At the same time as Fan Jianyang was being dealt with, Pan Yi's flight was already in the air to the Netherlands.

This time his target is a veteran, as well as an old subordinate of his.

Former Hamburg Captain, Westerman!

At this time, Westerman was entering the end of his career, moving to Ajax on a free transfer after his contract at Hamburg expired last year, but he did not play much, and played about a dozen times in all competitions throughout the season.

And such a player is exactly what Pan Yi wants!

The team's back line must not be all young, after all, this is a position that needs the most experience, and there must be an old man to lead it.

And this kind of old captain with high professionalism is not an excellent candidate?

And Westerman can not only play all positions on the back line, but also play a cameo role in the back, which is simply Tomiyasu Kenyo plus, which is better to use.

In addition, his salary is not high, and his current weekly salary is probably less than 6,000 euros.

Although it is quite tall compared to the rest of the York City team, it is indeed very shabby for the captain who once lifted the Champions League trophy.

After all, not to mention clubs like Ajax, in fact, many "big clubs" in League One have ordinary salaries of thousands of euros, even 10,000 or 20,000 euros.

Therefore, Pan Yi communicated with Westerman on the phone before, and after confirming that the other party was interested, he flew directly over to talk to the Ajax club.

Of course, Pan Yi also informed Ajax that he was coming for Westerman, and he could buy out or loan.

In fact, for such a veteran, there is not much difference between renting and buying.

Because most of their contracts are signed once a year, if they don't play well, they just don't renew the contract and it's over.

However, because Westerman was wearing the aura of the Champions League champion when he came, the contract at that time was still signed until 2018, so it is still necessary to talk about it - in the previous life, before this contract expired, Westerman announced his retirement.

Considering his current age and competitive status, even if he does transfer, the cost should not be too outrageous.

As for Pan Yi's notice, Ajax did not directly nod or say yes or no, but only said that it could be interviewed, and Pan Yi was welcome to visit the Amsterdam Arena.

After arriving at Amsterdam International Airport, Pan Yi first went to the hotel to settle down, and then did not rest, but went directly to the Amsterdam Arena.

Of course, before going, I called and informed the Ajax club, and the other party seemed surprised by Pan Yi's vigorous and resolute style, but he still welcomed it politely, and said that he would arrange staff to contact him.

Located on the outskirts of the city of Amsterdam, the Amsterdam Arena began construction in 1993 at a cost of 140 million euros.

The stadium was completed on August 14, 1996 and can be used for football, American football matches and concerts.

The stadium has 51,628 seats for ball matches and 68,000 seats for concerts.

In March this year, the famous Dutch football star Johan Cruyff, who is also a legend in the history of Ajax, passed away.

As a result, Ajax FC is already discussing the renaming of the Amsterdam Arena to the Johan Cruyff Arena in honour of the Amsterdam-born Dutch legend who became one of the best players in the history of world football in the city.

Of course, it hasn't changed its name yet, so it's still called Amsterdam Arena.

When Pan Yi came here, he went to the reception room under the guidance of the staff, and waited for about ten minutes before someone came over.

It's a familiar face.

It is the legendary goalkeeper of former Ajax, Juventus, Manchester United, Van der Sar!

He has been a member of Ajax's Board of Directors since November 2012, initially as Marketing Director, but since this year he has begun to take on more of the role of CEO and CEO.

"Welcome, Pan Yi." Van der Sar greeted Pan Yi with a smile.

After a brief greeting, the two went straight without talking nonsense and began negotiations on a trade for Westerman.

"Since Westerman is really not in the plans of our new head coach Peter Bots, we agreed to sell him." Van der Sar said dryly, "The price is ...... 1.5 million euros. ”

Grass, so expensive?

Pan Yi complained in his heart.

It's not that Westerman isn't worth the price right now, or that York City can't afford it, but now they're not Chelsea after all, as if millions aren't worth it.

Money has to be spent on the blade, and you have to save money.

