The first thing was quickly resolved, but the second was highly valued by Li Mudi, as Gines gave him a great opportunity to realize his dream.

After nearly a year of investigation and screening, Gines, who has unloaded most of his agent work, led his newly formed small team to finally find an acquisition target that meets their expectations at the end of 2019: Coventry City Football Club, an old team in England.

Older Premier League fans will be familiar with the name, which was a participant in the first year of the Premier League and remained in the English top flight until the turn of the century. It's just that because the results have been in the bottom of the standings, it looks very inconspicuous and it is difficult to impress everyone.

In 2001, after nine years of narrowly avoiding relegation, Coventry was relegated to the then second tier of League One, later the Championship, and never had the slightest chance of returning to the top flight. To make matters worse, the team were relegated to the third tier in 2013 and relegated again four years later to become part of League Two, their worst result since the 50s.

Considering the dismal extent of the team's 130-plus years of glory since its inception in 1883 – the FA Cup (1986-87), the Championship (1966-67), the League One (1963-64) and the South Division of the English Third Division (1935-36) – one is too harsh. It's just that they have been in the top league since 1967, and they have been up and down there for more than 30 years, which is still a bit of a foundation, and it is indeed too much to say that they have been relegated to the fourth division.

Thankfully, Coventry brought back their former head coach Mark Robbins at the start of 2017, a short centre-forward who came through the Manchester United Academy as a player and who had a lackluster coaching resume after retiring as a player, but who still brought enough luck to his former club. Nicknamed the Sky Blues, Coventry managed to qualify for the promotion play-offs in the 2017-18 season as sixth in the league and fought all the way to claim the last promotion spot, causing a big upset.

And Robbins can be regarded as paying off the debt he owed five years ago, when he brought the team into the relegation zone and regrettably relegated to League One at the hands of his successor, this time he was given another chance to "atone".

However, in the following year and a half, Robbins' Coventry side was a bit disappointing, with a thrilling relegation in the summer of 2019, and now this season is a great disappointment for the club's hierarchy and fans.

At this time, the owner of the club, Ray Ranson, who is about to turn 60, revealed that he wanted to sell all the shares in his hands, and the news was obtained by Gines.

Speaking of the current chairman of Coventry, it is really legendary. Born in the Manchester City Academy as a player, he played at right-back and centre-back, but he is an unknown player, with only 17 top-flight appearances in his entire career. After moving between Newcastle and Reading, he was officially retired in 1995 due to injury.

However, after taking off his shirt, Ray Ranson's outstanding business talent from an early age helped him become an icon in football. He amassed a significant amount of private wealth through investment in insurance, football finance and football technical analysis companies, and used these opportunities to make a large number of contacts in and out of the football circle, which laid the foundation for his career as a senior management officer of the club.

In 2006, when Ellis, the former owner of Aston Villa, was ready to sell the club, the 46-year-old Ray Ranson was one of the bidders, but ultimately fell short. A year later, when the news broke that Manchester City would be sold due to a deep debt crisis, he sharpened his knives and prepared to attack his old club, but unfortunately the opponent at that time was a rich Middle Eastern tycoon who didn't know how to spend it, and naturally ended in tragedy.

Since then, Ranson has been in contact with Southampton and other teams, but no further news has occurred. In this way, his long road to acquiring the club is really a bit tortuous and difficult.

Fortunately, the British football celebrity quickly changed his plan and played a curved way to save the country. In 2008, Ranson became Executive Chairman of Coventry City, taking sole control of the club. In the following years, he strengthened his influence within the club and finally managed to win the support of all Coventry people a year later, and officially became the owner of the Sky Blues.

As for his ability to be qualified to bid for the club, it mainly depends on two points, one is that there is a British consortium behind him in terms of financial support, and the second is that he himself does have strong management skills. At the beginning of 2009, Liverpool and Newcastle were interested in hiring him as the team's CEO, which can prove Ranson's quality.

It's just that for a number of reasons, after he took charge of Coventry City, the old club's results have shown no signs of improving. And the most important thing is that the club's finances have also been affected by many factors such as results, attention, TV broadcast fees, etc., and some problems have arisen, if not to say that the situation is getting worse, it can only be regarded as barely maintained.

This situation made the 59-year-old feel a little disheartened by the fact that he wanted to prove himself as president of a football club more than a decade ago, and the idea of leaving first appeared in the 59-year-old's mind. However, considering the gratitude to the club accumulated over the years and the reluctance to give up the game of football, Rayson still did not make the decision to sell his shares immediately, and he is still in a state of hesitation.

And this is the opportunity that Li Mudi has been waiting for.

Although Coventry is in a bad situation at the moment, the club's fan base is still relatively good, after all, the city is also an important town in the British Isles, and the history is also very long. And from the economic aspect (because it is a famous automobile and electronic equipment manufacturing center in the United Kingdom, the per capita wage and consumption level are at the middle and upper reaches of the country) and geographical location (located in the center of England, not far from London, Liverpool and other big cities, is the country's transportation hub), it also has many advantages.

In addition, although Coventry is less than 100 square kilometres in size and has a population of less than 400,000, the number of residents in his area is not low, and there is no competition from other traditional giants (the biggest enemies are Aston Villa and Leicester City), there is still a lot of potential for the club to be tapped in terms of support, given the proportion of English fans and the tradition of supporting the club from his hometown.

Of course, the most important thing is that the overall valuation of the club is not high because the team has been fighting in the third and even fourth tiers of the professional league for many years, and if you subtract bank loans and some other liabilities, the normal market value is less than 7 million pounds, which can be described as very cheap.

