Chapter 44 Bribery

"Stay in a five-star hotel?"

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

The purpose is to show his surprise and difficulty in accepting at this moment.

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

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

Nicholas Cortes was stunned for a moment, then he remembered that this guy had been staying at the Grand Harbour Hotel for more than half a month.

"Stop standing there and talking nonsense. Since you know how much a night in a five-star hotel costs, you should know that for a match, there are three referees and a fourth official. Their food and lodging are a considerable expense in themselves."

"Even if we play one game a week, if we arrange it in a five-star hotel, there are 24 teams in the English League One and we have to play 46 rounds of games, 23 of which are home games. You can do the math yourself and see how much it will cost."

After saying that, Nicholas Cortes sat down angrily on another chair in front of Yang Huan.

"Don't calculate it. Do you think you can spend all the 100,000 pounds?" Sun Yue asked calmly.

Nicola Cortes smiled bitterly. "One hundred thousand pounds is not enough? And you said you would give them a gift for 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 of the team's signings were paid for by Yang Huan out of his own pocket, and all of these were included in the team's debt, but Yang Huan is the team's boss.

"Don't be so nervous. The gifts are not valuable. It's not a big deal to host them in a five-star hotel. But doing this can help us establish a good image in the minds of the referees."

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

Nicola Cortes had to admit that the gifts were small and not valuable. Even now, whenever the team has any news, they hold a press conference, send gifts and other things, and even treat reporters to a meal, which makes the relationship between Southampton and reporters very active, and the treatment given to Southampton by reporters is indeed very high.

Sun Yue brought some of the domestic practices to the UK, and this approach would work anywhere in the world.

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

Without further ado, the team is currently in talks with jersey sponsor Umbro, asking Umbro to increase the jersey sponsorship from the original 2 million pounds to 5 million pounds, especially after the team signed Ibrahimovic.

I believe it will be difficult for Umbro to reject Southampton, because once Umbro rejects, Southampton will quickly turn to other sponsors.

Not only jersey sponsors, but also chest advertising sponsorship, Southampton had previously rejected some sponsors below one million pounds without hesitation, and the current sponsorship market has rapidly increased to two million pounds.

However, Yang Huan and Sun Yue still rejected all sponsorship intentions. They planned to make a big profit from the sponsors after Ibrahimovic's transfer was announced.

As long as Southampton maintains its current level of media attention, the sponsorship fees will certainly not be low.

Yang Huan silently listened to the quarrel between his two assistants. Actually, it was Nicola Cortes who was quarreling, while Sun Yue calmly responded to their quarrels. As the owner of the team, it was difficult for him to say who was right or wrong.

After all, one is thinking about how to save money for himself, while the other is trying to achieve the purpose of creating publicity.

"Okay, both of you stop arguing!"

Seeing that the two of them were arguing for almost enough time, Yang Huan stepped out and asked them to stop.

We can't just let them keep arguing, can we?

"Nikola, I think your idea is good, but Sun Yue's plan is more to my liking, so let Sun Yue handle this matter, and he will be responsible for marketing and external public relations in the future."

Yang Huan felt it necessary to divide the work among the two assistants and clarify their respective powers.

"As for you, Nikola, you will be responsible for the team's daily operations and transfer operations, especially the construction of the training base and the community promotion plan we have previously drawn up. 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.

Nicholas Cortes' wife was the person in charge of this project. After Yang Huan took over the Saints, he did not make any personnel changes and continued to use the previous team.

After hearing this, Nicholas Cortes sighed helplessly.

"I told you a long time ago that Young Master Huan is a man who can do big things. He is not like you who is so petty. How can Young Master Huan care about a matter of tens of thousands of dollars? How can you do big things with such a petty and narrow-minded person?" Sun Yue laughed and ridiculed Nicholas Cortes when he saw him being humiliated.

Yang Huan felt very happy after hearing this, but he coughed twice. "If you dare to flatter me again, I will break your neck, kick your balls, and throw you to the gay bar to pick up soap. Try it if you don't believe me!"

When Sun Yue heard this, he was immediately panicked and immediately smiled and said, "I dare not try, I dare not try."

