Chapter 155 Covering the Loopholes

After leaving the meeting room, Zhao Xuming didn't dare to delay for even a moment. He immediately arranged for his subordinates to get to work, with three tasks proceeding simultaneously.

First, he needed to contact the various clubs to coordinate their efforts. Although the money was coming from Finger Company, the specific tasks of improving living and dining conditions, improving player treatment, and standardizing contracts would still need to be implemented by each club.

Second, this was a substantial sum of money that absolutely could not be wasted. He had to immediately arrange for a large-scale publicity campaign, emphasizing that iCL's benefits were definitely at the top of the industry standard, not inferior to the GPL at all, and even surpassing it in some aspects. This would quickly resolve the current public opinion storm and leave a good impression on casual observers.

Third, he wanted to take this opportunity to continue promoting iCL and further expand the league's popularity.

Although Eric frequently interfered with Zhao Xuming's work after taking over from Christian, Zhao Xuming didn't harbor much resentment towards Eric.

Mainly because Eric, although involved in many things, was a man of his word.

Dayak Group and Finger Company had given Eric very high authority, allowing him to use a large amount of funds. Take this matter for example: Eric could make a decision to solve a problem that Zhao Xuming could hardly address.

More importantly, Eric would definitely take the blame first, keeping Zhao Xuming safe.

The reason Christian had been removed previously, while Zhao Xuming was able to continue serving as the head of ioi's business cooperation department, was because his skills in shifting blame were unparalleled.

Now that Eric was fully responsible for all matters, with Zhao Xuming assisting, it wasn't bad news for him.

In the event of any issues, Zhao Xuming could disclaim responsibility immediately. Whether ioi's national server succeeded or not wouldn't greatly affect his position within Long Yu Group.

All three tasks were quite important, but after careful consideration, Zhao Xuming felt that the first task was the most crucial. Therefore, he decided to personally communicate with the clubs.

Although the money was coming from Finger Company, some details would affect the clubs' interests.

For example, the standardized player contracts.

Back then, SUG Club had a very strained relationship with Tengda because of this issue, leading directly to President Pei removing them from the GPL, making them the chicken used to scare the monkeys.

Without that little incident, the storm over standardized contracts would probably have lasted much longer.

And the standardized contracts required by President Pei were limited to the GPL. They definitely couldn't control the contracts of other esports projects. The contracts currently used by ioi players were still the old ones.

Now that Finger Company was requiring all ioi clubs to switch to standardized contracts, would it cause them to resist?

After all, these clubs were iCL league partners, and their attitude had to be right. He couldn't afford to neglect them.

Therefore, Zhao Xuming considered the matter and felt that it would be safest to handle it himself.

Moreover, how the money was spent after it arrived was also a problem. If these clubs took the money but secretly pocketed it for other purposes, wouldn't Finger Company lose money and face embarrassment?

It definitely had to be used for its intended purpose, and supervision had to be ensured.

Many details had to be carefully discussed before a final decision could be made.

However, the good news was that, after the previous storm, standardized contracts had been accepted by many clubs. If iCL promoted standardized contracts now, the resistance should be much smaller.

After some consideration, Zhao Xuming first called Wu Yue, the manager of FV Club, briefly explained the matter, and hoped that Wu Yue would cooperate.

On the other end of the phone, Wu Yue smiled, "President Zhao, no need. Our club has already implemented everything you're talking about!"

"Because our club's standards were originally based on GPL standards. Whether it's living conditions, training conditions, or fitness conditions, they're all very good. In addition, our players' contracts have also been changed to standardized contracts a long time ago, so there's no need to worry about that."

Zhao Xuming was stunned when he heard this.

Already implemented? Seriously?

He knew that President Pei was very good to FV Club, but he didn't expect it to be to this extent.

Because the FV Club players had already won championships, with over two million dollars in championship bonuses. Even if divided equally among five people, that's still a large sum of money.

With so much money, who would care about living conditions, fitness conditions, and standardized contracts?

Even if President Pei did nothing in these areas, the players wouldn't have the slightest complaint.

But he didn't expect President Pei to be so meticulous about the details, leaving no loopholes at all.

Zhao Xuming initially felt relieved, thinking that he could save some money, but then he realized that something was wrong!

His tone immediately became firm, "President Wu, we have to pay for this!"

Wu Yue was stunned. "Ah? Is that necessary?"

He couldn't help but wonder, why was someone so eager to pay?

Did they all have too much money to burn?

Zhao Xuming clearly didn't have too much money to burn. He had thought of a very crucial issue.

