Chapter 664 European Youth Champions League

The conference hall of Zhenhua Hotel was packed with people.

This is not the most luxurious conference hall in the hotel, because there are also more high-end private conference rooms, but in this specially decorated conference room, which can accommodate more than two hundred people, everyone who comes to the scene can feel The decoration here is simple yet elegant.

This is also the design style of Zhenhua Hotel. It does not pursue luxury and pays more attention to simplicity. It is in line with the green and environmentally friendly theme of the whole Zhenhua Building. At least the electricity used in this hotel is generated by wind power. To complete, and water resources can be recycled, it is known as the green benchmark in skyscrapers.

At this moment, the reporters who entered the conference hall were discussing this major event that was about to be announced to the public, although they were vaguely aware that there was news that Paul Newman of Moon Sports Services and UEFA Many officials held a meeting to discuss a cooperation, but they could not find any clues about the specific cooperation project.

What kind of cooperation is it?

This has become a doubt in the minds of all reporters who came to the scene.

As the time for the press conference approached, more and more people came to the scene. The entire conference hall was filled with people, and many members of the camera crew were placed in the last row of the hall.

Famous British newspapers such as The Guardian, The Times, The Sun and the Daily Mail have arranged heavyweights to come to the scene, and authoritative European newspapers including Italy's Gazzetta dello Sport, Germany's Bild, Spain's El Pais and France's L'Equipe have also They also paid enough attention to this press conference. It was obvious that they all had a premonition of the importance of this press conference.

Of course, this is a mentality that they would rather kill than let go. They have suffered losses in this kind of thing many times in the past, but today's media field is highly competitive and they have to go all out, otherwise they will miss important news. It was a huge loss.

Time passed slowly, and the place was bustling with people, almost everyone was discussing what was about to be announced.

When people came into the venue one after another, everyone suddenly became quiet, and the scene suddenly flashed with spotlights.

Astonishingly, they include AC Milan’s Galliani, Real Madrid’s Florentino, Barcelona’s Rosell, Manchester United’s David Gill, Chelsea’s Pini Zahavi, and Tottenham Hotspur’s Peter ?Kenyon…

Big bosses from several of the biggest giants in European football were present at the venue, but it wasn’t just these giants, including Ajax, Porto, Sporting Lisbon, Lyon, and others from other parts of Europe such as Leaders of some of the top teams from Croatia, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and other countries were present at the venue.

There was an uproar at the entire press conference. With so many people showing up together, it was definitely not easy.

In fact, while everyone was shocked, they were also full of expectations for the upcoming press conference, but more importantly, they were full of admiration for the influence of Moon Sports Services, at least in the European football world. , no sports services company can do this to their level.

As the saying goes, things are smooth and subtle. Sometimes everyone only notices what they see on the surface. For example, they may think that Mendes is the best in the agent field, but they have no idea at all that Mendes has many businesses. The operations are actually handed over to Moon Sports Services Company.

With the improvement and development of the Football Economic Forum and the player database, the influence of Moon Sports Services has already penetrated into every corner of European football. The business involved also includes many aspects, except for a very small part of the player agency business. Apart from that, they are hardly involved in any transfer matters.

But when it comes to business operation capabilities, there is no doubt about the ability of Moon Sports Services Company.

After these football big shots walked into the venue, they sat down in the front row chatting and laughing. Not long after, they saw Ye Qiu and Eliza Moon, accompanying Platini and waiting for UEFA's meeting. Officials, plus leaders of football federations from several countries including the Football Association of England, the Italian Football Federation and the Spanish Football Federation also appeared at the venue.

There was another uproar at the scene. Eliza Moon is now a veritable strong woman. Under her leadership, Yee Technology has developed very rapidly in recent years. She has become the world's leading CEO, and although she has the name She is still the boss of Moon Sports Services Company, but no one expects her to come to the scene.

But she just came, which surprised almost everyone present.

“We welcome all friends from the media industry to take the time to attend our press conference!”

The CEO of Moon Sports Services, Paul Newman, a somewhat bald Irishman, walked up to the stage and said to everyone below that he should be the emcee of this press conference part-time.

Basically, when holding a press conference in Europe, there is no need to introduce the guests who came to the scene. Everyone knows each other, so the press conference quickly got to the point directly, and Paul Newman announced something that made almost everyone present. A big event that shocked everyone.

"In the past few years, I believe everyone knows very well that no matter which country or which top team, the development of youth training has become a major event that they cannot ignore. According to our statistics, in the Premier League, the average investment of each Premier League team in youth training is about one million pounds, and a very small number of them reach two million pounds. Tottenham Hotspur has always been the leader in this regard, reaching three million pounds!"