You must know that in the summer of 2017, a Celestial Empire company called 5U Sports (the legal person is a Hong Kong businessman who has operated a number of Premier League stars to go to the Celestial Empire for business activities, and the rest of the information is not easy to find), bought the little-known English League One team Northampton Club, all spent about 25 million pounds (of which about 11 million was used to pay off the original debt). When Fosun Group bought Wolves in 2016, it paid 45 million pounds to succeed.

Coventry, which is more famous and has a higher historical status than those two teams, is so cheap, how can this not make Li Mudi and others excited.

Although the final transaction price is certainly much higher than the estimate, after the calculations of Gines and others, even if the debt part is included, 15 million to 17 million pounds should be able to take the old team founded in 1883 as a whole. Of course, if you add part or all of the ownership of the team's home stadium, Ricoh Stadium, this cost may rise to more than 30 million, but it is still within Li Mudi's affordability.

As mentioned before, our protagonist is really a little rich man now, after successively winning the European League, European Super Cup, Italian Super Cup, Italian Cup and Serie A, five honors of different importance, but very good in terms of outfit, Li Mudi's status in the Celestial Empire has been promoted to a historical superstar, leaving the previous Da Yao, Liu Fei and Sister Na far behind.

In 2017 and 2018 alone, he received more than 60 million euros in commercial income from more than a dozen endorsement manufacturers, which can be called a humanoid money printing machine. Counting his previous savings and the salary provided by the team, his current net worth is as high as about 83 million euros, which surprises him from time to time.

At the age of 36 and his ability to coach, that number will almost certainly continue to roll upwards in the next decade or two, so he is now well positioned to pay the bills for his dream.

But now it seems that this price may be a bit big, but Li Mudi, who was born as an otaku, has never made a loss-making deal on this kind of one-time affair that costs more than 1,000 yuan, and he is very optimistic about the "money scene" of running the club, and his confidence is naturally his plug-in.

Although in England's lower leagues (League One and below), the team's financial situation is still very miserable, according to authoritative media statistics, the average annual revenue of League One and League Two clubs is only about 5 million pounds, which is not as high as the number of broadcast fees paid by Sky Sports to the Premier League giants for a game.

But as long as the team is promoted to the Championship, the team's income will increase at least fourfold, and if promoted to the Premier League, 60 million pounds is guaranteed, not to mention the huge income of more than 250 million pounds from giants such as Manchester United.

In terms of improving the team's performance, Li Mudi has the help of the FM system and is still confident enough. Even if you don't coach yourself, as long as you find excellent players and match them with reliable managers and head coaches, why worry about your results.

And with the end of the year approaching the end of the year, he can focus on Coventry City FC and make future transfer plans in advance, believing that if he can complete the control of this club, it can make a huge change in no time.

After deciding that this goal was worth working on, Genes began to call the other friends, and Hierro, Raul, Morientes and the others soon arrived on Mallorca. A group of Real Madrid celebrities first came to the farm to visit the two elders and the pregnant Lin Yun'er, and after enjoying a sumptuous meal of the Celestial Empire, they went to the nearest hotel together.

The next day, other members of their special group, such as professionals in finance, negotiation, etc., also arrived. Everyone studied together in the hotel for two whole days, and finally decided on various plans and countermeasures, and then dispersed and entered the work state that belongs to their own scope of responsibility.

Of course, the follow-up has nothing to do with Li Mudi, in addition to providing the greatest financial support, his main task is to accompany his family, especially his wife who is going to give birth. At this critical moment, he was assigned a very simple job, and it is estimated that he has no intention of dealing with it, so he once again made a hands-off shopkeeper and stayed at home waiting for the good news of his friends.

In the end, after five months of difficult negotiations, during which there were several times when the talks were on the verge of collapse, all of them were resolved satisfactorily without any danger. The Real Madrid legend group reached an agreement with Coventry club owner Lan Resen to acquire 100% of the English team's long-established team and 50% of the Ricoh Stadium from the latter for 17.5 million pounds, as well as the 15 million debt that the Sky Blues will need to repay to the bank over the next 25 years.

Later, it reached an agreement with Coventry City Council to buy 40% of the use of Ricoh Stadium for 5 million pounds, and as for the remaining 10%, the council must hold in its hands and will never sell it all. But even then, the new owners of the club have been given full control of the course, whether it is changing the turf or expanding the seating, they can decide at their own discretion. What's even better is that they are allowed to carry out major renovations or even rebuilds of the stadium when the conditions are right, which will be of great benefit to the club's future matchday revenue.

As for the position, Li Mudi, the largest shareholder, did not come forward to stand at the front desk in person, and their group first set up an investment company, and the legal person was handed over to his cousin. The latter had previously served as the chairman of the Celestial Empire's team Northern Frontier Volcano Mingquan for his cousin, and this time he once again played the role of "Shadow Warrior", so that Li Mudi would not be on the cusp of the storm, and the future days would not stop. Of course, the inside story of this situation can't be hidden from someone who cares, but at least it can be regarded as forming a kind of protection on the surface, which is better than nothing.

In addition to this indifferent chairman, the post of director of football is held by Hierro; Morientes became the head coach of the club's U23 team, mainly responsible for the development of echelon talents; As for the head coach of the team, Raul's current coaching experience is obviously lacking, and even in the third tier of the English league, he will need to accumulate it for a while now. As an assistant coach in the first team, he took the position of "Reserve", alongside the new manager Warren Joyce (former manager of Manchester United's Under-18s, reserves and Antwerp), learning and always ready to replace him.

However, these are all things that happened at the turn of the spring and summer of 2020, and before that, there were a lot of very important events happening in Li Moodi and the whole of European football, which are still worth recounting in detail.