Chapter 10 Torture

After being tormented in the tenth level of hell for a week, Zhou Yi felt that each day was as long as a year and extremely difficult to endure.

Until one day, Coach Bartlett said to him: "Okay, today's morning training is over."

Zhou Yi was stunned: "Huh?"

"Huh what?" Bartlett asked.

"Uh... Training is over?" Zhou Yi couldn't quite believe it.

"Of course. Don't tell me you haven't had enough? Want to add more training? I don't mind..." Bartlett said.

"No, no, no! That's not what I meant!" Zhou Yi waved his hands repeatedly. "I just find it... strange. I used to be exhausted before I made it to the end of training. Why do I feel like I still have energy today, and training is over?" Zhou Yi expressed his doubts.

Bartlett laughed: "Ha! That means your physical fitness has improved, you idiot."

Zhou Yi was stunned. He thought about it and realized that it seemed to be the case.

So he jumped up again: "Really?"

"Nonsense, to prove it, do you want us to do another set of training?"

"Uh... Never mind, ha, I'm going to eat!" With that, Zhou Yi ran towards the training base's restaurant.

Seeing Zhou Yi running so fast, Bartlett shook his head behind him and muttered to himself: "It seems it's time to increase the intensity..."

If Zhou Yi knew that running so fast would take him from the tenth level of hell to the twelfth level, he would probably regret not crawling to the restaurant...

※※※

The next day Zhou Yi found that he was still exhausted at the end of the morning training. Was yesterday just an illusion? His physical fitness hadn't improved at all. Was Coach Bartlett lying to him or comforting him?

Faced with Zhou Yi's painful doubts, Bartlett gave him a comforting answer: "Welcome to the twelfth level of hell, Zhou Yi."

So Zhou Yi finally didn't have to worry that his week of training had been wasted, but at the same time, he had to be afraid of what was to come...

This was only the twelfth level!

If he remembered correctly, there were eighteen levels of hell, right?

※※※

While Zhou Yi's training continued, his agent, Schulze, wasn't idle either.

He was helping him and the club with difficult contract renewal negotiations.

Schulze would keep in touch with Zhou Yi about every progress in the contract renewal negotiations, telling Zhou Yi by phone or email.

So Zhou Yi knew why the contract renewal negotiations were so difficult...

It was simple, because Schulze was a very difficult and principled agent.

In fact, the contract renewal negotiations were first initiated by Borussia Dortmund.

At that time, the season hadn't ended yet, and Zhou Yi had just played well for a while. Borussia Dortmund took the initiative to express to Zhou Yi their hope to sign a new contract with him.

If Zhou Yi didn't have an agent at the time, he might have signed it. But at that time, Tino Schulze was already Zhou Yi's agent, so he reminded Zhou Yi in his capacity as an agent not to discuss this new contract with Borussia Dortmund. The reason was naturally that the new contract couldn't achieve the maximum benefit Schulze wanted.

In order to keep Zhou Yi as much as possible, the contract offered by Borussia Dortmund was more favorable to the club in some aspects, rather than to Zhou Yi.

So Zhou Yi refused to discuss a new contract with the club at that time.

Later, when there were problems with Sahin's contract renewal, the club found Zhou Yi again, hoping to start negotiations for a new contract with him.

Schulze refused again.

He explained to Zhou Yi that because Sahin's future was uncertain, the club was coming to Zhou Yi to discuss the contract at this time. In fact, the greater purpose was to show Sahin, hoping to put pressure on Sahin.

In this case, Borussia Dortmund may not really be willing to meet the requirements Schulze made for Zhou Yi, it was just a waste of time. Moreover, from a single core to a double core, Schulze saw that there was a competitive relationship between Zhou Yi and Sahin.

Therefore, Sahin's future in Borussia Dortmund determined Zhou Yi's future in Borussia Dortmund.

In Schulze's view, of course, it was in Zhou Yi's best interest for Sahin to leave Borussia Dortmund.

So before Sahin's contract renewal with Borussia Dortmund was settled, it was not the best time for Zhou Yi to discuss a new contract with the club.

At that time, he found an excuse for Zhou Yi, letting Zhou Yi tell the club that he wanted to focus on the game now, so contract renewal, etc., would be discussed after the season was over.

This excuse reflected Zhou Yi's idea of putting the overall situation first. When Sahin was in poor condition because of the contract renewal, Zhou Yi said this without any flaws, and the club didn't want Zhou Yi to be affected by the contract renewal negotiations, resulting in unstable performance. At that time, let alone second place in the league, they may not be able to keep the top four.

So Zhou Yi said that, and Borussia Dortmund couldn't force Zhou Yi to negotiate a contract renewal with them.

Finally, when Sahin's transfer to Real Madrid was a foregone conclusion, Borussia Dortmund found Zhou Yi again, hoping to start negotiations for a new contract with him.

At this time, Zhou Yi and Schulze also knew, through different channels and methods, that Sahin was likely to leave.

The time to negotiate with Borussia Dortmund had come.

So Schulze started negotiations with Borussia Dortmund.

At first, the negotiations were very smooth. It was as Schulze had told Zhou Yi, when Sahin left the team, Borussia Dortmund would definitely be willing to invest in order to keep Zhou Yi.

But on the termination clause, the two sides fell into a stalemate for the first time.

Schulze believed that the 12 million euro termination clause set by Borussia Dortmund for Zhou Yi was too high, hoping to reduce it to below 8 million euros, preferably halved to 6 million euros.

But Borussia Dortmund was absolutely impossible to agree to this. Because Sahin's termination clause was 6 million euros. Borussia Dortmund had suffered enough from this loss—if Sahin's termination clause was not too low, why would they be in a hurry to renew the contract with Sahin, who was performing better and better, when Sahin still had three years left on his contract? And in the end, because they were unwilling to activate Sahin's 6 million euro termination clause when there was only one year left on the contract, they were forced to sell Sahin, who had just sparked a flame with Zhou Yi, this summer.

