Chapter 11 Saturday, November 26th

Zhao Xuming, accompanied by his assistant, arrived at the SUG club headquarters in Shanghai.

The GOG division of the SUG club was in Jingzhou, but the headquarters still had other projects, so it remained in Shanghai.

As for why he chose the SUG club as his first target, it was clearly the result of thorough investigation and careful consideration.

Zhao Xuming learned that the SUG club had a personal feud with President Pei of Tengda!

The SUG club was one of the earliest established clubs to form a GOG division and cooperate with Tengda, and it offered the most generous price.

Moreover, SUG had successfully won third place in the recent Global Invitational Tournament, deserving credit if not praise.

As a result, such a club was ruthlessly kicked out of the GPL league by President Pei, forced to play in the secondary league!

Now that the GPL was being prepared in full swing, with a lively and bustling scene, Zhao Xuming absolutely refused to believe that Ding Gan, the owner of the SUG club, had no complaints.

Moreover, the SUG club also had an IOI division, which was still being maintained thanks to some subsidies from Eric and contracts with live streaming platforms.

This time, Zhao Xuming wanted to start with the easiest SUG club, striving to get SUG to help take the lead and encourage various clubs to start training matches.

The World Finals were going to be fought against other foreign teams, which was no joke.

If they went straight up and fought foreign teams without any training matches, they would definitely be crushed and unable to find their way north, failing to achieve the goal of boosting the popularity of the IOI national server. Although time was tight, it was always good to sharpen the sword before the battle.

At the entrance of the SUG club, Ding Gan was already waiting.

Seeing Zhao Xuming get out of the car, Ding Gan immediately greeted him: "President Zhao, welcome, welcome!"

Seeing Ding Gan's enthusiasm, Zhao Xuming was initially overjoyed, feeling that the matter would most likely be successful today, but upon closer inspection, he seemed to notice a slight evasiveness in Ding Gan's eyes.

What's going on?

Zhao Xuming didn't dare to ask too much and could only assume it was his imagination.

"President Ding! Hello, hello. And this is..." Zhao Xuming looked at a lady standing next to Ding Gan, who appeared to be just under thirty years old and was dressed in formal attire.

Ding Gan said: "Oh, this is our club's manager, Manager Yang."

Manager Yang smiled and said: "President Zhao, hello, please take care of me."

Zhao Xuming was a little confused: "Huh? I remember your club's manager was surnamed Li? Am I mistaken?"

Ding Gan smiled awkwardly: "Oh, you probably found that information online, right? We just recently made some personnel changes..."

Zhao Xuming suddenly understood: "Oh, I'm sorry! My information might be a bit outdated."

Ding Gan said with a smile: "It's okay, let's not just stand here, shall we go inside and talk? Please come in, all three of you!"

Zhao Xuming and Ding Gan walked into the club, chatting and laughing, while Manager Yang led Zhao Xuming's assistant and driver behind, receiving them warmly.

After arriving at the conference room, both parties took their seats.

Zhao Xuming took a sip of tea, exchanged a few pleasantries, and felt that he was ready to get straight to the point.

There was no need to beat around the bush about such a sure thing, and the SUG club had no reason to refuse.

Zhao Xuming's time was limited, and he had to focus his main energy on persuading other clubs.

Thinking of this, Zhao Xuming said: "President Ding, to be honest, I'm here with good news!"

"Currently, Finger Company is preparing the IOI World Finals and attaches great importance to the domestic market, so this time they will allocate some slots to domestic teams. SUG already has an IOI division, and this time I overcame all objections and persuaded the high-level executives of Finger Company to give the SUG club a designated slot."

Speaking of this, Zhao Xuming lowered his voice: "This is inside information, don't spread it around."

Ding Gan hurriedly nodded: "Of course, of course."

Zhao Xuming continued: "This is what I'm thinking. The SUG club's current IOI division is still relatively complete, and the players are quite experienced. We considered having the SUG club take the lead in organizing some training matches to practice."

"We will also talk to other clubs one by one, but these clubs may still need to be strengthened and adjusted, so organizing training matches may require President Ding and Manager Yang to put in more effort."

"What do you think?"

Zhao Xuming originally thought that Ding Gan would readily agree, but he didn't expect Ding Gan to look at Manager Yang with an awkward expression.

Zhao Xuming's heart sank, feeling that something was wrong.

