Chapter 186

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“…Who are you signing?”

“I mean Lionel Messi. Our Gwangwoon is currently preparing enormous conditions to sign the superstar.”

Who is Lionel Messi?

He’s called the greatest player in soccer history.

He won the championship at the last Qatar World Cup, completing his story, and now he’s leaving the main leagues to end his playing career in a new region.

So at first there was talk of Saudi Arabia, but he rejected Saudi’s money for the education purposes of his children and good infrastructure, and there were rumors I also knew well of him heading to America.

And he’s coming to the K-League instead of elsewhere?

“According to your instructions, President, head office is doing everything they can to sign Messi using the strategy team.”

“……”

I should have finished reading that investment proposal.

The golden light was so agitated telling me to hurry and send it to head office, so I sent it without reading to the end, but there was content about signing Messi at the back.

“After you acquired Tottenham before, to counter the criticism that Gwangwoon only cares about overseas sports teams, didn’t you acquire a team in the second division?”

Not only that, but I acquired several sports teams as a kind of community service.

“That second division team is now in the first division. Since you acquired it, President, they’ve been winning relentlessly.”

That was something I didn’t even know.

Since I have no interest in sports anyway, I just let head office manage it.

“But you picked all the managers, coaches, staff, and players yourself, didn’t you, President?”

That was true.

Whether it’s a company or a team, after our Gwangwoon acquires it, I always review the roster first and pick new people according to my intuition.

“Thanks to that, not a single sports team Gwangwoon has acquired has poor results. They’re all achieving upper rankings.”

But Messi coming to our country was a different matter.

Aren’t we talking about someone whose price alone ranges in the hundreds of billions to trillions of won?

On top of that, Ronaldo, who went to Saudi, is set to receive 1 trillion won over 3 years including all bonuses and advertising revenue.

“Because of Messi’s price, head office is currently negotiating with the government. They need to change all the set regulations starting from salary caps.”

“If that gets blocked, wouldn’t signing Messi be just a dream?”

“Yes. But the football association probably won’t block it. They wouldn’t oppose us investing heavily to expand the market. The problem is other businesses. If only we pour in money indiscriminately and sign world-class players en masse, other soccer teams will inevitably shrink.”

In the end, it means negotiations will hit snags if other businesses object.

“Wow. But if Messi comes to the K-League, the whole world would go crazy.”

“Our country’s soccer fans would flip out.”

“But won’t it be difficult? First of all, Messi himself is leaning toward America, and American soccer teams are deliberately making major signings to counter the Saudi league.”

As the employees said, I also thought signing Messi would be difficult.

Isn’t he heading to America for the Spanish community there and educational facilities and infrastructure for his children?

That’s exactly what Inter Miami is using to tempt Messi.

If he chose transfers just looking at money, Messi would have gone to Saudi Arabia.

But he rejected the astronomical money Saudi offered and chose to go to America.

“Let’s hope head office handles it well.”

“Yes. The strategy team people are all elites, so they’ll find some way.”

But I didn’t get my hopes up and tucked away my heart.

Even if we don’t sign Messi, our investment direction won’t change.

“And President, this is the list of companies applying for partnerships in the projects being conducted in Africa.”

“Ah, is the list already out?”

Land development, infrastructure expansion, and so on.

A development project in Africa spanning the next 10 years.

Naturally, our Gwangwoon can’t do this alone, so listed here are the companies that will receive subcontracts from us to do the work.

“Mm.”

I reviewed the list.

They said head office filtered it, but the list was still quite long.

I briefly closed my eyes.

And when the tingling sensation came to my fingertips, I opened them again.

Sure enough.

The list that had been fine just moments before now had red, blue, and golden lights confusingly mixed throughout.

“……”

I quickly checked off the list.

If I take too long, the ability stays active longer, making my eyes dizzy and my temples feel like they’re burning.

“You, you’re done already?”

“Yes. Please forward it as is.”

“Ah, okay.”

The Africa project is for our company’s profit too, but the most important thing is infrastructure expansion and producing technicians.

Through that, eliminating the poverty and starvation filling Africa so that no one dies from hunger anymore. that’s the core of this project.

Astronomical money will go into it, but once this project is completed, Africa won’t have to fight hunger anymore.

‘Speaking of which, Messi…’

The world’s greatest soccer star playing in our country’s league.

I let out a smirk.

Because it seemed like an impossible fantasy.

***

“What the hell is going on? Suddenly withdrawing from negotiations!”

75% of Inter Miami’s shares are held by the Hobbs brothers. The two, who run a company called Hobbs Family, wanted to increase the American league’s popularity even more when they acquired Inter Miami, so they signed Beckham, the first soccer superstar, and gave him 25% of shares.

As a result, they managed to reach the huge catch that was Messi, gaining an opportunity to further elevate Inter Miami as a team.

But Ricardo Hobbs burst in through the representative’s office door in fury at the sudden news.

Because his younger brother Jose Hobbs suddenly threw away the Messi signing negotiations that were going well.

“Tell me. Why the hell did you throw away a nearly done deal? Don’t tell me you’re playing hard to get on the transfer fee and pulled this crazy stunt?”

“That’s not it. We already agreed between ourselves, didn’t we? Bring him at $50-60 million annual salary.”

“Right. We agreed on that. So why suddenly? Did Messi ask for $100 million salary or something?”

“Even if he had, I would have worked something out to match $100 million. He’s a player worth that much.”

“Then what the hell was the problem?”

Younger brother Jose handed his brother a document.

“What’s this?”

