The Era of Emerald

In the 1993-94 season, Fiorentina won the double crown of the Italian Serie B and the Italian Cup. The gimmick of the team winning the Coppa Italia (at this time, the cup champions of various countries can participate in the European Cup Winners' Cup, and the success of the championship is very high), so that Florence has made great progress in market development and popularity.

And the one-year sponsorship contracts signed by Fiorentina last summer have expired, just as those major sponsorships during the Celligori period, such as jersey chest advertising sponsorships, have also expired this summer. At the beginning, Zhuang Mingge asked Kenyon to publicly release the news: Fiorentina will conduct a public tender for the team's sponsors for the next season at the club headquarters on July 7.

At the same time, Zhuang Mingge also asked Kenyon to classify the sponsorship projects and make a detailed list: from the advertisements on the chest of the jerseys, to the billboards in the Frankie Stadium, to the team cars and buses... a total of More than 30 items.

This move by Fiorentina surprised the entire Italian football world, because at this time Italian clubs were not as commercialized as later generations, and the methods adopted to attract team sponsors and suppliers were basically the same as before. Sponsors have the habit of negotiating the sponsorship amount and then renewing the contract, and rarely take the initiative to replace existing sponsors.Therefore, when they saw Florence's behavior that was close to falling into the "money eye", they all secretly laughed at Florence's "money worship".

In the eyes of these people, Fiorentina's behavior of "looking forward to everything" is tantamount to betraying the team's honor and dignity. Those well-known companies will not choose to cooperate with such a club for their own brand image. of.

Zhuang Mingge scoffed at this. The club's seeking advertising sponsorship was originally a commercial activity. Since adopting the method of public bidding can maximize the interests of Florence, why can't it do so?Does it have to wait until those Premier League teams have completely surpassed Serie A before Fiorentina can be commercialized?What logic!A bunch of conservative old antiques!

Not to mention Italy, which caused heated discussions due to Florence's behavior, at the same time in Tokyo, Japan, and in the headquarters of the Japan Football Association, a group of wretched old people sat around a conference table, seeming to be arguing fiercely about something.

"Listen to me, everyone." An old man with gray hair sitting in the middle of the conference table controlled the somewhat chaotic scene, "I have some ideas about things in Italy."

"Gentlemen, since Chairman Chuanyuan has spoken, let's listen to Mr. Chairman's opinion first."

This old man is Saburo Kawabuchi, who is known as the "father of Japanese football". The 58-year-old Saburo Kawabuchi still seems to have retained the temperament of playing football back then. He participated in the Tokyo Olympics in the 60s and gained a Valuable Olympic medals.He has successfully operated the J-League for two years, and he was recently promoted to the chairman of the Japanese Football Association (previously he was the vice chairman of the Japanese Football Association and the chairman of the Japanese Professional League).

"Football was originally a very underappreciated sport in Japan. Over the years, we have invested a lot of manpower, material and financial resources just to create a momentum, especially in the past two years in our country's professional league. The Japanese companies represented by you have paid a lot for this..."

"Mr. Chuanbuchi, we all admire your efforts for Japanese football... So, what do you think?" Since the discussion had been going on for a long time, the person who had to interrupt Saburo Kawabuchi was Corporate representative of Honda Corporation.

Kawabuchi Saburo was very dissatisfied with someone interrupting his emotional speech, but he couldn't show it. After all, the current operation of Japanese football depends on the investment of these big money owners to maintain it.

"The current Japanese football is in a bottleneck period. We need to let more young players and coaches learn the advanced tactical system and operation mode in Europe. The public bidding sponsorship of Florence just gave us a very good opportunity. "

"May I ask, Mr. Chairman, is there any connection between this bidding in Florence and our plan to study abroad?" A company representative present obviously did not understand the mystery.

"Although Fiorentina is only a newly promoted team, it has only stayed in the second division for one year, and according to reliable sources, its new boss has built a training base for the team with a quality not inferior to Milanello and medical staff. The facilities and training conditions must be top-notch in Europe; at the same time, Fiorentina, as a newly promoted Serie A team this season, can also compete in the European Cup Winners' Cup, so their competitive level can also be guaranteed." Kawabuchi Saburo patiently explained to the company representatives present He continued to explain, "Everyone has had similar experiences before, and you all know that the real giants in Europe will not agree to help us train players now. Therefore, Florence is our best choice at present. I think, since Florence Even sponsors can openly invite bids, so their bosses should not be indifferent to the high training fees we send?"

"I see! Chairman Chuanyuan is really far-sighted!" Although the representatives of these Japanese companies don't know football very well, they all have some enthusiasm for investing in football. After listening to the old man Chuanyuan's explanation, they suddenly became enlightened and praised them one after another.

"So, please select a few young players with potential and discuss the specific amount of training fees. I will fax it to the Fiorentina club in a few days."

……

So, on July 7th, the Fiorentina club received a fax from Japan. The content of the fax was that several large Japanese companies hoped to arrange a Japanese player named Qianyuan Zhensheng through cash sponsorship. Come to Florence for a short-term training.

The plan proposed by several RI companies is that Florence can arrange for Maezono Masaru to train with the team for three months, and they will pay a "training fee" of 300 million US dollars for this.Regarding this very interesting "training" plan, although Antonioni, who is in charge of the daily affairs of the team, did not take it seriously, Kenyon, the general manager in charge of marketing operations, showed great interest and directly found it with this fax. At that time, Zhuang Mingge was still directing the "Gambling Plan" at Grozil's manor.

After reading this fax, Zhuang Mingge's thoughts were not so simple. He didn't expect that his public bidding activity would lead to the "big fish" of Japanese football, which was burning money everywhere.

However, seeing Ri himself's "hungry and thirsty" desire to learn advanced football culture, Zhuang Mingge doesn't mind because Ri himself is so "generous"... give Ri himself a few more "generous" opportunities.

"Hehe, Manager Kenyon, don't you think it's a little too stingy for Japan to send only one player to Florence for short-term training? Can we suggest that they send more potential players here for training? , hehe, when the time comes, you can tell Ri himself that it won’t be 300 million.”

Kenyon deeply agrees with his boss's high opinion. The two smiling men, one old and one young, are full of longing for the future "money scene" in order to find the same "hobby".

A day later, Ri himself, who received a fax from Florence, was overjoyed, and immediately replied to accept Zhuang Mingge's suggestion.Several big Japanese companies that are crazily burning money for the future of Japanese football-Toyota, Sony, Mitsubishi, and Honda, respectively sent their "subsidiary" potential players to Florence for a three-month training.They said that they will pay a total of 1000 million US dollars in training fees for four young players, including Maezono Masaki, Kitazawa Hao, Okano Masayuki, and Akihiro Hiroshi, who will participate in short-term training.

Zhuang Mingge, who accepted as soon as he saw it, happily accepted Ri's offer.In front of the shrewd Japanese himself, Zhuang Mingge showed a casual attitude that doesn't care much about the amount of money at this time. What he has to do is to always show the attitude of doing his best to improve the level of Japanese football.