time of the press conference approached, more and more people came to the scene. The seats in the entire conference hall were full of people, and many members of the camera crew were arranged in the last row of the hall.

Well-known British newspapers such as the Guardian, The Times, The Sun, and the Daily Mail all arranged heavyweights to come to the scene, and European authoritative newspapers including Gazzetta dello Sport, Germany's Bild, Spain's El Pais and France's L'Equipe also attended the event. They also paid enough attention to this press conference. Obviously, they all had a premonition of the weight of this press conference.

Of course, this is a kind of psychology that would rather kill the wrong than let it go. They have suffered from this kind of thing many times in the past, but now the competition in the media field is intense, and they have to go all out, otherwise they will miss important news It was a terrible loss.

Time passed slowly, and the scene was full of voices, almost everyone was discussing the upcoming announcement.

When people walked into the venue one after another, everyone fell silent immediately, and the spotlight suddenly flickered.

Impressively, including AC Milan's Galliani, Real Madrid's Florentino, Barcelona's Russell, Manchester United's David Gill, Chelsea's Pini Zahavi, Tottenham's Peter ?Kenyon...

The bigwigs from several of the most famous European football teams appeared at the venue, but it was not just these giant teams, including Ajax, Porto, Sporting Lisbon, Lyon, and people from other parts of Europe such as Leaders of some top teams from Croatia, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and other countries all appeared at the venue.

There was an uproar at the entire press conference. It must not be easy for so many people to appear together.

In fact, while everyone was shocked, they were also full of expectations for the upcoming press conference, but more importantly, they were full of admiration for the influence of Moon Sports Services, at least in European football. , no one sports service company can do their level.

As the saying goes, things are silent, and sometimes everyone just notices what they see on the surface. For example, they think that Mendes is the best in the brokerage field, but they don't know it at all. Mendes has a lot of business In fact, the operation is also handed over to Moon Sports Services Company to complete.

With the improvement and development of the Football Economic Forum and the player database, the influence of Moon Sports Services has already penetrated into every corner of European football, and the business involved also includes many aspects, except for a very small part of the player brokerage business Besides, they are hardly involved in any transfer matters.

But in terms of commercial operation ability, the ability of Moon Sports Services Company is unquestionable.

After these football bigwigs walked into the venue, they chatted and sat down in the front row, and not long after, they saw Ye Qiu and Eliza Moon, accompanied by Platini and other UEFA officials. Officials, plus leaders of the Football Association of the English Football Association, the Italian Football Association, and the Spanish Football Association also appeared at the venue.

There was another uproar at the scene. Eliza Moon is now a veritable strong woman. Under her leadership, Leaf Technology has developed very rapidly over the years. She has become the world's leading CEO, and although her name Shang is still the owner of Moon Sports Service Company, but no one expects her to be able to come to the scene.

But she just came, which surprised almost everyone present.

"Welcome friends from the media industry to take time to attend our press conference!"

The CEO of Moon Sports Services, Paul Newman, a somewhat bald Irishman, came to the stage and said to everyone below that he should be the part-time emcee of this press conference.

Basically, when holding a press conference in Europe, there is no need to introduce the guests who came to the scene. Everyone knows each other, so the press conference quickly got to the point, and Paul Newman announced something that made the audience almost Big event that shocked everyone.

"In the past few years, I believe that everyone knows very well that no matter what country or giant team it is, the development of youth training has become a major event that they cannot ignore. According to the statistics we have obtained, in the Premier League, the average investment of each Premier League team in youth training is about 100 million pounds, and very few of them reach 200 million pounds, and Tottenham Hotspur has always been the leader in this aspect , reaching 300 million pounds!"

Paul Newman’s data comes from official data. Tottenham Hotspur’s investment in youth training includes many aspects, so it’s not just the investment in youth training, but also the R&D investment of some research centers on youth training. , and some other items.

"But we all know that in England, there are not many real opportunities for young players to play. At best, the FA Youth Cup is more important. The youth echelons of many Premier League teams are not ideal, such as Manchester City!"

Manchester City's youth training is indeed relatively bad. Although they seem to have trained a lot of players on the surface, in fact, their youth training academy in Pratt Lane invests very little every year. After Mansour bought Manchester City, although there has been some improvement, it has only just started.