Paul Newman's data comes from official data. Tottenham Hotspur's youth training investment includes many aspects, so it is not just the investment in youth training, but also some research centers' research and development investment in youth training, as well as some other projects.

"But we all know that in England, young players don't have many real opportunities to play. The most important one is the Youth FA Cup. The gap in strength between the North and South Divisions is too great, and the reserve team is irrelevant and not taken seriously. This has led to the fact that many Premier League teams' youth training teams are not ideal, such as Manchester City!"

Manchester City's youth training is indeed quite bad. Although they seem to have trained a lot of players on the surface, in fact, their youth training academy in Pratt Lane invests very little every year. After Mansour acquired Manchester City, this situation has improved, but it has just started.

"Of course, I don't mean to blame Manchester City, because there are many other teams like them, and there are also too many teams in Europe. They may be all young players sharing a shabby field, playing a game that they are not interested in at all."

This situation is indeed the case for giants such as Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, Arsenal, etc. Their young players are too strong. Compared with other teams, they are not at the same level at all. Such games are very boring.

Tottenham Hotspur organizes overseas training for its youth team every year, which is why Tottenham Hotspur invests a lot in youth training, because overseas training still requires money.

"In fact, in the final analysis, we all know that youth training is the future of football, but at the same time, we all regard youth training as a burden on the club, so we have been thinking, is there a way to change this situation? Can we make our team more enthusiastic about youth training and make our fans more interested in watching the youth team's games?"

"Four years ago, two very outstanding professional youth training talents were thinking about this problem. They were also trying to put it into practice, and they considered many plans. Two years ago, someone introduced them to me. When I heard their ideas and plans, I said, this is the future of youth training!"

"We need a platform to make everyone more involved in youth training, more supportive of youth training, and more concerned about youth training. We need a complete youth team league system!"

When Paul Newman said this, many people at the scene had already realized the problem, the youth team league system?

Is it to organize youth team leagues in various countries? Moon Sports Services Company to do it?

"After two years of careful preparation and planning, we have received support from many European teams. We have signed an agreement with them, and we have obtained official authorization from FIFA and UEFA. We will officially start the first European Youth Champions League from this season!"

As Paul Newman announced, an animation immediately appeared on the big screen behind him. The trophy and logo of the European Youth Champions League appeared on the big screen. Everyone can see that this is a carefully planned video, which shows that this is also a carefully planned event.

Moon Sports Services Company spent two years planning this event, which shows their importance to this event.

"This is a European Champions League for young players under the age of 19. The 32 teams participating in the group stage of the adult European Champions League will automatically enter the group stage of this event, and the grouping is exactly the same as the Champions League group stage."

According to the plan, all teams participating in the Champions League group stage can choose whether to arrange for the youth team to participate. All participating players must be 19 years old or under 19 years old. For some teams that do not want to participate, the organizing committee will invite other teams to fill in.

At present, Premier League teams including Arsenal and Chelsea that cannot participate in the Champions League have been added to the list of the European Youth Champions League group stage. In addition, there are also some teams with high European youth training levels, such as Rennes, Anderlecht, etc., who have all entered this event.

This is the first event after all, and many teams from small football countries do not want to participate. After all, they have to travel back and forth, and many of them do not have regular youth teams, so even if they reluctantly participate, it will be embarrassing in front of others, so they have mentioned to the organizing committee before that they will not send teams to participate.

In the final analysis, the European Youth Champions League is a very meaningful thing, because it can greatly promote the communication and contact between European youth training teams, and it can also let young players play against teams from other countries early, promote their growth and progress, and provide them with a broader vision and stage.

This plan was proposed by Mark Wobenton and Frank McParland four years ago. One of them was the former youth training director of Watford and is now the sports director of Bradford. However, he has now been poached by Moon Sports Services to serve as an important member of this plan.

Frank McParland, who is in his sixties, was previously Liverpool's chief scout. Later, he moved to Bolton as the youth training director. Now he is a senior youth training executive in Liverpool and is highly valued by Benitez. However, he has now moved to Moon Sports Services.

These two talents are responsible for the organization and operation of the event, while Moon Sports Services has special personnel for business development.

You know, no matter from which angle you look at it, this event has huge potential and benefits. Almost all the top teams, even Ajax and other teams, hope to participate. In order to protect the interests of the participating teams, the organizing committee has also drafted some restrictive clauses to prohibit poaching from each other.