“An article that came out today.”

Ricardo frowned looking at the article.

“K-League? They’re trying to sign Messi there? Korea? Isn’t their league tiny?”

“It’s tiny. But you need to look at who’s pushing for it.”

“What crazy person would try to hijack Messi when… gasp, Gwangwoon?!”

“That’s right. That Gwangwoon.”

At first, he was going to laugh at what shameless people were trying to interfere with a deal that was already done. Messi is someone who already rejected Saudi Arabia’s astronomical money and chose to go to America. He absolutely cannot be bought with money.

Trying to snatch such a Messi didn’t make sense. But Ricardo was speechless at the article saying the other party was Gwangwoon.

“This time Gwangwoon seems to be planning massive investment in Korean sports.”

“Suddenly?”

“Seeing Saudi flashing their money around and growing the sports market significantly. They must have changed their thinking after seeing that. After acquiring Tottenham, they’ve achieved record earnings within the Premier League, right? They must have decided it’s profitable after running various tests there.”

After Gwangwoon acquired Tottenham, they achieved a historic record of 2 consecutive championship wins.

Tottenham originally had good revenue, but after Gwangwoon took over management, it doubled, becoming the team with the highest earnings in the Premier League.

“So you backed off because of the Gwangwoon name? When we had Messi almost signed?”

“Turn to the next page.”

“The next page?”

The next page wasn’t an article but a different document.

“It’s from Gwangwoon?”

“You know Gwangwoon is running a big project on the Africa side right now, don’t you?”

“Of course I know. Construction companies are doing everything they can to get in there. Us included.”

Aren’t there conspiracy theories floating around that Gwangwoon has taken over all of Africa and is trying to make it their complete colony while developing numerous infrastructure there?

Regardless of that.

Construction companies couldn’t just pass up this opportunity.

If Gwangwoon properly executes this project, it means they can receive work from there for the next 10 years.

In an era when construction is struggling worldwide, a massive project like this was like a blessing to them.

So Hobbs Family had also submitted an application for that project.

But they hadn’t really expected much.

Because the competition was too fierce.

“We made it onto the list there.”

“What? Us? Of all companies, us?”

“That’s right. Us. What do you think it means that they gave us this?”

“Take the hint and back off?”

“Right. Don’t resist, just take what you can and walk away. If we reject this…”

Ricardo gulped dryly.

“There’ll be retaliation for that.”

“Now you understand why I backed off?”

Ricardo’s heart was racing.

Stories about Gwangwoon are famous in the industry, aren’t they?

What kind of end companies that got on Gwangwoon’s bad side met. it’s not even worth mentioning.

And yet they almost had a head-on collision with Gwangwoon just by trying to sign some soccer player.

“Brother. You were smart.”

“Phew. Right? Our family business that’s been going since grandfather’s generation almost crumbled in an instant.”

The two breathed sighs of relief.

This was still a pretty good deal.

They felt sorry for Messi, but what could they do?

Gwangwoon had already marked him.

***

“Right. I thought something was strange. It was suspicious that they were just handing us the Ample situation.”

Politics and business are the same.

When you receive one thing, you have to give one thing.

Chairman Kang Seong-ho had actually thought this Ample situation was giving too much benefit to Kangsung.

No matter how close he was with Jeong Jin-ho, giving this much work meant there was definitely something.

And now he understood the reason.

“You’re saying they want to make our domestic league as good as Saudi Arabia’s. no, much bigger?”

“Yes. Not just soccer. Golf, F1, baseball, and so on. They plan to invest heavily to massively expand into famous sports.”

“And other companies should follow behind?”

“Yes. If only Gwangwoon invests, only one team gets strong, and then it’s no fun for viewers.”

Kang Seong-ho had shied away from investing in sports since before.

Still, the reason he kept investing was because his father was such a sports fanatic, and he didn’t want to carelessly break that legacy.

“If Father were alive, he would have gotten along really well with President Jeong. Their tastes are exactly the same.”

“But Chairman, this doesn’t seem like simply a matter of taste.”

“What?”

“The reason Gwangwoon is suddenly making this massive investment in sports seems to be to make all culture Korea-centric, just like Saudi intends.”

Come to think of it, looking back, Jeong Jin-ho had said several times that he has no particular interest in sports.

Yet investing astronomical costs in this area. what would be the reason?

Simply because he likes sports?

No.

There’s another purpose.

“Thanks to Gwangwoon, hasn’t our country’s status risen far higher than before? Enflix, PikPik, Faceweb, and even Wizny have declared their intention to keep making content centered on Korean culture from now on.”

“Not only that, but I hear the first thing being taught at schools being built in Africa right now is Korean, not English.”

“Wait. That means…”

“If they dominate media culture and plaster sports, the biggest hobby of the people, with Korean things… the center of the world becomes Korea.”

The center of the world becoming Korea.

“Even now, Korean content is being produced through various media, and the number of people learning Korean is growing exponentially. If they gradually encroach like this, eventually Korean will become familiar to everyone.”

“And someday Korean becomes one of the world’s common languages?”

“Yes. And at the center of the culture that has dominated the world will be Gwangwoon. Middle-aged people who don’t use SNS much but are fanatically into sports will eventually be consumed by the sports culture Gwangwoon operates.”

Only then could they understand Gwangwoon’s intention.

And Gwangwoon was sending a message to domestic companies while proceeding with this project.

Will you follow them and invest thousands of billions, no, trillions of won?

Or will you not comply and resist?

“……”

It was a deadly either-or.

End