733 World Cup in South Africa

Twain's fight with the reporters in the hotel did not cause his holidays to return to him. Instead, it only caused his holidays to leave him further behind.

News about how he berated the Chinese Football Association and got into a duel of words with the reporters during the press conference surfaced on numerous media platforms. No matter where he walked, he would always run into reporters or football fans. Some of them were friendly toward him while others longed for him to die.

It was said that the Chinese Football Association was so enraged by Tony Twain's comments that they specially phoned Nottingham Forest Football Club to protest. However, Nottingham Forest Football Club's reply to them was, "Mr. Tony Twain does not represent our football club when he is out on holiday. The comments he makes during his personal time have nothing to do with our football club."

That was how they dismissed the Chinese Football Association's fury. However, the Chinese Football Association still had other ways to express their discontent. They made it clear that they would not allow Nottingham Forest to play any matches in China in the future. Essentially, they blacklisted the entire Nottingham Forest team.

It was quite a display of might. If they could have, they wanted to ban Tony Twain from entering China. Of course, their actions only caused the netizens and media to bombard them with admonitions.

In Chinese, there was a term used to express humility in which the speaker downgrades himself or herself by claiming that he or she is presenting something unpleasant to another person. What the Chinese Football Association was doing was not to present something unpleasant. Rather, they were showing off' their unpleasantries. They were making all their imperfections known to the public, as though they are bragging about it. It was as if they thought the world was as stupid as them.

The Chinese media in China had been unusually busy during this period of time. Some were busy scolding the Chinese Football Association, and some were applauding Twain for his words. Some just wanted to be at loggerheads with both parties involved, and some were just trying to hype up the whole incident. There were all kinds of people making an appearance.

All the reports left the Chinese football fans stimulated. It was one adrenaline rush after another.

As for Twain, he left after stirring up numerous disturbances and dumping a massive grenade into an originally calm lake. He could not continue to enjoy his holidays in China any longer. All he could do was to make his way over to Hong Kong and attend a press conference about a business endorsement.

Similarly, Shania had to shoot an advertisement for a makeup brand with which she had signed a contract. She also needed to attend a press conference for a product launch in Hong Kong. The organizers of the event had prepared a small dinner party to entertain both Twain and Shania.

There were much fewer annoying and trivial issues bothering Twain in Hong Kong. Things might have been getting out of control in China, but all those things had nothing to do with Twain while he was in Hong Kong.

He stayed in Hong Kong for a couple of days before flying back to England with Shania. He certainly did not forget to bring back a present for Evan and Allan from China. However, the present was not something tangible. It was a request for a business collaboration.

During his short stay in Hong Kong, Twain met Li Ka-shing's elder son, Victor Li, who was the CEO of Cheung Kong Holdings Limited. It was just supposed to be a simple dinner party, but Victor Li clearly came prepared. He mentioned how he was very interested in the real estate development plan that had been put aside by Nottingham Forest during his chat with Twain. He did not say much, but the intelligent Twain already knew what the man was getting at.

The British real estate market had taken a huge blow as a result of the economic crisis going on for the past two years. Property and land prices had gone on a steep decline and almost hit rock bottom. To a successful businessman, it was precisely during times like this that an opportunity to make a fortune arose. Since the British real estate market was currently experiencing winter, didn't that mean that spring was not too far away?

If not for the arrival of the economic crisis, Nottingham Forest would have been able to complete development plans in Clifton without a hitch. Given how the British real estate market had prospered in previous years, the football club would have been able to generate a profit and suffer no losses.

If that had happened, it would have been difficult for the Li family, which mainly did business in Hong Kong, to participate in the British real estate development market. To Victor Li's Cheung Kong Holdings Limited, the economic crisis had provided a golden opportunity to expand their business overseas.

Clifton was just a part of a brick wall that Victor Li had to tear down in order to bring his business into England. However, Twain did not care about what these businessmen had on their minds. He was just going to relay the news to Allan Adams and Evan Doughty. Everything else was up to Allan.

If this business collaboration was possible, it would be good news for him too. He would no longer have to worry about not having the funds to buy players. He could also stop selling star players to generate the funds needed to fill the bottomless pit caused by the club's constant financial troubles.

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Evan was very interested in the "gift" that Twain brought back from China. It would certainly reduce the club's financial burdens if they were able to convince the Hong Kong firm to invest in their development plans. He did not think about having all of the profits to himself at a time like this when the economy was not doing well. The cake was too big for him to finish alone.

Allan was optimistic about the news that Twain brought back, but he also exercised caution. He had approached Victor Li in the past for a business collaboration. Back then, Victor Li had considered his proposition for a while but ended up refusing it. Why did he change his mind in just a year?

