After leaving the conference room, Zhao Xuming didn’t dare waste a moment. He immediately arranged for his subordinates to handle the tasks, working on three fronts simultaneously.
For the clubs, he needed to contact them to coordinate the work. Although Finger Corporation was providing the money, the specific improvements to food and accommodation, player benefits, and standardized contracts would need to be implemented by each club individually.
This was a substantial amount of money that absolutely couldn’t be wasted. They needed to immediately arrange for extensive promotion, announcing that ICL’s benefits were absolutely industry-leading standards, fully comparable to GPL, and in some aspects even better. They needed to quickly resolve the current public opinion crisis and leave a good impression on the general public.
Additionally, they needed to use 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 Cratian, Zhao Xuming didn’t harbor much resentment toward Eric.
This was mainly because Eric, while micromanaging many things, always kept his word.
Daya Group and Finger Corporation had given Eric very high authority, allowing him to utilize large sums of money. In this situation, for instance, Eric could make decisions to solve problems that Zhao Xuming almost couldn’t resolve.
More importantly, if there was blame to bear, Eric would shoulder it first—Zhao Xuming was safe.
Previously, when Cratian was removed, Zhao Xuming was able to continue serving as the head of IOI’s business cooperation department because his blame-shifting techniques were impeccable.
Now, with Eric fully responsible for various matters and Zhao Xuming assisting, it wasn’t bad news for him.
If anything went wrong, Zhao Xuming could immediately distance himself, and whether the IOI China server succeeded or not wouldn’t greatly affect his position within Longyu Group.
All three aspects of the work were important, but after careful consideration, Zhao Xuming felt the first matter was most crucial, so he decided to personally communicate with these clubs.
Although Finger Corporation was providing the money, there were details involved that would affect the clubs’ interests.
For example, the standardized player contracts.
SUG Club had previously clashed with Tenda over this issue, directly resulting in Mr. Pei removing them from GPL, making them the chicken that was killed to scare the monkeys.
Without this episode, the standardized contract controversy would probably have continued for some time.
The standardized contracts required by Mr. Pei were limited to within GPL; he certainly couldn’t control contracts for other esports projects. Currently, IOI players were still using the old contracts.
Now that Finger Corporation was requiring all IOI clubs to switch to standardized contracts, would they resist?
These clubs were all partners of the ICL league, so their attitudes had to be appropriate—they couldn’t be treated carelessly.
Therefore, after some consideration, Zhao Xuming felt he should handle this personally to ensure everything went smoothly.
Moreover, once the money arrived, how to spend it was also an issue. If these clubs took the money but secretly embezzled it for other purposes, wouldn’t Finger Corporation lose both money and face?
The funds definitely needed to be dedicated for specific purposes, with proper supervision.
Many details still needed to be thoroughly discussed before final decisions could be made.
On the positive side, after the previous controversy, standardized contracts had been accepted by many clubs, so implementing them in ICL should face much less resistance.
After some thought, Zhao Xuming first called FV Club’s manager Wu Yue, briefly explained the situation, and hoped for Wu Yue’s full cooperation.
On the other end of the phone, Wu Yue laughed: “Mr. Zhao, no need—our club has already implemented all these things you mentioned!”
“Our club’s standards are already based on GPL’s standards, whether it’s food and accommodation, training conditions, or fitness facilities—all are excellent. Additionally, our players’ contracts have already been changed to standardized contracts, so there’s no need to worry about that.”
Hearing this, Zhao Xuming was stunned.
Already implemented? How could that be?
He knew Mr. Pei had been quite good to FV Club, but he hadn’t expected it to be to this extent.
Since FV Club’s team members had already won the championship, with over 2 million dollars in prize money, even split five ways it was a substantial sum.
With that much money, who would care about food and accommodation, fitness conditions, and standardized contracts?
Even if Mr. Pei did nothing in this regard, the players wouldn’t have the slightest complaint.
But unexpectedly, Mr. Pei had been so meticulous with the details, leaving no loopholes whatsoever.
Zhao Xuming initially felt relieved, thinking they could save some money, but then he realized something wasn’t right!
His tone immediately became firm: “Mr. Wu, this money—we must provide it!”
Wu Yue was stunned: “Huh? That’s not necessary, is it?”
He couldn’t help but wonder why anyone would compete to pay for this.
Did everyone have too much money to burn?
Zhao Xuming obviously didn’t have too much money to burn; he had identified a critical issue.
If all ICL clubs implemented this standard with Finger Corporation’s money, but only FV Club was funded by Mr. Pei, wouldn’t that give Mr. Pei another opportunity to criticize them?