"Of course, I don't mean to blame Manchester City, because there are many other teams like them, and there are too many teams on the European continent. They may be all young players sharing a dilapidated building. The field, playing a game that even they have no interest in."

This situation is true for Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, Arsenal and other giants. Their young players are too strong. Compared with other teams, they are not at the same level. Such a game It's very boring to fight.

Tottenham Hotspur organizes overseas training for youth teams every year, which is why Tottenham Hotspur invests a lot in youth training, because overseas training still needs money in the final analysis.

"Actually, at the end of the day, we all know that youth training is the future of football, but at the same time, we all regard youth training as a burden on the club in our hearts, so we have always wondered whether there is a How can we change this situation? Can we make our team more enthusiastic about youth training and make our fans more interested in watching youth team games?"

"Four years ago, two very outstanding professional youth training talents were thinking about this problem, and they were also trying to put it into practice, and they considered many, many plans. Two years ago, someone introduced to me They, as soon as I heard their ideas and plans, I said, this is the future of youth training!"

"We need a platform to make everyone more involved in youth training, support youth training more, and pay more attention to youth training. We need a complete league system for youth teams!"

When Paul Newman said this, many people on the scene have already realized the problem, the league system of the youth team?

Could it be that they want to organize leagues for youth teams in various countries?By Moon Sports Services?

"After two years of careful preparation and planning, we have the support of many teams in Europe, we have signed agreements with them, and we have official authorization from FIFA and UEFA, we will start this season , Officially start the first European Youth Champions League!"

Following Paul Newman's announcement, an animation immediately appeared on the big screen behind him, and the trophy and logo of the European Youth Champions League appeared on the big screen. Everyone could see that this was a well-planned The video shows that this is also a well-planned event.

It took Moon Sports Services two years to plan this event, which shows how much they attach importance to this event.

"This is a UEFA Champions League for young players under the age of 19. The 32 teams participating in the adult UEFA Champions League group stage will automatically enter the group stage of this event, and the grouping is exactly the same as the UEFA Champions League group stage."

According to the plan, all teams participating in the UEFA Champions League group stage can choose whether to arrange youth teams to participate. All participating players must be 19 years old or below, and for some teams that do not want to participate, it is up to the organizing committee. Invite other teams to fill in.

At present, the Premier League includes Arsenal, Chelsea and other teams that cannot participate in the UEFA Champions League. They have all been added to the list of the UEFA Youth League group stage. In addition, there are also some teams with high levels of European youth training, such as Rennes. , such as Anderlecht, etc., they all entered this event.

After all, this is the first competition. Many teams from small football countries do not want to participate. After all, they are running back and forth, and many of them do not have regular youth teams. I mentioned to the organizing committee just before that no team will be sent to participate.

After all, the European Youth Champions League is a very meaningful thing, because it can greatly promote the exchanges and connections between European youth training teams, and it can also allow young players to compete with players from other countries early. The team plays games, promotes their growth and progress, and provides them with a broader vision and stage.

The plan was conceived four years ago by Mark Warbendon and Frank McParland, a former Watford youth director who is now Bradford's sporting director, but has since He was poached by Moon Sports Services Company and served as an important member of this plan.

Frank McParland, who is in his sixties, used to be the chief scout of Liverpool, and later switched to Bolton as the director of youth training. En Sports Services Inc.

These two talents are responsible for the organization and operation of the event, while Moon Sports Services Company has dedicated personnel for business development.

You know, no matter from which angle you look at it, this event has great potential and benefits. Almost all giant teams, even Ajax and other teams, hope to participate, and in order to ensure that participating teams The organizing committee has also drawn up some restrictive clauses to prohibit the occurrence of mutual poaching.

UEFA also gives strong support to such things, because they also believe that this can greatly promote the enthusiasm of youth training, but there is a problem, and that is funding.

After investing a lot of money in grassroots football and small country leagues, it is no longer possible for UEFA to support Moon Sports Services to run such a league. Paul Newman, after talking with Ye Qiu, Peter Kenyon, etc. After consultation with others, they also expected UEFA's mentality, so they put forward an idea of ​​independent authorization and management.

Both UEFA and FIFA agreed to authorize and let Moon Sports Services independently operate and manage this event.

