In the 1993-94 season, Fiorentina won the Italian second division and the Italian Cup double, under the leadership of the general manager Kenyon in charge of the club's commercial operations and spared no effort to publicize, the maximum use of the "second division team to win the Italian Cup" gimmick (at this time, the cup champions of various countries can participate in the European Cup Winners' Cup, the championship is very high), so that Florence has made great progress in market development and popularity.

The one-year sponsorship contracts signed by Fiorentina last summer have expired, and the more major sponsorships during the Celligori period, such as the advertising sponsorship on the chest of the jersey, also happened to expire this summer, so before the Shijie Cup began, Zhuang Mingge asked Kenyon to publicly announce the news: Fiorentina will conduct a public tender for the team's sponsors next season at the club's headquarters on July 31.

At the same time, Mr. Chong asked Kenyon to break down the list of sponsorship projects, from the chest advertising on jerseys, to the billboards inside Frankie Stadium, to the team cars and buses...... There are more than 30 in total.

Fiorentina's move surprised the entire Italian football world, because the Italian club at this time was not as commercial as later generations, and the method adopted to win over team sponsors and suppliers was basically to negotiate with the previous sponsor on the sponsorship amount first, and then renew the contract, and rarely took the initiative to replace the existing sponsor. Therefore, when they saw that Florence had committed such an act that was almost in the "eye of money", they all secretly laughed at Florence's "money worship".

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

Zhuang Mingge scoffed at this, the club seeks advertising sponsorship is a commercial act, since the practice of public bidding can maximize the interests of Florence, Weishenme can't do this? Does it have to wait until the Premier League teams have fully surpassed Serie A for Fiorentina to be commercialised? What logic! A bunch of conservative antiques!

Not to mention Italy, which has caused heated discussions because of Florence's behavior, at the same time in Tokyo, Japan, in the headquarters of the Japanese Football Association, a group of obscene old people sat around a conference table, seemingly arguing fiercely.

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

"Ladies and gentlemen, since Chairman Kawabuchi has spoken, let's first listen to Mr. Chairman's opinion."

This old man is Saburo Kawabuchi, known as the "father of Japanese football", the 58-year-old Saburo Kawabuchi still seems to have retained the temperament of the time when he played football, and he participated in the Tokyo Olympics in the sixties and won a valuable Olympic medal. After two years of successful J-League operation, he was recently promoted to the president of the Japan Football Association (previously vice president of the Japan Football Association and president of the Japan Professional League).

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

"Mr. Kawabuchi, we all admire your efforts in Japanese football...... So, what are your thoughts? "Since it had been discussed for a long time, the person who had to speak to interrupt Saburo Kawabuchi was a corporate representative of Honda.

Saburo Kawabuchi was very unhappy that someone interrupted his emotional speech, but he couldn't show it, after all, the current operation of Japanese football is still dependent on the investment of these big financiers.

"Japanese football is at a bottleneck and we need more young players and coaches to learn the advanced tactical systems and operating models of Europe, and Fiorentina's public tender sponsor gives us a very good opportunity."

"Dare to ask Mr. President, does this tender in Florence have any connection with our overseas Jihua?" One of the business representatives in the room clearly did not grasp the mystery.

"Fiorentina is only a promoted team, but it has only been in the second division for a year, and according to reliable sources, its new owner has built a training base and medical facilities for the team that is no less than Milanello, and the training conditions must be among the best in Europe; At the same time, Fiorentina, who are promoted from Serie A this season, can also challenge for the European Cup Winners' Cup, so their level of competition can also be guaranteed. Saburo Kawabuchi patiently explained to the representatives of the companies present, "You have all had similar experiences before, and you all know that those real European giants will not agree to help us train players now, therefore, Fiorentina is our most hode choice at present, I think, since Fiorentina can even sponsors openly come to bidding, then their boss should not be indifferent to the high training fees we send, right?" ”

"I see! Chairman Kawabuchi is really far-sighted! Although the representatives of these Japanese companies do not know much about football, they all have some enthusiasm for investing in football, and after listening to the explanation of the old man Kawabuchi, they suddenly became enlightened and praised one after another.

"So, I would like to ask you to select a few young players with potential and discuss the exact amount of training fees, and I will fax it to Fiorentina in a few days."

……

So, on July 10, Fiorentina FC received a fax from Japan, which stated that several large Japanese companies wanted to arrange for a Japanese player named Maezono Shinsei to come to Florence for short-term training through cash sponsorship.

Several Japanese companies have proposed that Fiorentina be able to arrange for Maezono to train with the team for three months, for which they will pay $3 million for "training costs". Although Antonioni, who was in charge of the team's daily affairs, was unimpressed by this very interesting "training" program, Kenyon, the general manager in charge of marketing operations, showed a strong interest and directly took the fax to Zhuang Mingge, who was still directing the "gambling plan" at the estate of Little Groz.

After reading this fax, Zhuang Mingge's idea was not so simple, he did not expect that his public bidding activities would lead to the "big fish" of Japanese football, which was burning money everywhere.

However, seeing the desire of the Japanese to learn advanced football culture, Zhuang Mingge did not mind for the sake of the Japanese being so "generous...... Give the Japanese a few more chances to be "generous".

"Hehe, Manager Kenyon, don't you think it's too stingy for the Japanese side to send only one player to Fiorentina for short-term training? We can suggest that they send a few more players with potential to come here for training, hehe, when the time comes, you can tell the Japanese, it's not 3 million. ”

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

A day later, the Japanese, who had received a fax from Florence, were overjoyed and immediately replied that they had accepted Zhuang Mingge's suggestion. Toyota, Sony, Mitsubishi, and Honda, which are frantically burning money for the future of Japanese football, have sent their "owned" potential players to Florence for a three-month training program. They said they would pay a total of $10 million in training fees for four young players, including Maezono Shinsei, Hiroshi Kitazawa, Masayuki Okano, and Hiroshi Akiba, who participated in the short-term training.

Zhuang Mingge, who accepted it when he saw it, happily accepted the offer of the Japanese. In front of the shrewd Japanese, Zhuang Mingge showed a casual mentality that didn't care too much about the amount of money, and all he had to do was to always show a posture of doing his best to improve the level of Japanese football.