Football feast, starting from the acquisition of European clubs

Chapter 353 The Impact of the Financial Tsunami on the Football Circle

The second conversation between Little Fatty Louis and Pique did not achieve the result that Chen Ran hoped to see.

Therefore, according to Chen Ran's plan, the little fat man drew up a transfer plan with a buy-back clause for Pique and sent it to the Barcelona club.

After receiving the transfer plan from the Crystal Palace Club, Guardiola was very happy.

Building the main lineup for the new season with Barcelona's direct lineup players from La Masia as the core is Guardiola's team building idea established as soon as he took office.

Not only the existing Valdes, Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta and others, Guardiola also promoted Busquez and Bojan from the Barcelona youth team.

If you buy Pique from Crystal Palace now, except for the three big-name foreign players on the forward line, no one can replace them temporarily, and the entire skeleton of Barcelona has basically been constructed according to Guardiola's ideas.

However, when the repurchase plan drawn up by the little fat man was sent to Laporta, he was blocked by the Barcelona club president.

After getting the news, Guardiola rushed to Laporta's office immediately.

"Mr. Chairman, why did you stop Pique's transfer? This young man is an excellent central defender with great potential."

In the office, not only Laporta, but also Fernandez, Barcelona's sports director in charge of transfer affairs, is also there.

"Josep, it's not that I'm not optimistic about Pique, but the repurchase clause established by Crystal Palace is almost exactly the same as the repurchase clause we set up when they introduced Cesc Fabregas."

"And they sold Pique to us for 500 million euros, and then set up a repurchase price of 500 million euros. What does this mean? You should know it without me saying it?"

Laporta obviously expected that Guardiola would come to him, and unhurriedly stated his reasons for calling off the transfer.

"Mr. Chairman, although the repurchase terms are similar, the situation of Crystal Palace is far from what it was at the beginning. Even if we accept the repurchase terms now, Pique may not return to the Crystal Palace club in the future."

"Oh? Josep, why did you come to such a conclusion? What exactly do you think?"

Laporta and Fernandez glanced at each other, and the latter asked curiously why.

"Mr. Chairman, Robert, you all know that I have been an assistant coach at the Crystal Palace Club for the past few years, and I can say that I have a good understanding of the situation there."

"Crystal Palace's current central defender position is overcrowded, and the strength of every player is higher than that of Pique, who is still relatively immature."

"It can be said that Pique has no chance to play when he returns to the Crystal Palace. As long as Pique is not stupid, then it is impossible for him to want to go back to the Crystal Palace."

"As long as the players are unwilling to go back, then we can negotiate with the Crystal Palace club and then use money to get them to give up the activation of the buyback clause."

Guardiola's analysis immediately aroused Laporta's interest again.

However, Fernandez interrupted at this time.

"Josep, are you sure that the Crystal Palace Club will not give Pique a chance to play? If Chen Ran is really optimistic about Pique, he will give Pique a chance to perform, right?"

It has to be said that Fernandez's worries are not unreasonable, and Laporta also turned to look at Guardiola.

"Er Robert, frankly speaking, the situation you mentioned may indeed happen. But even if it is the worst outcome, we can at least have Pique for a while."

Having said that, Guardiola looked sincerely into Laporta's eyes.

"Mr. Chairman, there is nothing absolute in this world. The reason why I am willing to promote this transfer is because the possibility of us keeping Piqué in Barcelona is not small, and it is worth a try."

"Robert, what do you think?"

Laporta did not directly answer Guardiola's question, but turned to ask Fernandez's opinion.

"Mr. Chairman, according to Josep's analysis, you can really gamble. The worst result is that we helped Crystal Palace train Pique for free for two seasons."

"If the bet wins, then we will get a central defender who can be used for ten years. Based on this calculation, the risk does not seem too great."

Laporta still attaches great importance to the opinion of Fernandez, a right-hand man.

After weighing it carefully, Laporta nodded slightly.