In fact, this is equivalent to the fact that the Premier League was independent from the FA back then. Even now, Moon Sports Services Company has more benefits than the Premier League. At least it has the greatest power in terms of schedule and discipline. The Football Federation only provides support on some minor details such as referee arrangements.

Therefore, in less than half a year of preparation time, Moon Sports Services Company demonstrated its strong business operation capabilities, not only attracting four international sponsors including Adidas, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Samsung, but also There were other small and local sponsors, and the TV rights were eventually won by Sky and the BBC.

This also follows the tradition of broadcasting rights of the UEFA Champions League. There is a free TV station and a paid TV station. The former can help the event increase audience and attract more people's attention, while the latter can ensure that the value of broadcasting rights continues to increase.

Although it is the first session, the income from sponsors and broadcasting rights is not ideal, and even in many places, sponsors have to be accommodated. For example, the game time has to temporarily obey the requirements of the broadcasters. They hope this more The game can become the opening show of the Champions League, but no matter what, the money problem is basically solved.

This is undoubtedly a very important benefit for the start of the European Youth Champions League, because after the money is settled, the organizing committee is fully capable of distributing participation bonuses and winning bonuses to all participating teams, and for all participating teams For example, especially the wealthy teams, let alone the money, even if they don't have the money, they are happy to participate.

Of course, it is the Youth Champions League, the entry bonus and winning bonus are not comparable to the Champions League, or even pitifully small, but it is enough to support a youth team.

You must know that there is a huge gap between the youth team and the first team today. This is the status quo that exists in any team, but through such platforms and events, young players and teams can find their own stage and gain Sufficient exposure and attention make them more likely to stand out and find talents they lack.

For the sponsors, the participating teams are not unknown. Those who can participate in this event are the youth teams of the UEFA Champions League, the potential rookies in the future, they can feel the future potential from it, and they are very It is clear that such events are still very attractive in European football and even world football.

For Moon Sports Services Company, this is the last piece of pure land in professional football. When club competitions and intercontinental competitions are controlled by FIFA and Confederation of Confederations, while domestic competitions are controlled by national football associations, they organize a youth competition. The team game is definitely a powerful development of the marginal market.

There is no need to doubt the commercial operation ability of Moon Sports Services Company. They already have a complete set of operation plans and are determined to operate the European Youth Champions League within five years and build it into a highly commercialized and highly competitive league. , making it a platform for the best young players in the world to gather and showcase their strengths.

Among all the reporters who came to the scene, many well-informed people realized that Moon Sports Services Company was supposed to promote youth training on the surface, but that was just some official polite statement. In fact, they got UEFA They are authorized by the Federation and have signed an independent operation and management agreement, that is to say, they are equivalent to the managers with the greatest authority for this event.

This means that it is entirely possible for them to create a brand new Champions League, and they play the role of UEFA.

Many people may say that the competition of the youth team is not as exciting as that of the adult team, which is wrong.

The competition of the youth team may not be as intense as that of the adult team, but the youth team plays more openly, scores more goals, and is aggressive. Moreover, their physical strength is weaker than that of the adult team, and their technical content is higher.

And a very important point is that the operating cost of the youth team is lower, and even the fans' watching costs are also lower, so we should not only see the advantages of the adult team, but should see that, relatively speaking, the youth team also has advantages. Their own advantages, the key is that the adult team has played their own advantages, and how the youth team finds their own advantages.

Undoubtedly, Moon Sports Services Company has once again made an astonishing pioneering work. When the UEFA Champions League has been highly commercialized, its development has encountered bottlenecks, and its operating costs are getting higher and higher, they have vigorously supported the youth UEFA Champions League. In the next few years, it will become a sudden rise in European football.

There is a saying that is right: third-rate companies make products, second-rate companies make brands, and first-rate companies make standards.

Moon Sports Services has been officially authorized by FIFA and UEFA. If the UEFA Youth League allows them to start, then the UEFA Youth League will follow the trend, and they will even have the opportunity to invite other players. Teams from all continents come to participate in the competition, promoting football exchanges between continents.

Are the Toulon Cup, the World Youth Championship, and the European Youth Championship very prosperous now?
Watch the UEFA Youth League next!
(End of this chapter)