If Zhou Yi also had a 6 million euro termination clause, Borussia Dortmund's general manager Zorc would definitely think of Sahin's transfer deal, and he would inevitably think that the club would repeat Sahin's mistakes with Zhou Yi...

So the two sides argued for a long time about the specific amount of the termination clause.

And while arguing about the termination clause, Schulze didn't let Zorc idle, and threw out the heavy bomb of image rights.

He didn't want to give the image rights to the club, but wanted to keep them in Zhou Yi's own hands.

If Borussia Dortmund wanted to use Zhou Yi's image rights, they could, as long as they paid. The two sides would negotiate a suitable price or sharing ratio, and the scope of use. Everything would be discussed and written in the contract.

But Borussia Dortmund didn't want to do this. They hoped that the players would transfer all the image rights to the club, so that when Zhou Yi's image rights were profitable in the future, the club could sit back and count the money. It should be known that the player's image rights are also part of the club's income. In the future, the club's commercial activities could also allow Zhou Yi to stand on the platform, which is very beneficial for the club to open up the Asian, especially the Chinese market.

Like Real Madrid, a wealthy club, they want to control the player's image rights. Any player who joins Real Madrid must offer their image rights, so that the club can earn a lot of profits in the commercial market.

For Borussia Dortmund, whose financial situation is not very good, Zhou Yi, who is backed by the huge Chinese market, is simply a money tree.

But Schulze didn't want to give this money to the club.

With the image rights in the player's own hands, Schulze would be more motivated to win more endorsement contracts for Zhou Yi, after all, he could get a commission from it. The more contracts Zhou Yi won, the more money he earned, and the more money he would eventually get.

Moreover, it is also a good thing for the player himself to have the image rights here.

Many stars now earn more money in commercial operations than they do in the club...

But the club couldn't accept Schulze's conditions. If Zhou Yi's image rights were not in the club's hands, the club would have to pay a higher price if they wanted Zhou Yi to cooperate with the club's commercial activities. For Borussia Dortmund, whose finances were tight, they would save as much money as possible.

So the two sides have been arguing for a long time, and these two issues haven't been resolved yet.

The contract renewal negotiations seem to have reached a stalemate.

However, Schulze himself seemed very confident. He told Zhou Yi not to worry, just focus on training. Anyway, he would definitely come up with a contract that would satisfy him in the end.

In addition to the contract, Schulze also brought Zhou Yi a happy news, that is, a large number of companies were lining up to come to him, hoping to cooperate with Zhou Yi.

This is naturally because Zhou Yi's performance last season was really too good.

In the "Kicker" magazine's recent awards for the best of the Bundesliga last season, Zhou Yi won the best newcomer honor of the season. The voters for this award are players from all teams in the Bundesliga and the second division, and it can be said that Zhou Yi's performance has conquered his peers, which is very remarkable.

In addition, Zhou Yi also won the assist king of last season.

These honors have a very realistic meaning for Zhou Yi, that is, more sponsors will come to him, hoping to sign endorsement contracts with him.

Zhou Yi was very happy about this news, which made him feel less bitter in the hell-like special training.

Of course, the more money the better, and he would not refuse anyone who came.

But Schulze told Zhou Yi that he couldn't refuse anyone, and he couldn't just want more and more.

"There is also a lot of attention to be paid to choosing endorsement brands. Although you are a newcomer now, you are indeed a super nova. It is no exaggeration to define it as such with your performance. You haven't even played a full season in the league, and you have fourteen assists, won the assist king, and won the Bundesliga best newcomer. If you can continue this performance, I think you can compete for this year's European Golden Boy Award—such achievements are not ordinary newcomers."

Schulze patiently explained to Zhou Yi.

"In this way, the standards for our choice of cooperative brands must be correspondingly raised. Some third- and fourth-tier brands, and even non-mainstream brands, don't need to be considered at all. In addition, although we will authorize in different brand fields...we must also pay attention to not too many. Signing too many brand endorsements at one time can easily lead to your image being overused, thereby reducing commercial value, which is not good for you. For example, some brands don't like to use images that are overexposed and can be seen everywhere..."

Zhou Yi understood as soon as he heard it: "I understand, it's the [bi ge] (high-end) thing."

"[Bi ge]?"

"Oh, it's the style and grade, the rarer the more grade, the rarer the more valuable." Zhou Yi explained the Chinese-style term [bi ge] to Schulze.

"Yes, that's what it means."

In addition to these endorsement brands, there is also a very important endorsement contract, that is, the endorsement of sports brands.

This is a big deal for Zhou Yi.

According to Schulze's feedback, now mainly three sports brands are interested in Zhou Yi, one is Adidas, one is Nike, and the other is Borussia Dortmund's jersey sponsor Puma.

Schulze is talking to these three at the same time, to see which of the three is the most sincere and has the most generous conditions.

Of course, he also didn't forget to ask Zhou Yi if he had any preference for the brand.

Some people like Nike, and don't consider other brands besides Nike, while others like Adidas.

Zhou Yi doesn't have any preferences for this. He often wears a mix of Adidas and Nike. For the past season, he has been wearing Puma shoes. Because Puma is the team's sports equipment sponsor, those players who have not signed a separate contract with a sports brand either wear what the team provides or buy it themselves.

Zhou Yi was too lazy to bother, so he wore what the team provided. Anyway, after wearing Puma for a season, he didn't feel anything bad about it.

So he is not entangled in whether it is Nike or Adidas, and has no so-called brand loyalty.

This is good news for Schulze, so he can fully exert his ability to win the best contract for Zhou Yi.