Nicola Cortes still shook his head and sighed, "You don't know, I looked at the team's financial situation last month. We lost more than 10 million pounds last month. This month's several major signings, plus a series of expenses, made me panic. The financial deficit is huge."

Yang Huan and Sun Yue looked at each other and both knew that this was the truth. After all, Southampton is a League One team.

Moreover, Southampton did not have many commercial channels in the past, which made the team's revenue-generating ability extremely poor.

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

Nicola Cortes is a banker by profession and has a natural aversion to deficits, so last season, although Southampton under his management did not make a profit, it did not suffer much of a loss either.

You have to know that before Nicola Cortes took charge of Southampton, the Saints had just fallen into a financial crisis and were deducted ten league points. It can be seen that Nicola Cortes does have strong business capabilities in this regard.

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

"Yes, we all understand your difficulties."

Sun Yue is not as careless as he seems. On the contrary, he was able to integrate into Southampton's entire management organization in less than a month. His abilities, especially his ability to handle relationships with colleagues, are very good.

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

With the two of them helping him, Yang Huan felt much more relaxed and was able to spare more time to pick up girls.

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

It’s a shame that he can’t even seduce the woman he has supported. He is too ashamed to face the elders and fellow villagers in Longhai City!

…………

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Jonathan Moss, 39, is one of England's new 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 refereeing in the Premier League. In addition, he is young and needs to accumulate more experience, so he currently refers to games randomly in four levels of professional leagues: English League Two, English League One, the Championship and the Premier League.

This time, he was appointed as the referee for the opening match of the 2010-2011 English League One season, when Southampton faced Plymouth at home, which was also a recognition of his whistleblowing ability.

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

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

"I've always heard that Southampton's new owner is very rich. I didn't expect it to be true. Even his spare car is a Bentley."

"Is this the only one in the English professional league?"

“Well, not even Manchester City.”

The two linesmen 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. He could even foresee that this high-standard reception would continue, and then people from the club would come up to them and try to build relationships with them.

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

However, as a professional referee, he has his own bottom line, because he knows very well that there is a fourth official on the sidelines and a match supervisor in the stands. His every move on the court will be recorded by them one by one. After the game, the referee company will score his judgment. If the score is not satisfactory, he will face a fine or even a ban.

In the past, refereeing was just a part-time job and no one cared much about it. But now he is a full-time referee and Jonathan Moss dare not joke about his career future.

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

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

"How they receive us is their business, we should do what we are supposed to do."

Jonathan Moss's words were recognized by the two linesmen. They all knew that their every move was being monitored.

But to their surprise, the reception was indeed of high standards.

Southampton arranged for them to stay at the Grand Harbour Hotel. According to the driver, this is the best hotel in Southampton and the club's new owner 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 no one from Southampton appeared in front of them again.

Even the new club owner who was rumored to be staying at the Grand Harbour Hotel.

This made Jonathan Moss and the other two feel ashamed, thinking that they had judged others by their own standards.

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

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

Inspecting the playing field and the locker room, Jonathan Moss followed the pre-match procedure step by step and recorded everything, which would be submitted to the referee company for filing after the game.

Throughout the entire process, Southampton did not act unprofessionally or show any sign of trying to get close to them.

This made Jonathan Moss and others feel relieved, and they couldn't help but have a good impression of the team.

"If every English team was as professional as them, our job would be much easier," said the fourth official with a smile.

For them, it is very common for the home team management or fans to exert pressure through various means before the game, even verbal intimidation, and even the English Football Association cannot stop it.

This situation is rampant in lower-level leagues, so the referees are often under a lot of pressure.

But Southampton now gives them the feeling that it is more professional than many Premier League teams, which has left a deep impression on them.

"I heard that things weren't going well between Southampton and Plymouth either."

Jonathan Moss smiled bitterly. The relations among the cities on the south coast of England were very bad. Southampton in particular was the target of public criticism. After all, they had always been regarded as the flag of the south coast.

Portsmouth, Plymouth, Brighton... who wouldn't want to take over the flag?

"In short, we should enforce the law fairly!"

Football Giants