"Then give it a try. However, the buyback price of 500 million euros is too low, at least 1000 million euros!"

"Okay, sir, I know what to do."

London, Crystal Palace Club, little fat Louis who received a reply from Barcelona Club came to Chen Ran's office again.

"Chen, Barcelona agreed to the repurchase terms you requested. However, they proposed to increase the repurchase terms to 1000 million euros."

"1000 million euros?"

Chen Ran smiled contemptuously, trying to use this little money to prevent himself from repurchasing?Barcelona really wanted to go blind.

"Luis, you go and tell the Barcelona club that it is 500 million euros, we do not accept bargaining."

From one moment to another, the current Crystal Palace is no longer the Crystal Palace of the past, and the initiative of the negotiation is completely in Chen Ran's hands.

"understand!"

Under Guardiola's mediation, Chen Ran finally made a little concession.

The two clubs, Crystal Palace and Barcelona, ​​finally reached an agreement on the buyback price of 550 million euros.

Pique also officially joined the Barcelona club at a price of 500 million euros.

The Crystal Palace Club has the right to forcibly buy back Pique from Barcelona at a price of 550 million euros after two seasons.

Guardiola is busy building Barcelona according to his own ideas, and in Real Madrid, Mourinho is not idle.

Under his strong recommendation, Real Madrid introduced Argentine winger Di Maria and Portuguese left-back Coentrao from Benfica, Portugal at prices of 2500 million euros and 2100 million euros respectively.

As a side note, both players are clients of Mendes' agency.

In addition, Real Madrid also spent 1300 million euros to buy Dutch midfielder Van der Vaart from the German Hamburg club.

Of course, in order to make room, Mourinho also dealt with Soldado, Granero and Balboa, who were born in Real Madrid's youth training, to other small clubs at a low price.

In this summer, apart from the sudden intrusion of the Manchester City club, there is another piece of good news for Chen Ran.

The power of the financial tsunami in 2008 was initially revealed, and global stock markets plummeted.

So far, the U.S. Dow Jones Index, which is the benchmark of the global stock market, has fallen by 20%, and the stock markets of other countries are even more devastated.

Of course, the owners of many football clubs have not been spared. It is not bad that their fortunes have plummeted, and many clubs have even had to apply for bankruptcy protection.

The general situation is not good, and the transfer investment of major clubs has naturally shrunk significantly, so there is generally little action in the transfer market.

For Manchester United, which is burdened with huge debts, life is obviously even more difficult.

In addition to the high interest that had to be repaid, the other assets of the Glazer family continued to explode, which made them have to draw funds from Manchester United to fight fires everywhere. Naturally, they had no money to buy Ferguson.

In desperation, Sir Alex Ferguson had to raise transfer funds by selling players.

He even sold two important players, Saha and Sylvester, to Everton and Arsenal respectively, before he managed to scrape together enough money to buy the famous player from Tottenham Hotspur for a whopping £3075 million. The "handsome brother", Bulgarian striker Berbatov.

On the side of Chelsea, whose lineup is already very strong, Ancelotti only slightly strengthened the team.

In addition to introducing midfielder Deco from Barcelona, ​​they also spent 1600 million pounds to buy Portuguese right back Bosingwa from Porto.

Compared with Abramovich's continuous transfer investment of hundreds of millions of euros in the past few years, it is completely different.

On Arsenal's side, except for the introduction of French central defender Sylvester from Manchester United.They also bought French midfielder Nasri from Marseille for £1200 million and Welsh midfielder Ramsey from Cardiff City for £500 million.

At first glance, it seems that Arsenal has money to buy people. In fact, after deducting the sold players such as Hleb and Gilberto Silva, Arsenal's net investment is only 35 euros.

On the other side of Liverpool, which is also burdened with huge debts, they actually spent a high price of 2000 million pounds to introduce Irish striker Robbie Keane from Tottenham Hotspur, and bought it from Udinese for 700 million pounds. Italian left-back Dossena.