In contrast, Evan did not find it odd that Victor Li had a change of heart. A year ago, the property and land prices had not reached rock bottom. It was only natural for him to wait until the prices hit rock bottom before making a move since it would lower the overall costs for him. He was a businessman after all. He needed to be a little crafty.

As Twain was having a headache over which players he should buy and sell for the new season, Allan Adams flew over to Hong Kong personally to discuss the details about a potential business collaboration.

None of them could have known that this business deal would take a year before an agreement would finally be reached. Both parties signed a contract in September of 2011. The new football stadium finally welcomed the arrival of the "God of Wealth" from the East. The construction work that had been stalled for three years could finally resume.

Of course, this information was just a postscript for the time being and would be discussed at a later time.

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Half of June had already passed by when Dunn returned to Nottingham by himself. To both Twain and Dunn, however, the summer for 2010 had only just started.

Traveling to China and helping the club earn a chance to work with the Li family were trifles to Twain. The main event for this summer was definitely not his squabble with the Chinese media. It was going to take place in South Africa. The World Cup had commenced.

Numerous highly sought-after football stars had emerged from the previous World Cup competitions. The World Cup was the perfect chance for managers to scrutinize the conditions and performances of their own players, as well as potential players.

After hearing that Cheung Kong Holdings Limited was interested in working with the club in the development of Clifton, Evan Doughty set aside 50 million pounds as Twain's summer transfer budget from the company's finances.

With that money in hand, Twain dragged Dunn along with him. They boarded the plane to the capital of South Africa, Johannesburg. The treasure hunt had started again.

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"I was still worried that we would see nothing but sceneries of falling snow when we got off the plane," Twain commented. "It seems like I know too little about the world."

The host, South Africa, was situated in the Southern Hemisphere. It was currently winter in South Africa, unlike other countries in the Northern Hemisphere already experiencing midsummer.

It might have been winter in South Africa, but the weather was not wintry. The average temperature in Johannesburg, which was one of the several venues for the World Cup, was 64 degrees Fahrenheit. Such a temperature was very suitable for outdoor sports.

The main reason behind Twain's trip to South Africa was to take on the role as a guest commentator for the World Cup on BBC5. He had already established his own unique style of commenting on the matches following his commentaries during the World Cup in Germany and Euro 2008 held in Austria and Switzerland. There were numerous people who liked listening to his commentaries.

He also had his own online fan site. His fans would collect and post the various comments he made on air from the past. They would also post his writings, videos, and recordings, basically anything they could find, for others to browse and download to spread his influence.

In China, he also had his own fan base. Those fans called these materials posted on online "Tony Twain's Quotations." There were even Chinese netizens who suggested that the China Central Television should hire Twain as a commentator after he chastised the Chinese Football Association. After all, he was very fluent in Chinese.

Of course, those were nothing more than the netizens' wishful thinking. They never came true. However, it did demonstrate that even if there came a day when Twain did not want to be a football manager anymore, he would still be able to find a job as a pundit based on the reputation he now had.

On the other hand, Dunn was going to join Kerslake and the other scouts, who had arrived in Johannesburg much earlier than them, in their work of observing the players participating in the World Cup. They were to provide Twain first-hand information with regards to what sort of players he should go for during the transfer window. They would also scrutinize the players already on Twain's transfer wish list and make sure those players were truly eligible to be a Forest player.

As the assistant manager, Dunn also had to constantly meet up with the football agents who had turned up at the World Cup. Some of those agents approached him to recommend their players to Nottingham Forest since they were a team that had made a return to the European stage. Others required Dunn to take the initiative and approach them himself.

After parting ways at the airport, Twain followed the BBC staff over to the hotel where he would be staying. Dunn got in contact with the scouts scattered all over the city and began doing his work.

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The World Cup in South Africa was not spared from the impact of the global economic crisis, but the South African government hoped to use the World Cup as an opportunity to boost its country's economy. Hence, much effort was put into making the World Cup a lively one.

Twain did not care about that. Besides providing live commentaries and writing articles for the four British and one Chinese media outlets that had signed a contract with him, he was going to allocate all his remaining time and energy into his search for a few interesting players among the players participating in the World Cup.

The commentators in charge of providing commentary for the England match were able to provide a more in-depth analysis due to their familiarity with the players. Twain had also started focusing on the homegrown British players more since two seasons ago, which was due to the imminent implementation of a rule that would enforce a fixed ratio of homegrown players to foreign players in all football clubs.

This rule, proposed by Sepp Blatter, which would restrict the number of foreign players in all football clubs across the world, would be enforced in the 2010-11 season. The rule was to be carried out slowly over three stages.

First, all clubs have to comply with a 4+7 rule. Every club was allowed to have four homegrown players and seven foreign players in their starting lineup of 11 players.