UEFA also strongly supports such things because they also believe that this can greatly promote the enthusiasm for youth training, but there is a problem, that is, funding.

After investing a lot of money in grassroots football and small country leagues, UEFA could no longer support Moon Sports Services to organize such a league. After consulting with Ye Qiu, Peter Kenyon and others, Paul Newman also anticipated UEFA's mentality, so he proposed an idea of ​​independent authorization and management.

UEFA and FIFA both agreed to authorize and let Moon Sports Services independently operate and manage this event.

In fact, this is equivalent to the independence of the Premier League from the English Football Association. Even now, Moon Sports Services has gained more benefits than the Premier League. At least it has the greatest power in schedule arrangement, discipline and other aspects. UEFA only provides support in some details such as referee arrangement.

Therefore, in less than half a year of preparation time, Moon Sports Services has demonstrated its strong business operation capabilities. It not only attracted four major international sponsors including Adidas, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Samsung, but also some other small sponsors and local sponsors, and the TV broadcasting rights were eventually won by Sky TV and BBC.

This also follows the tradition of the Champions League broadcasting rights, a free TV station and a paid TV station. The former can help the event increase the audience and attract more people's attention, while the latter can ensure that the value of the broadcasting rights continues to increase.

Although it is the first session, the income from sponsors and broadcasting rights is not ideal, and even in many places, sponsors have to be accommodated. For example, the game time has to temporarily follow the requirements of broadcasters. They hope that this event can become a warm-up show for the Champions League, but in any case, the money problem is basically solved.

This is undoubtedly a very significant benefit for the start of the European Youth Champions League, because the money is solved, the organizing committee is fully capable of issuing participation bonuses and winning bonuses to all participating teams, and for all participating teams, especially the giants, let alone having money, even if there is no money, they are also happy to participate.

Of course, after all, it is the Youth Champions League, and the participation bonus and winning bonus cannot be compared with the Champions League, and are even pitifully small, but it is enough to support a youth team to fight.

You know, there is a huge gap between the youth team and the first team nowadays, which is the current situation of any team. However, through such platforms and events, young players and teams can find their own stage, get enough exposure and attention, so that they have more opportunities to stand out and find the talents they lack.

For sponsors, the participating teams are not unknown. Those who can participate in this event are the youth teams of the Champions League teams and the future potential rookies. They can feel the future potential from it, and they all know that such events are still very attractive in European football and even in world football.

For Moon Sports Services, this is the last piece of pure land for professional football. Under the circumstances that club events and intercontinental competitions are controlled by FIFA and Confederation of Football, and domestic events are controlled by national football associations, organizing a youth team competition is definitely a powerful development of the marginal market.

There is no doubt about the commercial operation ability of Moon Sports Services. They already have a complete set of operation plans and are determined to operate the European Youth Champions League within five years and build it into a commercially developed and competitive league, so that it can become a platform for the best young players in the world to gather and show their strength.

Among all the reporters who came to the scene, many people with good knowledge realized that Moon Sports Services Company was promoting youth training on the surface, but that was just a polite statement by some officials. In fact, they got the authorization from UEFA and signed an agreement for independent operation and management, that is, they are equivalent to the managers with the greatest authority in this event.

This means that they have the possibility of creating a brand new Champions League, and they play the role of UEFA.

Many people may say that the youth team's games are not as intense and exciting as the adult team, which is wrong.

Youth team games may not be as intense as adult team games, but youth team games are more open, with more goals and more offensives. Moreover, they are weaker in physical strength confrontation than adult teams, but have higher technical content.

And it is very important that the operating costs of youth teams are lower, and even the cost of watching the game for fans is also lower, so we should not only see the advantages of adult teams, but also see that, relatively speaking, youth team games also have their own advantages. The key is that adult teams have played their own advantages, and how youth teams can find their own advantages.

There is no doubt that Moon Sports Services has once again made an amazing creation. In the case that the Champions League has been highly commercialized, development has encountered bottlenecks, and operating costs are getting higher and higher, they vigorously support the Youth Champions League, which will undoubtedly become a rising event in European football in the next few years.

There is a saying that is very true: third-rate companies make products, second-rate companies make brands, and first-rate companies make standards.

Moon Sports Services has obtained official authorization from FIFA and UEFA. If the European Youth Champions League is launched, the European Youth League Cup will follow suit, and there will even be a chance to invite teams from other continents to participate, promoting exchanges between footballs in different continents.

Toulon Tournament, World Youth Championship, European Youth Championship, are they very popular now?

Next up is the European Youth Champions League!