"Mr. McCormick, people from the Chinese Football Association have arrived. Should we receive them?" In his office at the French Football Federation headquarters, President McCormick received this message.
"People from the Chinese Football Association? What are they here for? Do they want to invite our stars to China for some event again?" McCormick said irritably. Previously, the Chinese had invited the French national team to China for an event, along with four additional friendly matches.
Because he was running for Vice President of FIFA at the time, he needed a vote from the Chinese Football Association, so he agreed. It wasn't like he himself had to travel to China.
However, the national team players complained incessantly after returning, especially French star Mbappé, who almost got into an international lawsuit in China.
It was said that as soon as the French national team's plane landed, they were greeted by welcome parties from all over China. The Chinese Football Association, who invited them, hosted a dinner for them at the most luxurious hotel in Shanghai, accompanied by many business people. The final welcome banquet alone featured 68 tables.
Of course, this was all good, showing China's importance to their team, especially a team that had just won the World Cup.
But the problem was that Mbappé was ambushed at this banquet.
An elegantly dressed elderly woman chatted with Mbappé in fluent French, talking about her hometown, which made Mbappé very happy.
Then, the old woman introduced herself as the chairman of a company called "What Forest" and stated that they planned to donate $10 million to France for charitable causes, inviting Mbappé to attend their charity gala.
She also directly offered Mbappé an additional $500,000 as an appearance fee.
Upon hearing this, Mbappé saw it as a perfect opportunity to be charitable and earn $500,000 just for attending a meal, so he readily agreed.
The next day, when Mbappé left the team for the meal, he found that the event was treated with great importance and festivity, with hundreds of adorable children welcoming him at the hotel entrance, presenting him with flower garlands and silk scarves. The enthusiastic Mbappé felt a bit embarrassed.
So, when a child presented him with a football jersey in the same colors and decorations as the French team's kit, Mbappé put it on without much thought.
After that, it was a normal meal. The chairman invited Mbappé to showcase his football skills, which was normal, and Mbappé performed in front of all the guests.
Then came more normal eating and drinking, naturally their "What Forest" brand beverages. After they had all had a few drinks, the chairman proposed a toast with their beverage bottles for a commemorative photo, and Mbappé didn't think twice.
It wasn't until last month that a friend of Mbappé's showed him a video. The video was a television advertisement, featuring Mbappé himself.
In the advertisement, he first showcased his skills in his team jersey, then drank from a "What Forest" beverage bottle, and finally, there was a voiceover in Chinese.
His friend told him that the jersey Mbappé was wearing actually had Chinese characters for "What Forest" on it, and the voiceover's Chinese sounded somewhat awkward, saying "When you're tired from playing, have a 'What Forest'."
Good heavens, this series of actions completely baffled Mbappé. He realized he had been tricked; they had spent $500,000 to get him to do free endorsements for them.
As for the $10 million charity donation, Mbappé specifically checked, but found no French organizations had received donations from this company.
In his anger, Mbappé sued the company. The international lawsuit was causing a stir, but what made Mbappé want to spit blood was that he heard the company was using Mbappé's lawsuit against them as a selling point for new, negative publicity, which greatly affected Mbappé's mood, making him less sharp when playing.
Besides Mbappé, another French star, Griezmann, also suffered misfortune. However, he wasn't tricked into an advertisement because Griezmann wasn't very well-known in China, and the publicity used to trick him wasn't very good either; no company was willing to take such a risk.
Griezmann's misfortune occurred because he was invited to participate in a variety show, and this show was none other than "Happy Camp," which had the highest viewership in China.
So, what happened to Griezmann on this show?
First, after Griezmann appeared, the host invited him to participate in a small penalty shootout on the spot.
The goal was only about the size of a bed, but they arranged for another host and two celebrities who were also invited guests to defend the goal, making Griezmann shoot under the defense of three people.
"If you don't want to score, just say so!" Although Griezmann was a bit confused at this point, he thought this method was quite interesting, and even if he didn't score, it wouldn't be too embarrassing, so Griezmann agreed to the competition.