But he was also very puzzled, what could go wrong with this?

SUG taking the lead in organizing a training match and getting the opportunity to go to the IOI World Finals, Ding Gan wouldn't refuse such a good thing, right?

Ding Gan looked a little embarrassed: "President Zhao, we are very grateful for your help in securing such a valuable opportunity for us. But organizing training matches... I'm afraid it's a bit difficult. Because our IOI division now... temporarily... only has three players left."

"If you had come two days earlier..."

Zhao Xuming's mouth opened slightly, and he was speechless for a moment: "Huh?"

How could the IOI division only have two players left?

Most of these people had previously considered switching to GOG, but the reason they hadn't switched was that the GOG professional scene was basically saturated. If they went to play in matches, they wouldn't be able to achieve good results or earn very good prize money.

On the other hand, IOI at least had some meager subsidies to guarantee the basic livelihood of these players.

So, what did these players do? Did they stop playing professionally?

That didn't make sense either. The division was still there, so what about the penalty for breach of contract if they left?

Ding Gan hurriedly explained: "President Zhao, the situation is like this."

"Originally, the daily routine of our IOI division players was to do some live streaming and occasionally arrange training matches. But recently, training matches have become increasingly difficult to arrange because very few other clubs have retained their IOI divisions; they have all switched to playing GOG."

"Then a few days ago, several GOG clubs suddenly came and said they wanted to buy our IOI division players, and they were willing to pay transfer fees and offer much higher salaries than what they're currently getting."

"The players were very tempted, and based on the principle of respecting the players' wishes, we... we let them go."

Zhao Xuming was stunned for two seconds before suddenly realizing.

Crap!

The GOG side had just recently established the GPL, and teams were frantically vying for players. Because the number of teams had suddenly expanded to more than a dozen, the demand for players had also skyrocketed.

Although these IOI players were more proficient in IOI, there were always a few individual players with a talent for GOG. In the past, there were few positions, and no teams wanted them, but now that the number of spots had expanded, teams wanted players with professional experience and some talent.

The reason why Zhao Xuming had overlooked this point was that he had been busy talking about cooperation with Finger Company for some time and had no time to take care of the affairs of these clubs. On the other hand, the GPL clubs did not show any intention of poaching IOI players when they were first established.

As a result, he never expected that just a few days of delay would result in the dismantling of a good IOI team!

Zhao Xuming had originally envisioned a beautiful scenario: if SUG still had a complete IOI team, there would be no need to spend time assembling a team, they could take the lead in organizing some training matches; and when they got to the World Championship arena, they should be able to get a relatively good ranking.

But now that two people had been poached, all hopes were dashed!

After all, IOI was a five-person game, and missing people meant having to recruit new people and readjust, which would have a huge impact.

Zhao Xuming was enthusiastic and full of confidence when he first arrived, but he was immediately met with a bucket of cold water.

Ding Gan was also a little embarrassed and hurriedly said: "It's okay, President Zhao, we'll immediately prepare to recruit people. If it really doesn't work, we can directly spend money to buy people from other clubs and definitely rebuild the team as quickly as possible!"

Ding Gan didn't think too much about it at first. He just felt that keeping the IOI division was meaningless, as there were no matches to play. Selling the players to GOG clubs could also earn a transfer fee, so it didn't matter if they were sold.

As a result, the moment he sold them, the slot for the IOI World Finals was delivered to his door. There was no way to reason with that!

Zhao Xuming was silent for a moment and nodded: "Okay, then."

What else could he say? The people had already been sold; he couldn't possibly pay a penalty for breach of contract and buy them back, right? That would be too much of a loss.

The main thing was that these players' current value was high, and the transfer fee was also much more expensive. Wouldn't that be a complete loss?

Ding Gan would rather buy IOI division players from other clubs than buy his own players back.

But Zhao Xuming was worried that since GOG clubs had started buying IOI players on a large scale, they wouldn't only buy from SUG.

What if the IOI teams of other clubs were also dismantled?

Would he play jigsaw, trying to put together two or three teams that could go to the World Championship with the existing teams, or would he scout new talents and rely purely on luck?

Zhao Xuming suddenly had a bad feeling, sensing that his mission, which seemed simple, was not so easy to accomplish.

Tengda's dark hand extended further than he had imagined!

"Could it be that this is also within President Pei's plan?"

Zhao Xuming suddenly felt a chill.