Second, during the 2011-12 season, all clubs had to comply with a 5+6 rule. The number of foreign players allowed in the starting lineup would be reduced to six while the number of homegrown players would be increased to five. The number of homegrown players would still be slightly less than the number of foreign players.

Third, during the 2012-13 season, all clubs had to comply with the 6+5 rule. The number of homegrown players in the starting lineup would be higher than that of the foreign players.

This rule was meant to combat how numerous football clubs were becoming increasingly international teams. It was a rule that hoped to provide more opportunities for homegrown players and boost the standards of football in the various countries. However, the moment the rule was proposed, it was met with fierce protests from the European Union. It believed that this rule by FIFA was an impediment to the free movement of talent from one country to another and saw it as a rule that contravened human rights.

Both parties had yet to see eye to eye, and neither side had relented. The European Union might not have agreed to the implementation of the rule, but the 6+5 rule looked set to be implemented in the new season.

The Premier League would be the league that was the most deeply affected by the implementation of the rule. The Premier League's unique system of giving out work permits to foreign players had led to several Premier League teams possessing a relatively high number of foreign players on their teams.

A foreign player playing in the Premier League only needed to pass the Home Office's audit to obtain a work permit. It did not matter what the player's nationality was. All foreign players were allowed to play in the Premier League without restrictions. This system was very different from La Liga, whereby every football team was only allowed to have three non-European Union players. It allowed the Premier League to gather top players from many countries.

To obtain a work permit, a foreign player was required to appear in at least 75 percent of his national team's competitive A-ranked matches in a year. His national team also needed to be ranked within the top 68 teams on the FIFA World Rankings.

The implementation of such a system ensured the quantity and quality of the foreign players who played in the Premier League. This was how the Premier League became one of the most successful leagues in the world. It also explained how the Premier League was able to replace Serie A, which was once reputed as a mini World Cup in the early 90s, as the top league in Europe.

There was also a dire consequence that arose as a result of the implementation of such a system. The standard of football was high in the Premier League. Conversely, the standard of football of the England national team was beyond terrible.

One contributing factor to the terrible standard of football was how the British media would only brag about how talented their youths were. Another contributing factor was how the various big football clubs were unwilling to give their homegrown youth players more playing time. They would rather spend money bringing in established foreign talent. Doing so deprived the young players the opportunities to gain experience, ultimately leading to their downfall. The youth players would become Fang Zhong-Yong in the story of "The Pity of Zhong-Yong [1]."

FIFA's regulations left Wenger feeling extremely annoyed and helpless, but all he could do was accept the rules. Unlike Wenger, Twain was not as worried about the implementation of the new rules. He had already started gathering talented homegrown players and youths two years ago. He had been waiting for the day when the rule would be implemented all along.

It was not hard for him to comply with the 4+7 rule based on how his team was set up. However, considering how the rule mainly restricted the 11 players who were going to play on the pitch, he still needed to continue scouting homegrown British players.

For this season, Twain was going to go after Tottenham Hotspur's right winger, David Bentley. Ever since Beckham's departure from the team, Forest lacked attacking options going down the right. Relying on Lennon alone was not viable. Thus, he had his eyes set on the player who shared the same name as the world-renowned luxury car brand Bentley.

Beckham's departure from England's national team led to a fierce competition for the right-winger position. Aaron Lennon and Theo Walcott were both players who had been called successors of David Beckham, but it was David Bentley from Tottenham Hotspur who came out on top and became the starting right winger for Capello's England national team.

Like Capello, Twain thought highly of the midfielder who could play on the flanks. He was a player who could pass, shoot, and break through the defense. Twain decided to pay the most attention to Bentley's performance during the World Cup.

There was also another player who Twain wanted to focus on. He was not paying attention to that player because he wanted to bring him into the team. This player was already a member of Nottingham Forest.

George Wood was a player Twain personally picked up from the slums. The attention he had placed on George Wood had already surpassed the kind of attention that a manager was expected to place on his players.

George Wood was not able to receive a single minute of game time during the World Cup in Germany. From 2006 to 2010, George Wood underwent a drastic transformation. He was the captain during both seasons when his team won the Champions League. He was also present in the midfield positions for the Professional Footballers' Association Premier League Team of the Year every season. His performance had garnered attention from teams all over the world. Twain would find heaps of faxes hoping to buy George Wood on his desk every summer. Players from the Football Manager game also splashed cash during the game to buy the solid midfielder for their teams.

Would George Wood, who had a fantastic footballing career in his club so far, be able to gain his first experience playing for his national team at such a big tournament during the summer of 2010?

Twain intended to wait and see how everything transpired.

[1] "The Pity of Zhong-Yong" is a story about a gifted boy who became an ordinary person because he was not able to receive education afterward.