If all the iCL clubs implemented this standard, with Finger Company paying, and only FV Club was paid for by President Pei, wouldn't that give President Pei another handle?

After all, FV Club was an iCL league club. Since Finger Company had decided to subsidize, it had to treat everyone equally. How could it treat them differently?

If this got out, everyone would think that Finger Company was petty and stingy about saving two or three million, leading to another public opinion crisis.

Thinking of this, Wu Yue couldn't help but secretly rejoice.

Another trap left by President Pei, almost stepped on it! Luckily I was quick-witted!

Wu Yue didn't quite understand why Zhao Xuming was so insistent, but since Zhao Xuming was willing to cover that part of the money, he had no reason to refuse.

After all, FV Club had been taking benefits from President Pei all along, and they were starting to feel a little embarrassed. Now that there was an opportunity to save President Pei some money, why not?

So, Wu Yue readily agreed.

Zhao Xuming asked again, "By the way, President Wu, could you briefly summarize the specific living standards, training standards, fitness standards, and other related content from your side and send me a copy? If it's inconvenient for you to show me the standardized contracts, you can briefly talk about the key points on them, so that we can arrange things according to this standard."

Although the iCL league didn't plan to completely copy the GPL, it at least had to understand it.

Because the two leagues were directly benchmarked against each other, these conditions had to be close. If the gap was too large, it would be a waste of effort.

Wu Yue agreed very readily, "No problem, I'll organize the general situation and send it to you."

Apart from the standardized contracts, the other content wasn't really confidential. It was just ordering Moyu Takeout, contracting a gym, accommodation standards, training computer configurations, and so on.

Even if Wu Yue didn't say it, Zhao Xuming had many other channels to find out, which wouldn't take much effort. So, Wu Yue didn't hide anything and directly organized the content in a straightforward manner and sent it to Zhao Xuming.

Zhao Xuming waited patiently for more than ten minutes before receiving a form from Wu Yue.

The content of the form was very simple. It simply wrote down the club's relevant standards, such as the fact that all the meals were special training meals ordered from Moyu Takeout, there were daily fitness tasks in the contracted gym, the training computers were ROF assembled machines, and so on.

Zhao Xuming gasped when he looked at this form.

The standards were really high!

Of course, high standards and spending a lot of money were secondary. The most critical issue was that they were all industries under Tengda!

Not to mention takeout and gyms, even the computers used for training were Tengda's own computer assembly business.

If iCL also implemented similar standards, wouldn't it also have to order Moyu Takeout and go to the contracted gym?

Wasn't this nonsense!

President Pei's publicity video had already cost Finger Company an extra twenty to thirty million. And this money would still be spent on President Pei's industry? Letting President Pei earn it again?

Outrageous!

This wasn't about the money, the money wasn't really that much, but it was difficult to accept from an emotional point of view.

Not to mention Eric, Zhao Xuming himself felt angry just thinking about it.

In short, he absolutely couldn't lose both the lady and the troops! He could let anyone earn this money, but he definitely couldn't let President Pei earn it!

Fortunately, there were alternatives. In terms of diet, each club could spend money to hire a cook; in terms of exercise, going to other gyms to get gym cards + private lessons could suffice; and computers were even simpler, just buy a more expensive, high-end brand.

Zhao Xuming found other alternatives to the various standards on this list, along with their market prices.

Although it was expensive and painful, these were necessary expenses after all.

Moreover, it was okay as long as he wasn't paying out of his own pocket.

After finishing the organization, Zhao Xuming called the other iCL clubs, such as SUG, one by one to communicate.

Although some clubs showed some resistance to the standardized contracts, Finger Company was sincere this time and paid to help them improve their training environment. Considering that Finger Company had the final say on the iCL league spots, these clubs didn't dare to say much and agreed one after another.

Zhao Xuming sent the plan he had made to the managers of each club, telling them to arrange things according to this standard.

Hiring a cook, getting gym cards, buying training computers, providing a minimum salary to all players, paying for social insurance and a housing fund, and so on all had very clear standards.

Although the money was coming from Finger Company, the entire process had to be very standardized and clear, eliminating the possibility of these clubs embezzling funds.

As for FV Club, since they were eating Moyu Takeout and using the contracted gym, it seemed a little inhumane to force them to change.

Therefore, FV Club was the only exception in the entire iCL league and continued to maintain its current conditions, only that this part of the money originally paid by Tengda was changed to be paid by Finger Company.

After arranging everything, Zhao Xuming finally breathed a sigh of relief.

In this way, all the loopholes were plugged!

The iCL's publicity work could finally return to the right track.