1.5 million euros, which can be used to pay the annual salary of many players!

Let's talk about Westerman himself, with his current salary, he spends about 300,000 euros a year......

"Then let's lease it." Pan Yi retreated, "We bear all his salary expenses." ”

Anyway, it's a veteran, and the rent is a year after year, which is obviously much more cost-effective than buying out.

But Van der Sar is not willing to give in too much: "You can go on loan, but you have to pay a loan fee of 500,000 euros a year. ”

"......" Pan Yi was a little speechless.

It's outrageous, it's not cost-effective at all, and it feels like it's better to buy out!

When Van der Sar played football, he was the goalkeeper who guarded the door perfectly, and now that he is an official, he also sees the money bag as a strict one.

But in fact, Pan Yi can also understand.

Because as far as he knows, the situation of Ajax has not been very good lately.

Ajax, who has always relied on its excellent youth system to transfuse blood for the first team, has been a bit out of shape in recent years.

In the first team in previous years, there were basically no good young talents, which led to them losing to arch-rivals PSV Eindhoven in the Eredivisie for the second year in a row.

This season, Ajax are determined to make a new come, first poaching new manager Peter Botz from Maccabi Tel Aviv, and then also buying Moroccan international Hakim Ziyech from Twente for 11 million euros.

Of course, there were a few other people bought, but they were mostly lesser-known characters, and they didn't cost much money, so they weren't worth mentioning – the only one who was a little famous was Dutch international Krull, but that was also on loan from Newcastle United.

In addition, Ajax have also promoted a 19-year-old young midfielder from the youth team to the first team, and his name is Frenkie de Jong.

And a few months before him, he also promoted a rookie named Van de Beek, who is also 19 years old.

There is another Cameroonian goalkeeper who is only 20 years old, although he is not a youth team of the team, and he has just been promoted from the second team to the first team, his name is Onana.

From Pan Yi's point of view, of course, the group of people who know Ajax have actually begun to form a new youth army, which will roll up a new youth storm in the European arena.

They will reach the Europa League final, the Champions League semi-finals and of course dominate the Eredivisie in the next year or two.

Then came the Ajax supermarket sale, and these players were sold for high prices.

But for Ajax now, where do they know what the future holds?

These little young people, no one knows if they can afford to take the lead!

The decline in performance and the lack of star output have made Ajax's finances a mess in the past two years.

Spending more than 10 million to buy Ziyech can be said to be ruthless in scratching lottery tickets!

I hope that the arrival of this Moroccan can improve the strength of the team, and second, he can sell it to the top five leagues at a high price after he plays......

This is actually the usual operation routine of a club like Ajax.

It's just that it hasn't done well in recent years, including De Jong's own youth training, if it can't be played again, Ajax really can't even keep the top spot in China.

Therefore, as the new CEO of the club, Van der Sar's first priority at this time is to maintain a balance of payments and make up for this part of the purchaser's expenses.

A marginal player like Westerman, of course, can be sold, and if he can't be sold, he will charge a loan fee to subsidize his family.

Even if it's a trade of one or two million euros, that's an entry, even if it's an extra few hundred thousand euros, it's money!

But Pan Yi's reply was very resolute: "No, I can't accept such a high rental fee." We're just League One clubs and you can't compare us to the big clubs. ”

"......" This time it was Van der Sar's turn to be speechless.

Yes, he knows that York City is only an English One team, but the problem is that their owner is Pan Yi!

With an annual salary of 20 million euros, plus various championship bonuses, and commercial endorsements, I don't know how much money I made in my two years at Chelsea.

Not to mention the feeling that York City is already an Internet celebrity club, all kinds of sponsors have sharpened their heads to drill into it, and they are still expanding the stadium recently, how can there be no money?

The main reason is that Ajax has been lacking in talent recently, and no one cares about their own players, so Pan Yi's visit can be said to have made Van der Sar overjoyed, thinking that he could come to "slaughter a big family".