After all, FV Club was part of the ICL league. Since Finger Corporation had decided to subsidize them, they should treat everyone equally—how could they discriminate?
If this got out, people would think Finger Corporation was petty, trying to save two or three million, creating another public relations crisis.
Thinking about this, Zhao Xuming secretly felt relieved.
Another trap left by Mr. Pei—he had almost stepped right into it. Thankfully, he was quick-witted!
Wu Yue didn’t fully understand why Zhao Xuming was so insistent, but since Zhao Xuming was willing to cover this expense, he had no reason to refuse.
After all, FV Club had been receiving benefits from Mr. Pei for so long that they felt somewhat embarrassed. Now, given an opportunity to save Mr. Pei some money, why not take it?
So Wu Yue promptly agreed.
Zhao Xuming then asked: “By the way, Mr. Wu, could you briefly compile your specific standards for food and accommodation, training, fitness, and so on, and send me a copy? If it’s inconvenient to show me the standardized contract, you can just briefly explain the key points, so we can arrange according to these standards.”
Although the ICL league didn’t plan to completely copy GPL, they at least needed to understand it.
Since these two leagues were directly comparable, they had to ensure these conditions were similar. If the gap was too large, all their efforts would be wasted.
Wu Yue readily agreed: “No problem, I’ll compile the general situation and send it to you right away.”
Except for the standardized contracts, none of the other information was particularly confidential—it was just about Slackin’ Delivery, Tuoguan Fitness, accommodation standards, training computer configurations, and so on.
Even if Wu Yue didn’t say anything, Zhao Xuming had many other channels to find out, so it wouldn’t be much trouble. Therefore, Wu Yue didn’t hide anything and straightforwardly compiled this information and sent it to Zhao Xuming.
After patiently waiting for about ten minutes, Zhao Xuming received the table Wu Yue had sent.
The table was very simple, listing the club’s relevant standards, such as ordering special training meals from Slackin’ Delivery, daily fitness tasks at Tuoguan Fitness, training with ROF complete systems, and so on.
Looking at this table, Zhao Xuming couldn’t help but draw in a sharp breath.
These standards were truly high!
Of course, high standards and high costs were secondary concerns. The key issue was that these were all Tenda’s own businesses!
Not just the delivery service and fitness center—even the training computers were from Tenda’s own assembly business.
If ICL implemented similar standards, wouldn’t they also have to order from Slackin’ Delivery and use Tuoguan Fitness?
That was absurd!
Mr. Pei’s promotional video had already cost Finger Corporation an extra twenty to thirty million. And now this money would be spent on Mr. Pei’s businesses? Letting him profit again?
This was outrageous!
It wasn’t just about the money—the amount wasn’t that significant. It was mainly about the emotional difficulty of accepting this.
Forget Eric—Zhao Xuming himself was furious just thinking about it.
In short, they absolutely couldn’t lose both the wife and the troops! Anyone could profit from this money, but absolutely not Mr. Pei!
Fortunately, there were alternatives for all these: for food, clubs could hire cooks; for exercise, they could get memberships at other gyms plus personal training sessions; for computers, it was even simpler—just buy more expensive, prestigious brands.
Zhao Xuming found alternative solutions for each standard listed, based on market prices.
Though expensive and painful, these were necessary expenses.
And since it wasn’t coming out of his own pocket, it was still manageable.
After organizing everything, Zhao Xuming called the other ICL clubs like SUG one by one to communicate.
Although some clubs showed resistance to standardized contracts, since Finger Corporation was showing sincerity by paying to improve their training environments, and considering that ICL league spots were entirely at Finger Corporation’s discretion, these clubs didn’t dare say much and agreed one after another.
Zhao Xuming sent his prepared plan to each club’s manager, telling them to arrange according to these standards.
Hiring cooks, purchasing gym memberships, buying training computers, providing base salaries for all players, paying social security and benefits, and so on—all had very clear standards.
Although Finger Corporation was providing the money, the entire process had to be extremely standardized and transparent, eliminating any possibility of these clubs embezzling funds.
As for FV Club, they were already happily using Slackin’ Delivery and Tuoguan Fitness, so forcing them to change seemed somewhat unreasonable.
Thus, FV Club became the only exception in the entire ICL league, continuing with their current arrangements, except that the money previously provided by Tenda would now come from Finger Corporation.
After arranging everything, Zhao Xuming finally breathed a sigh of relief.
This way, all loopholes were plugged!
The promotion of ICL could finally get back on track.