Chapter 85: Chapter 84: I Want to Be Barça President
The system upgraded to Level 2, and now Gu Bai can only be described with four words.
Riding high on success!
At present, Gu Bai and the others are in a VIP box at the Camp Nou.
As a giant stadium that can accommodate 110,000 people, although it’s not quite sold out at the moment, most of the seats have been snatched up, and the cheers of the fans can penetrate the well-insulated box.
Two attendants stand by, and as soon as they see anyone’s glass empty, they refill it immediately without needing a reminder, an extremely attentive service.
The two teams on the field are the home team Barça against the Serie A giant Juventus.
At the time, C Luo had yet to join Juventus. On July 10th next year, as one of the greatest of all time, C Luo will successfully join Juventus. Once the two titans face off, ticket prices will skyrocket.
As for the Champions League home game, the regular seat ticket is 200 Euro, whereas the VIP box Gu Bai booked costs a whopping 65,000 Euro, which is roughly equal to 500,000 RMB.
Spending 500,000 to watch a few hours of a match is beyond what most people can imagine.
Qin Fen, looking at the teams that have entered halftime, put down his glass and said with a smile, "It’s no wonder football is the greatest sport. Look at how crazy those fans are; even from this distance I can feel their energy."
"Actually, football is the best sport for business operations; just look at this many fans. The revenue from just ticket sales for this one match probably exceeds several million Euros, not to mention the merchandise like jerseys and other peripherals."
Principal Wang doesn’t seem to be a huge fan of football, focusing more on the commercial value of the sport.
When it comes to this, Qin Fen has the most to say.
He has a men’s basketball club back home called KINGS, which has consecutively won the City Legend championship in 2016 and 2017, and it’s only been a few days since they won this year’s title.
"Without mentioning other things, once football and basketball are run well, they’re no less than any business company, and can even make more money, but the environment in our country just doesn’t allow for making money.
My KINGS club, you know of it, doesn’t have any promising future. They spend their days playing various local cup games and town competitions, earning only a few ten thousand for a championship. A player like Tieniu earns seven or eight hundred thousand a year, making money is just a dream, spending money for some fun is more like it. The ones really making money are those NBA teams and European giants, don’t all these clubs earn money in bucketfuls every year?"
Mentioning this, Qin Fen couldn’t help but sigh.
Principal Wang couldn’t help but retort, "Your small-scale operations surely can’t make money. A team’s operation is all about brand value. Real Madrid, Barça, Manchester United aside, even our domestic Evergrande has reached a market value of over two hundred billion, right on par with Manchester United. They lose money every year, but if Evergrande wanted to sell, countless people would take over in a heartbeat."
"How many teams are like Evergrande? And as long as the domestic football association doesn’t reform, there’s no way out; all the money goes to those people."
This time Principal Wang didn’t retort, because he knew Qin Fen was telling the truth.
His family’s Wanda Group owns a team as well. Wang Shoufu has repeatedly criticized the football association publicly.
Gu Bai listened with great interest; he was at best a pseudo-fan, only knowing some top clubs and top stars, but that didn’t mean he didn’t like the sport.
"What do you guys think, is there a chance for me to become Barça’s president?"
Upon hearing Gu Bai’s words, Qin Fen and Principal Wang were dumbfounded.
"What nonsense are you talking about? If you said you wanted to buy Manchester United, I wouldn’t be surprised, but becoming Barça’s president? Isn’t that a pipe dream?"
Principal Wang couldn’t help but roll his eyes.
Gu Bai understood what Principal Wang meant. Earlier, he had looked online for some conditions for becoming Barça’s president.
Barça’s president must be a member, and it requires enough money and support from the members to be elected.
Moreover, someone like Gu Bai, being an outsider, has almost no hope of running for Barça’s president. Except for the first Swiss president Wade, almost all of Barça’s presidents have been Catalonian. Even legendary Barça figures like Cruyff can hardly get the members’ support. Even a true Catalan and Barça fan would find it difficult to run for president; you need enough money and member support. In the 2013 election, initially there were 7 candidates, but 3 of them didn’t meet the threshold of a 77 million Euro guarantee and 2,534 member support votes, and the remaining 4 were candidates from Porta’s 2003 election winning. It can be said that the Barça presidential election is just a game among these elite members.
When it comes to money, this is the least of Gu Bai’s worries.
He currently has 20 billion RMB with no place to use it.
The main issue is member support. You could say there’s not a single thing in his favor in terms of timing, location, and human harmony.
As for why Gu Bai suddenly wanted to become a Barça member, it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment idea.
The main mission "High-profile Life" requires completing objectives to gain 1 billion Reputation Points.