I didn't expect it, I didn't think about it, Pan Yi, who has thick eyebrows and big eyes, is so slamming in business!

"So be it." Van der Sar's eyes rolled and he thought of another idea, "I can agree to loan Westerman to your team for free, and you only need to pay 100% of his salary." But I have one condition. ”

"On what terms?"

'You can't just rent one player, you have to go to our reserve squad or our youth squad and pick one or two players to buy. What is the price...... Discuss when the time comes. ”

Pan Yi scratched his head.

Is this a legendary bundle?

That's not a good thing!

It can be said that Pan Yi hates this kind of bundling!

When he was a child in his previous life, he wanted to buy a disc of a love action movie, but the boss insisted that he buy another cartoon of "Hulu Baby", otherwise he would not sell it.

When Pan Yi reluctantly agreed, and went home and excitedly opened his studies, he found out...... The two he bought were "Gourd Baby".

In short, those who can join this kind of bundle sale must not be good!

"That's not necessary, is it? I just want Westerman alone. Pan Yi shook his head.

"Mr. Pan Yi, let's take a look at the list first, with your ability to discover the potential of young players, maybe you can find a treasure?" Van der Sar smiled and handed over an A4 piece of paper.

On top of that, there is a long list, both in reserve and in youth.

It seems that we are really going to prepare for the clearance sale!

It's not that Ajax aren't ready to live, it's mainly that they've become a little less confident in the youth system they are proud of in recent years.

Who did Ajax come out of the academy before?

Van Basten, Rijkaard, Bergkamp, the De Boer brothers, Seedorf, Davies "The Boar", Kluivert, Sneijder, including Van der Sar......

But now?

Let's just say that last year, they also sold a lot of people, so I won't mention the name, just look at the place:

Wilhelm II, Utrecht, Sampdoria, Nantes, Breda......

This is not the master who can pay a lot of money, and the player is certainly not worth much.

And the list on this A4 paper, of course, has also been screened by Ajax.

In other words, those who they think have the ability to play in the first team have all been promoted to the first team and will not be on this list.

In addition to Frenkie de Jong and Van de Beek and Onana, there are also Caspar Dolberg, Wenceslas Cheney, A. Lunney, Kluivert Jr., Norbert Alblas and a few others - we, as time-travelers, of course, know that these people are not really kicked.

Eight youth team players were promoted to the first team at once, which not only shows that their youth training "skinny camels are bigger than horses", but also reflects that Ajax is indeed short of money!

Spending more than 10 million to buy Ziyech can be said to be not only scratching the lottery ticket, but also a big gamble!

Pan Yi was also very helpless, so he could only take the paper and glance at it casually.

It's true that I don't know any names......

However, at the end of the list, Pan Yi unexpectedly saw a familiar name: Matthias De Ligt!

I rub, isn't this the future European Golden Boy winner, who later transferred to Juventus for a transfer fee of 75 million euros and then to the Dutch international of Bayern Munich for 77 million euros?

While he does have a bit of a problem with his hands in the box, the two high-priced transfers themselves are a testament to his quality.

An excellent modern centre-back, De Ligt combines solid ground defence with lethal aerial striking ability.

His header ability will not only come in handy in his own penalty area, but he will also be able to create a threat in the opposition box.

In addition, his excellent tackling ability, excellent physical fitness, speed and passing accuracy are all important reasons why De Ligt won the 2018 European Golden Boy Award, and later won the favor of so many big clubs.

At this time, Pan Yi also noticed that De Ligt's name was not printed, but later written with a pen.

It feels like Ajax didn't want to sell De Ligt at first, but in the end, in order to raise money, they added it on the fly.

The approximate meaning is that you are 17 years old and still not up to the first team standard, so forget it or sell it!

Pan Yi hurriedly took his gaze away from the last line on the list and swept the name pretending to be on it.

This can't be discovered by Van der Sar!

Otherwise, you will definitely have to sit on the ground and raise the price.

Then Pan Yi probably figured it out.

