It’s already June after the Champions League final.
On the day after the final, Leeds United held a vigorous city-wide parade, which attracted Leeds United fans from the entire city and even surrounding areas of Yorkshire. The number of fans at the scene exceeded 400,000 at the peak, which was crazy.
At Elland Road, Westfield Shopping Center and Commercial Street also took this opportunity to launch a series of publicity and promotional activities, leveraging the momentum of the Champions League final and Leeds United's victory to create a wave of momentum.
Coupled with the away fans from the Champions League final and tourists from all over the world, the whole city presented a lively scene that has been rare in decades.
After the team finished the parade and celebration the next day, they held a vigorous celebration banquet. That night, the players began to take a vacation and dispersed their things.
Mainly because the UEFA Nations League games are about to start, and the England, Netherlands and Portugal internationals who have reached the semi-finals will all go to the national team to report.
This is also where UEFA makes many wealthy teams dissatisfied.
There are already a lot of competitions, but the UEFA Nations League is still missing.
Well, this season’s Champions League final is scheduled for June 1, but the UEFA Nations League semi-finals are on June 5 and 6.
This is still very stressful for Leeds United players.
For example, this match on the 5th was held in Guimarães, Portugal, between the Netherlands and England.
De Ligt, Rashford, Sancho, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Calvin Phillips, Declan Rice, Vardy and Grealish all have to rush there.
Next up is another match in Porto, Portugal vs. Switzerland, with Felix, Ruben Dias, Bernardo Silva and Bruno Fernandez also all rushing there.
It is conceivable that the players have to face such a hasty battle, not to mention the pressure of the game, and the consumption on the road is very large.
Let me ask, how valuable is such a competition?
The wealthy teams accuse UEFA of competing for profits and ignoring the rights of players. In fact, they are not wrong at all.
But the problem is, after all, this is a regular event. With the national justice suppressed, who dares to ignore it?
If it is a warm-up match, the club can negotiate with the national team and ask them not to recruit players so that the players who have played for a season can have a good rest, but that is not possible now.
By the time the UEFA Nations League finals were played, it was already mid-June, and in early July, the training camp for the new season had begun again.
This is only temporary, this newly born event has low gold content.
In the future, if UEFA carries out reforms, especially by increasing the bonuses, so that the gold content of this event will increase and the competition will become more intense, the impact on clubs will inevitably be greater.
The rivalry between the two major forces, the Football Association and the Professional League, has been going on for a long time. From the birth of the Champions League to the present, it has never stopped, and the battle is bound to continue in the future.
The European Super League and the UEFA Nations League are just a continuation of this protracted power struggle.
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While the whole world was still immersed in the enthusiastic atmosphere of Leeds United winning the Champions League final for the first time, all departments of Leeds United Club were operating at full capacity.
This is also a major feature of club management.
When the players are idle, the club is busy.
Real Madrid, headed by Jose Sanchez, led the team to Leeds in person to contact and negotiate with the Leeds United team. The first thing they negotiated was the transfer of top star Mbappe.
This transfer has been going on for more than two years. As early as last summer, Mbappe almost transferred to Real Madrid, but Gao Shen came forward to persuade him to stay. This summer, he won the Premier League Golden Boot award.
The transfer of the French superstar, who won the Champions League Golden Boot and the European Silver Boot at the same time, is already certain.
Real Madrid has had contact with Leeds United before and met Leeds United's asking price of 250 million euros. However, the two parties still have a lot of contract details to deal with and negotiate, and the teams of both parties are working intensively.
In addition to negotiating the transfer fee with Leeds United, the Real Madrid team also needs to negotiate salary packages with Mbappe's team.
This is also a very complex project.
Many fans will think that as for annual salary, the club can just report the total and be done with it.
no.
Clubs are not stupid either. They are also worried that players will slack off after signing a contract, so they usually sign a guaranteed and variable salary package, which also involves many terms, such as goal bonus, assist bonus, appearance bonus, etc.
Fees, championship bonuses, bonuses for reaching the number of appearances, personal honor bonuses, etc.
There are a lot of very complex clauses that not only guarantee the players' income, but also ensure the club's interests.
To put it simply, if you want to get all the income, you have to perform better.
Therefore, negotiation is also very complicated.
At the same time, Jose Sanchez also discussed the transfer of Dutch central defender De Ligt with Leeds United.
The main defender of the Champions League champions performed extremely well in the Premier League and Champions League last season. Leeds United currently insists on paying 120 million euros, but Real Madrid is only willing to offer 100 million euros at most. The gap between the two sides is still obvious.
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But on June 5, in the UEFA Nations League semi-finals held in Guimarães, the Netherlands played against England. Rashford opened the scoring for England, but De Ligt scored a goal for the Netherlands in the 73rd minute of the second half.