The result was not bad. The host and the other two celebrities were completely useless, unable to react at all. Griezmann scored two out of his three shots. One shot wasn't even saved, but bounced off the opponent's leg and went wide.
If the variety show had ended here, everyone would have still found it quite interesting.
However, the second half of the show completely baffled Griezmann.
The host said that after experiencing Griezmann's strengths, shouldn't Griezmann also experience the strengths of Chinese people?
Griezmann foolishly agreed. Then, the host invited a chubby man named Liu, who was holding two table tennis paddles and a table tennis ball.
That afternoon in the studio, Griezmann declared that he never wanted to touch a table tennis ball again in his life. Besides serving, the feeling of not being able to touch the ball at other times was terrible.
Therefore, Liu the chubby guy very graciously went easy on him, playing a few fixed matches. In the end, he even deliberately lost two or three balls, but Griezmann still felt very distressed. Upon returning to the team, he was reportedly psychologically scarred, and his performance in recent matches has been very poor.
In short, the entire French national team was not very happy with this trip to China, and the French Football Federation was also somewhat dissatisfied. So, when they heard that the Chinese Football Association had sent people over, supposedly to discuss cooperation in youth player development, they were instinctively very resistant.
But since they had come all the way, you couldn't forgo basic etiquette; you had to at least listen to what they intended to do.
Of course, McCormick himself would not be the one to meet them. He arranged for one of his subordinates to discuss the matter with the representative from the Chinese Football Association.
Several hours later, this official returned to McCormick with a bewildered expression to report on the discussion.
"What exactly do the Chinese want?" McCormick asked curiously.
"They intend to send a U10 team to participate in the French youth football league as learners!" the official said. "The Chinese hope that this team can join the French youth football league as an entire unit. However, they are not a club, so they don't need to count towards season points, nor will the players participate in related draft activities. They simply wish to use this opportunity to train an entire team of young players!"
"Daydreaming!" Upon hearing this request, McCormick couldn't help but laugh.
An entire team directly participating in the French youth football league was unprecedented in France. While some countries internationally had accepted applications from other countries to have their entire teams participate in local competitions, France was not one of them, and it was impossible to agree to such an absurd request.
Although it seemed that as long as this team didn't count towards season points, it wouldn't affect the overall youth football league matches, the issue was that even without counting season points, adding an entire team would mean every team might have to play an extra round or two of matches. This would undoubtedly cause significant fatigue for the players, potentially affecting the team's playoff performance and ultimately their ranking.
Therefore, the various club teams would naturally be opposed to this matter.
Furthermore, this would also mean an increase in the overall duration of the league and higher match costs.
The situation of youth leagues in various countries was similar. They were established by their respective football associations to nurture young players and typically consisted of youth academy teams from French professional clubs or teams formed by students from various football schools.
These teams generally had no fans. The maximum attendance was usually the relatives and friends of the players, along with some core fans. The money earned from ticket sales was not enough to cover 10% of the cost of a single match, making it virtually impossible to profit from these games.
Therefore, the entire cost of the matches had to be borne by the French Football Federation. The French Football Federation subsidized the youth football league with approximately 40 million euros annually to barely maintain its operation.
If you now add another team and increase the number of matches by one round, wouldn't the subsidy paid by the French Football Federation need to increase to 45 million euros?
Finally, there were the public sentiment issues. Because China had launched the high-energy particle collider last year, completely excluding French physicists, the local French media had extensively reported on it, causing considerable dissatisfaction throughout France.
However, the European Organization for Nuclear Research had not apologized for the death of a professor. So, when the Jiangnan Group retaliated in the name of their company, there was really nothing to say. Netizens could only curse the European Organization for Nuclear Research along with it.
Now, if they agreed to let China's youth team participate in the youth league, wouldn't that further enrage French netizens?
Even for the sake of his own political career, he could never agree to such a request.