Dividing players was just the first objective.
The second reason for rejecting the Jiangnan Group was their uncontrollability.
Everyone knew that boss Huang of the Jiangnan Group had a temper worse than the heavens, believing no one in the world was superior to him. If this boss Huang were to bring five teams into the CSL, who would the CSL listen to then?
The third reason was the most important: the entry of the Jiangnan Group would interfere with the CSL's truly profitable business. This wouldn't be elaborated on, as discussing it might get this chapter removed.
Of course, the Football Association also knew it was impossible to completely reject the Jiangnan Group, so they had their own bottom line.
They could sell multiple clubs to the Jiangnan Group and allow multiple clubs to participate in the CSL, but such clubs would be limited to a maximum of three. Buying five was impossible.
If that were the case, wouldn't there still be forty players left?
So, these forty players would have to be resold to other clubs, allowing other clubs to gain a wave of fans. Finally, the Jiangnan Group would have to cooperate with everyone's interests at crucial moments.
In short, a lot of talk.
Considering boss Huang's stubborn personality, the Football Association was prepared for a protracted battle.
Then, they received notification from the Jiangnan Group saying they weren't coming. The Jiangnan Group was no longer interested in the CSL. Forget five teams, not a single team would join the CSL.
This completely baffled the Football Association. After confirming the Jiangnan Group was not joking, their intermediary tried every means to find the person in charge of the Jiangnan Group and said, "Don't be so uncooperative. If you truly offend the Football Association completely, you won't be able to play a single professional match in the country."
"Not to mention the CSL, even the China League One and China League Two wouldn't accept your teams."
"Don't tell me the Jiangnan Group will fund a professional league themselves. I know your Jiangnan Group is rich, and if boss Huang is willing to spend tens of billions to do this, he wouldn't mind spending a few more tens of billions to run a professional league."
"But the approval for professional leagues is also in the hands of the Football Association. If the Football Association doesn't approve, your professional league can't get started at all, and it would be illegal."
"And don't tell me you'll go to AM to run a professional league. AM doesn't even have enough land to build five decent football stadiums. It simply can't support a large-scale professional football league."
"So, don't be so stubborn. Lower your stance a bit. The Football Association is open to negotiation. They've already agreed to increase the number of team slots to three. You just need to release a batch of second-tier players!"
"I know your real goal is definitely next year's World Cup, and those strongest stars will definitely stay with your team. But there's no need to hoard those second-tier players. They also need to eat, they also want to make a name for themselves. You need to give them a stage to showcase themselves!"
It had to be admitted that this intermediary was very persuasive, making the person in charge of the Jiangnan Group's head ache.
After the other party finally finished speaking, the person in charge of the Jiangnan Group smiled and said, "You don't need to worry about this issue. We don't plan to go to China League One or China League Two, and we don't have any extra funds to run another professional league."
"AM is indeed as you said, its scale cannot support a professional league, so we have no plans to go to AM either."
"Then what do you plan to do?"
"It's like this, we were thinking, since we can't run professional competitions, we'll run amateur ones," the person in charge said.
"I knew you would say that!" the intermediary said. "You want to use amateur competitions to achieve your goal indirectly, but amateur competitions also need to be registered with the Football Association. Moreover, the Football Association has many restrictions on amateur competitions. TV broadcasts are not allowed, and match tickets cannot be sold. Even commercial endorsements are prohibited."
"These are restrictions only professional competitions can have. If you exceed these restrictions, it's no longer an amateur competition but a professional one, which means you must accept the supervision of the Football Association. In the end, it's still illegal."
"If you play football in China, don't think about challenging the Football Association. Isn't it better for everyone to cooperate happily and make money together?"
"Don't worry, the Football Association can't control our matches!" the person in charge said with a smile. "Because this competition does not involve any outsiders, but is an internal corporate football league of the Jiangnan Group. The Football Association can manage everything, but it can't manage our internal matches, can it!"
"What?" The intermediary didn't even know how he left the Jiangnan Group, only knowing that a few days later, the Jiangnan Group issued an announcement.
To enrich employees' lives and greatly promote the spiritual civilization development of the enterprise, the Jiangnan Group has decided to hold the "I Love Boss Huang Cup" internal company football league.
Each subsidiary of the Jiangnan Group will represent a team, with each team organizing a football squad. Players must be employees of the Jiangnan Group. Matches will be held with the headquarters of each subsidiary as the home ground, creating a unique, fun, and enriching event for employees' spiritual and cultural lives, allowing everyone to enjoy the benefits of corporate sports progress in their spare time.