The clarion call for the Dutch counterattack was sounded.
Subsequently, the Dutch team scored two goals in stoppage time and reversed England 3-1.
After the news came, Real Madrid's negotiating team immediately raised the offer to 110 million euros, but Leeds United still insisted on 120 million euros, and the gap between the two sides narrowed.
On the other side, Paris' negotiation team headed by CEO Blanc also arrived at Leeds United.
There are many rumors from the outside world that Paris Saint-Germain is determined to win Mbappe, but in fact, Blanc and others are targeting Ousmane Dembélé for this trip.
This two-footed player has performed very well in the past few seasons. His goals and assists are very eye-catching. His left and right feet are very balanced and his impact is very strong. Tuchel has made it clear before that if it is Dembele
If so, he will be very satisfied.
But it is not easy to sign the French winger.
Real Madrid is also coveting Dembele, and Leeds United's offer for Dembele is 150 million euros.
Anyone who is familiar with Leeds United knows that after years of building a good reputation, Leeds United will never let go easily and will set a tight price for whatever they want to sell.
But one advantage of trading with Leeds United is that as long as you give money, the players can take it away.
And because Leeds United's annual salary is low, it is very attractive to recruiting teams.
Of course, that's what I say, but we still have to talk about it.
That's in tens of millions of euros. How could we not talk about it?
It can be said that as soon as the Champions League final ended, the eyes of the media and fans around the world were still focused on Leeds.
It was under this circumstance that Leeds United received a bizarre offer from Liverpool.
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"Origi is priced at 20 million euros, Shaqiri is priced at 25 million euros, and Lovren is priced at 20 million euros."
"These three players are worth 65 million euros and will be included in this transfer deal."
At Gao Shen's home in Cheshire, Lucas and Borrell were reporting the latest progress to Gao Shen and Su Qing.
Leeds United received an offer from Liverpool and wanted to introduce Alexander-Arnold and Robertson. Both players are currently worth very high prices. Arnold is worth 120 million euros and Robertson is worth 80 million euros.
Liverpool's offer was actually quite sincere, with a price of 200 million euros, which satisfied Leeds United's offer.
But the strange thing about this thing is that they want to use three players to top it off.
These three players are nothing. Origi is only 24 years old, Shaqiri is only 27 years old, and Lovren is older at 30 years old. However, the Croatian central defender meets the requirements of a ball-playing central defender like Leeds United.
It's just that when Leeds United received this offer, they really didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
This operation is a bit amateurish.
"Why do we need these three players?" Gao Shen asked.
Lucas and Borrel suddenly laughed.
"It is said that this offer was personally decided by Leeds United owner John Henry. They are probably also raising funds from everywhere now. After all, they almost fell out of the top four this past season."
The current battle for the top four in the Premier League is very fierce, with six strong teams competing for four positions.
The top four teams this season are Leeds United, Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool.
Speaking of which, Arsenal is the club with the smallest butterfly effect. Moreover, during Wenger's period, Icardi was also signed. As a result, the Argentine forward got rid of the confusion in his previous life and shined at Arsenal and performed very well.
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On the contrary, Manchester United and Chelsea, who have invested heavily, are now out of the top four, which also makes Liverpool panic.
Next season, Manchester United and Chelsea will definitely make a comeback.
If we don't strengthen our recruitment, are we waiting to be kicked out of the top four?
"Liverpool's revenue has been growing rapidly in the past few years, whether it is match-day revenue or commercial revenue, not to mention broadcast fees. Although John Henry carries the pride of an American,
There is still a way to run the business," Gao Shen analyzed.
"That's right." Lucas nodded, "I heard that when he first took over, Liverpool was really in a mess. There were only 200 employees. All the retail and boxes at Anfield Stadium were outsourced, and the club didn't make much money at all.
The money and stadium facilities are also extremely poor.”
"But in the past few years, Liverpool's game revenue has doubled, and it has taken low-interest loans to expand its stadium. Its revenue has grown rapidly and has great potential. However, the pressure of competition in the Premier League is also very high now."
The Premier League looks glamorous, but in fact, the management behind it is a mess.
This is a common phenomenon like Liverpool, and it is usually after capital takes over and transforms and upgrades the club that it can achieve an increase in revenue and then achieve an increase in the club's overall market value.
This is also the reason why foreign investors favor the Premier League.
"So, Liverpool is rich now." Gao Shen laughed.
"Tell Michael Edwards that we don't want those three players. If Liverpool wants to buy them, then use the money to buy them."
Gao Shen doesn't mind the transfer of Alexander-Arnold and Robertson at all, because now there are people in the Leeds United team who can take over.
That would be Achraf, Alphonso Davies, Cucurella and Reece James.
The abundant personnel reserves and the emergence of young players give Leeds United a lot of confidence.
