PS: Chapter 28 of "Jihua".

After the plane landed at London Heathrow International Airport, Zhuang Mingge went to the headquarters of the Arsenal Club as originally planned, and paid a courtesy visit to Sir Peter Hillwood, the chairman of Arsenal.

There were many landlords and petty aristocrats in Britain who had made their fortunes out of the Industrial Revolution and colonial expansion, and Hillwood's ancestors belonged to such a social class.

Hillwood himself was one of the wealthy people who lived off the inheritance of his ancestors' fortunes, occasionally making investments that he would sell for cash as soon as he received a profit.

Therefore, although Arsenal under his control has made profits every year, it has never renovated Highbury Stadium or invested heavily in the team.

In Zhuang Mingge's eyes, Hillwood's slamming is the key to preventing Arsenal from becoming a top giant, even in the later generations of Barcelona and Manchester United, who are famous for their youth training, they will not be stingy with money, and Arsenal, who is shy in their pockets, has to frequently tear down the east wall to make up for the west wall, although the effect is very good, but the team is still inferior in popularity.

Who would consider a club that makes money by reselling its main players as their lifelong partner?

……

Unlike the owners of Serie A clubs, the owners of Premier League clubs generally do not inqui about the specific affairs of the team, and the manager of the Premier League team, who also plays the role of the team manager, holds the transfer power of the team.

It is based on this that when Zhuang Mingge tentatively tried to find out about the tactical arrangement of the Arsenal team from Hillwood, Hillwood regretted that he was a layman who received dividends from Arsenal every year and had no control over the team at all. At the same time, he also has a traditional English gentleman's demeanor, and asked Florence, who was in charge of Zhuang Mingge, to be merciful in the game, and not to make his face too ugly as an English gentleman.

Of course, Zhuang Mingge will not take this old guy's low-key seriously, Hillwood, an old fox, but in the final of the Cup Winners' Cup last year, he staged a good show of pretending to be a pig and eating a tiger, and he overshadowed Parma......

But on the whole, this trip to Arsenal still made Zhuang Mingge gain a lot. The low-key Sir Hillwood, on the one hand, praised Florence to the fullest, and on the other hand, spared no effort to meet the "investigation" requirements of Zhuang Mingge and others, which inevitably surprised Zhuang Mingge.

After all, in order to investigate the business operation model of Premier League clubs, Zhuang Mingge deliberately asked some questions in this regard during the conversation.

Unexpectedly, Sir Hillwood almost answered all questions, and if he couldn't answer, he asked his secretary to help answer the questions raised by Zhuang Mingge, without considering whether he would reveal the club's secrets by doing so.

Especially the experience of golf course management and TV broadcasting that Zhuang Mingge is most concerned about, he almost didn't pay any price, and he got a more detailed understanding from Hillwood's mouth, which made Zhuang Mingge realize the abnormality: the legendary Sir Hillwood, who is a traditional British gentleman, behaves more like a glittering nouveau riche at this time, and is trying his best to show off his team.

Perhaps, it is because the British team has been suppressed for too long in the past few years, which has caused this old man to go insane? Zhuang Mingge made boring guesses with a wicked taste.

What Zhuang Mingge didn't know was that his guess was rarely close to the truth.

Since the five-year ban of English teams by UEFA, the competitiveness of English clubs in Europe has plummeted, and Liverpool, the "Red Army" that once dominated Europe, is long gone. In recent years, England's European record has been miserable, with only two Cup Winners' Cups, one of which went to Arsenal.

In May last year, Arsenal, who had been extremely low-key before the game, defeated Parma from Serie A, known as the "Little Shijie Cup", with an iron-clad defense and scramble, which made Hillwood, a football layman but with traditional British arrogance, breathe a sigh of relief.

Therefore, when facing Fiorentina, which is also from Serie A, but whose results are not as good as Parma in recent years, although Hillwood is still very tight about the confidentiality of the team's game layout, when it comes to other topics, he will unconsciously start to "get nervous".

What do you think? We can get almost £200 million in TV broadcast fees in the Premier League in five years, do you have that in Serie A? The stadiums of our Premier League teams are privately owned by the club and can be commercialized by themselves, can you do it in Italy?

As a result, Hillwood, who was too "scared", was unknowingly obtained by Zhuang Mingge many details in terms of commercial operation.

"Sir Hillwood, I hope there will be a good game tomorrow." As he left Arsenal's headquarters, Zhuang Mingge said.

"Hehe, I hope that Chairman Corleone, your team will show mercy." Chairman Hillwood said with a smile, like a cunning fox.

……

The next day was the match day, and as the game time approached, Zhuang Mingge gave up his plan to disturb the team's coach and players, knowing that he needed to give his players undisturbed space before the tournament.

Zhuang Mingge, who was ready to plan, gave up Jihua, who was taking a bus with the whole Fiorentina team to the Highbury Stadium to watch, and asked Karin to go to the service desk of the hotel to rent two Opel. Together with the "investigation team" composed of Antonioni, Kenyon and others, they went to Highbury for a "field trip".

The car in which Zhuang Mingge and the others were riding did not drive directly into the parking lot set up near the Highbury Stadium, but turned into an underground parking lot about 200 meters away from the stadium.

The area around Highbury Stadium in north London is quite convenient, and there is no mass congestion even when there is a football match, so park your car here and consider whether there will be a traffic jam after the game.

The main purpose of Zhuang Mingge is to visit the business circle planned around Arsenal, because next to this parking lot is the shopping mall operated by the Arsenal Club.

"Arsenal Arcade...... The British are really uncreative. Zhuang Mingge looked at the signboard in front of the gate and couldn't help complaining.

"It's the Arsenal Mall, Tony." Karin corrected Zhuang Mingge's mistake on the side.

"I said, Karin...... Arsenal and Arsenal are the same word (both Arsenal in English), how do you see that? The corners of Zhuang Mingge's mouth twitched and looked at Karin who looked indifferent.

"A woman's intuition."

“……”