De Ligt has actually been doing well in the academy at Ajax, but it's a bit of a risk to have a 17-year-old defender play in the first team so quickly.

And the defender is not supported by very obvious data like the striker, and whether he can use it or not still counts when he plays on the field.

There are too many young players who do well in the youth team, but not when they get to the professional level.

In Pan Yi's previous life, Ajax at that time, for the sake of insurance, first let De Ligt go to the Ajax second team to play in the Dutch second league this season to see if he could resist the pressure of the professional league.

What I didn't expect was that De Ligt showed maturity that didn't match his age and played quite well in the second team.

So just over a month later, Ajax offered De Ligt a formal professional contract.

A month later, in the opening round of the Dutch Cup, Ajax thrashed Willem II 5-0, and De Ligt was given the chance to start and make his senior debut.

He also scored his first senior goal in the 25th minute of the first half, becoming the second-youngest goalscorer in Ajax's history since Seedorf.

By November, he had already established himself as a regular first-team regular and made his European debut in the Europa League group stage.

Ajax only found out at this time that I rely on this kid to be a talent!

So, I immediately renewed the contract! - It's because the previous professional contract was only signed at the level of De Ligt's second team at Ajax, which was too easy to poach.

And that's not all.

That same season, De Ligt reached the Europa League final with Ajax, and he also broke the record to become the youngest player to make an appearance in the history of a European final.

He was also named in the Europa League Team of the Season.

As a result, Ajax found that his estimate was wrong again!

They have renewed their contract with De Ligt! This time the contract was directly extended until 2021.

Later, it was the story of him winning the European Golden Boy Award and a high-priced transfer.

It can be seen from this incident that at least for the time being, Ajax's valuation of De Ligt is quite skewed, otherwise he would not have signed three contracts in a year.

Of course, if the valuation had been correct, he wouldn't have been on the list for sale.

It's just that although De Ligt is still young, he has already signed a professional contract.

A team like Ajax, which specializes in the "human trafficker" business, naturally has a very complete mechanism to prevent its children from being abducted halfway.

After all, the minimum age limit for young players to sign a professional contract is different in various countries, the Premier League is 16 years old to sign a professional contract, the French side is 17 years old, and the Spanish side is 18 years old to sign a professional contract.

Because of this age limit, the Spanish team suffers very much, and many talented young people can only sign youth contracts with clubs until the age of 18, and youth contracts are not protected by labor laws.

As a result, Spanish teams often have hard-earned youngsters poached before the age of 18, with Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger poaching Cesc Fabregas from Barcelona's La Masia academy for only a few hundred thousand euros.

The Dutch side is also 17-year-old can sign a professional contract, and Ajax will even have an agreement with the young elite players early, which is equivalent to signing a professional contract that will take effect in the future.

This so-called professional contract signed in advance is actually a means to tie up the player, and the liquidated damages will often be relatively high.

Like De Ligt, the liquidated damages are as high as 10 million euros!

However, since Ajax wants to sell, it will definitely not be higher than this price, otherwise Pan Yi will directly smash the liquidated damages, and then talk to De Ligt.

Don't look at it at Chelsea, 10 million euros is not a lot of money, but in many clubs there are many things that can be done.

Ajax bought Poland international Milik from Bayer Leverkusen last season for just over €3 million......

Pan Yi first quietly read the entire list "seriously", and then deliberately frowned:

'How do I know which player has what it takes to play in League One or even the Championship? Otherwise, let me go to the training ground, right? ”

This is Pan Yi's means of preparing to reduce the price and pick up the leakage.

Otherwise, it would be too fake for him to decide who to buy just by looking at the list.

Van der Sar may suspect that Pan Yi has already inspected De Ligt, so the price will definitely be lower.

And hearing Pan Yi say this, Van der Sahaha laughed:

"Great! And if you say it's a coincidence, we have a warm-up game tomorrow against Molde in Norway. Come and see it then, I'll get all these players on the pitch! (End of chapter)