The subsidiaries qualified to form teams are:
Jiangnan Headquarters
Jiangnan Leather
Jiangnan Blind Box
Jiangnan Network
Jiangnan Commerce
Jiangnan Games
Jiangnan E-commerce
Jiangnan Optics
Jiangnan Research
Jiangnan Manufacturing
Jiangnan Intelligence
Jiangnan Battery
Jiangnan Materials
Jiangnan Tianwang
Jiangnan Communication
Jiangnan E-sports
Jiangnan Express
Jiangnan Overseas
Jiangnan Fantasy
Jiangnan Culture
Precisely twenty subsidiaries, two more than the CSL.
Of course, even though the Jiangnan Group is the world's number one enterprise, a mere announcement like this wouldn't cause much of a storm. However, the problem was that these twenty subsidiaries soon began recruiting from the entire society.
Moreover, each subsidiary was hiring hundreds of positions. With twenty companies combined, that meant over two thousand positions, which immediately caused widespread excitement.
It's important to note that as the Jiangnan Group continued to develop, employee salaries have soared to an unbelievable level. It's said that even an intern fresh out of college, as long as they secure an internship at the Jiangnan Group, can earn a monthly salary of 18,000 during the internship period.
What's even more absurd is that if such an intern is not signed by the Jiangnan Group, they will immediately be snatched up by other companies, signing contracts with a minimum monthly salary of 30,000.
After all, the Jiangnan Group has discerning eyes. The qualification to work at the Jiangnan Group represents the company's recognition of that employee, indicating that the employee has unlimited potential and capabilities, and will naturally be fiercely sought after by other companies.
This is similar to how employees from companies like Alibaba, or even miHoYo, on another Earth, are immediately highly sought after by other enterprises. After all, being able to join them represents significant strength.
It's just that now, the number of employees the Jiangnan Group recruits externally each year is decreasing. Especially as the Jiangnan Group continuously launches various physical production and sales markets, ceding these markets to other companies and focusing solely on its technology licensing and core component production, the entry quota for the Jiangnan Group has become even more precious.
It is said that the number of positions allocated by the Jiangnan Group to Tsinghua and Peking University each year is less than fifty in total. This means only the top fifty outstanding individuals from these two universities have the opportunity to join the Jiangnan Group.
When planning their careers, students from these two universities prioritize preparing to enter the Jiangnan Group, participating in various written tests and interviews organized by the Jiangnan Group in advance.
During this period, they absolutely do not make any plans for studying abroad, advanced studies abroad, or working abroad.
Because one of the core conditions considered by the Jiangnan Group when reviewing employees is whether the new recruit has overseas study experience, or even if they are preparing to go abroad, and whether they have taken TOEFL tests and applied for visas for that purpose.
Anyone who has experienced any of the above will be directly rejected, with no consideration given, no matter how outstanding they are.
This was initially an unwritten rule known only within the Jiangnan Group. Later, it was revealed by an employee from the Jiangnan Group's human resources department who resigned. It is said that due to a conflict with their superior, they held a grudge against the Jiangnan Group and exposed this issue to the media under the title "Jiangnan Group Discriminates Against Students." It was at this point that everyone learned that the Jiangnan Group had such restrictions when recruiting.
Those who were rejected by the Jiangnan Group due to overseas experience or plans to go abroad regretted it immensely.
They finally understood why some people less outstanding than them received job offers from the Jiangnan Group, while they, despite their excellence, received nothing.
Thinking back to how they proudly listed their overseas experiences and plans to go abroad in the most prominent positions on their resumes, they felt like a complete joke.
Of course, this also caused a considerable public outcry online. After the exposure, the Jiangnan Group immediately admitted that they did consider this aspect and that the company currently had no plans to accept such students.
This is because they believe that students with overseas experience or who are considering going abroad are less likely to be distracted at work and may constantly think about going abroad in the future, making them unable to wholeheartedly devote themselves to building the Jiangnan Group as their shared home, thus they were rejected.
Well, the Jiangnan Group's straightforward statement, on the contrary, garnered a lot of praise.
After all, the vast majority of people in China do not have the opportunity to study abroad, so they naturally sided with the Jiangnan Group. The public opinion stirred up by students online naturally subsided.
However, from then on, all students who wished to join the Jiangnan Group would absolutely not consider anything related to going abroad in advance, nor would they even prepare for it.
Only after being explicitly rejected by the Jiangnan Group would they consider going abroad.