You have to know how much attention Barça gets globally; if a person from Hua Country could become Barça’s president, it could absolutely explode into a worldwide super news story, fulfilling the reputation requirement is not a dream!
But for the time being, it’s indeed as Principal Wang said, nothing short of wishful thinking.
While he may have money, he’s currently still considered a nobody internationally, and even if he really brought over 1 billion Euros to run for Barça president, no one would support him.
Thinking about this, Gu Bai had no choice but to temporarily abandon this idea, and first stir up storms back home, increase his reputation value, and if all else fails he could just go with Principal Wang’s suggestion to acquire Manchester United instead. Although it might not be as influential as Barça, it wouldn’t be far off.
As for now, it’s not feasible; Manchester United’s value is at 3.2 billion US Dollars. To forcefully acquire, it would surely require a premium. Right now, he only has 20 billion in basic funds, and every task costs money. Not to mention it’s not enough to buy Manchester United, even if it were enough, he can’t focus solely on one investment. Once he finishes all the other tasks and his funds become substantial, then he can consider these.
What Gu Bai wants to complete most now is the charity task, "Redemption of the Kidney Eater," as the title is just too alluring.
He’s already decided that after returning home and handling some backlog, he’ll immediately set up a charity foundation and complete the task first.
An hour or so later, the match ended.
Barça 3:0 Juventus.
Earlier, Qin Fen and Principal Wang each bet 10,000 Euros on Barça to win, with odds of 0.43, and both made a small profit, though neither of them valued the money much.
As for Gu Bai, he had no interest in gambling and did not participate.
Next came the fans’ celebration time. As VIPs, the club invited them to join in, but they declined.
Because they had already booked their flights and had to fly from Barcelona to Rome in the afternoon, after all, Principal Wang’s flight plan was filed departing from Rome, although some of them did want to experience the craze of European football fans.
.............
Back in Rome, Qin Fen and Principal Wang, after consuming so much ’dog food’ these days, couldn’t resist and went to enjoy the services of capitalist girls.
Meanwhile, Gu Bai and Dasha Talan stayed at the hotel, drinking and chatting on the private terrace.
"Gu Bai, are you going back to Hua Country tomorrow?"
Dasha Talan asked while sitting on the chair, looking at Gu Bai’s back.
Gu Bai leaned an elbow on the terrace railing, gazing at the Roman night.
Hearing Dasha Talan’s question, Gu Bai didn’t even turn his head, softly asked back, "What’s up?"
"There are still two days left in our agreed seven days, if you leave early, the money won’t be refunded to you, you know."
Puff.
Gu Bai nearly spat out the wine he just sipped.
"That won’t do, you better refund my money later."
Knowing Dasha Talan was joking, Gu Bai couldn’t help but joke back, in a good mood.
"No refunds, but I can compensate you in other ways!"
Upon saying this, Dasha Talan blushed a little.
After all, they’ve had so much intimate interaction these days, somewhat starting to build immunity, although somewhat looking forward to Dasha Talan’s compensation, he didn’t express it too much.
"When you asked me to go to Hua Country before, were you serious?"
Gu Bai didn’t answer directly but asked back, "Why? Have you thought it through?"
Over the past few days, Dasha Talan had roughly understood Gu Bai’s financial standing, a $6 million supercar, and over $100k spending at a tourist destination, which were sums she couldn’t even dream of in her lifetime.
No doubt.
Dasha Talan was indeed tempted.
"I’m also flying back to Russia tomorrow."
"?"
"I’m planning to use this $300k to arrange for my family first when I get home, and then I’ll go to Hua Country to find you, but...
After going to Hua Country, will I still receive such generous rewards?"
Listening to Dasha Talan, Gu Bai chuckled softly.
"Are you wanting me to promise you something?"
Dasha Talan shook her head.
"No, I understand that I’m not much in your eyes, it’s just that I feel a bit insecure."
Though she’s only 18, she’s clear about her own position and doesn’t have the arrogance of someone her age.
Seeing Dasha Talan’s slightly downcast expression, Gu Bai sat beside her and gently stroked her delicate face.
"I won’t promise you anything, but over these days you should know, as long as I don’t get tired of you, you can always get what you want from me, like... US Dollars?"
"Then I’ll just have to make sure you never get tired of me."
A beauty score of 97.
This made Dasha Talan very confident in herself.
Not many men could resist her.
"Well, that depends on your performance. Didn’t you just say you’d compensate me in other ways? I think now’s the time."
With that, an increasingly impatient Gu Bai took her hand straight back to the room.
That night, Gu Bai experienced the wild side of Western girls, and his small frame almost couldn’t handle it.
This made him look forward more and more to the title of "Redemption of the Kidney Eater," hoping to one day have the legendary physique of a ’bulldozer’ to enjoy the beauty of women in this world to the full.