It's not that Liverpool's two American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillette, have increased their investment. On the contrary, these two guys have pushed the Liverpool club further into the abyss.

Most of the assets of Tom Hicks and George Gillette are in the United States, and they have invested a lot in the stock market.

Once the stock market crashed, the two of them are now devastated and unable to protect themselves.They want to cash out Liverpool's high price and leave, but no one is willing to take over, and they are unwilling to make a loss.

So, the two of them made up their minds, since they were on the gambling table, they should simply play the big one.

In the case that the Liverpool Club is already burdened with huge debts, it continues to borrow money at super high interest rates to buy people.Improve the Liverpool club's results as much as possible so they can cash out.

On Chen Ran's side, as a reborn, he naturally prepared for today's situation early.

He is very clear that now is far from the darkest moment of the financial tsunami.

He had already cleared the penguin stocks he held heavily along the way, and was waiting to enter the market to pick up bargains after they fell.

Thinking of the soaring Penguin stock price in the future, Chen Ran can wake up with a smile in his dreams.

With these penguin stocks, even if he does nothing in the future, he can lie on the Forbes list.

Chen Ran, who is in a good mood, now finds everything pleasing to the eye.

To his relief, according to the reports of those private investigators, since he asked the little fat man to pass the news of the salary increase to the agents of the Crystal Palace players, the contact between these guys and other clubs has dropped significantly.

As the time for Crystal Palace's players to return to the team is approaching, no player or agent has applied for a transfer to the club.

"Chen, the calculation of the club's operating costs you requested has been completed, and the salary increase for the players has also been calculated. You still need to decide how much to increase."

After finishing speaking, Stephen handed the document directly to Chen Ran.

It's just that Stephen's face is not very good-looking.The thought of spending so much more money every year in the future makes his heart ache.

"Stephen, get used to it slowly. In the future, the wages of players will only get higher and higher. This is the general trend, and none of us can stop it."

While comforting Stephen, Chen Ran looked at the document in his hand.

"hiss!"

Although he had been mentally prepared for a long time, Chen Ran couldn't help but gasped when he saw the numbers.

"C Ronaldo's annual salary has increased from 500 million euros to 800 million euros, an increase of 60% at once."

"Kaka also increased to 800 million euros, Messi slightly less, but also increased to 700 million euros."

"As for the other players, there are various salary increases. The least one has also increased his annual salary by 30%."

"According to this salary increase plan, our Crystal Palace club will increase the salary expenditure of more than 2000 million euros every year in the future."

"Chen, this is not a small sum of money. Are you sure you really want to do this?"

Stephen, who knew everything about the salary increase plan, introduced the content of the plan to Chen Ran, and asked a question without giving up.

"I can't do without it. Stephen, now there is another wealthy Abu Dhabi consortium in the Premier League. Do you think you can keep people without a salary increase?"

To be honest, seeing such a huge number, Chen Ran's heart is also bleeding, how many Penguin stocks can he buy.

"understood."

Stephen also knew that he had no way to change the status quo, so he could only nod helplessly.

"By the way, I asked you and Louis to sell all the stocks in your hand, have you sold them?"

"It's all been sold. Chen, do you have any inside information? How can you judge the stock market so accurately?"

When it came to stocks, Stephen, who was still a little bit sluggish, immediately regained his spirits.

"Ahem, this is a global stock market crash. How can there be any inside information? I just think that the previous stock market rose too exaggeratedly, so I just accept it when it's good."

"That's true."

Stephen didn't doubt Chen Ran's excuse, he was more concerned about the future plan.

"Chen, we've all exchanged our stocks for cash now, what do you think we should buy next?"

"I will buy stocks again in the future, but not now. I don't think the stock market is over yet. I will let you know when I can enter the market."

"Okay, then I'll wait for your news."

(End of this chapter)