The God of Football Starts With Passive Skills

Chapter 418 - 90: Bundesliga Champion! Next Stop, Superstar! Toying with De Gea! Crushing Atletico Madrid Single-handedly

Dzeko from VfL Wolfsburg makes 5 million euros before tax.

On the Dortmund squad, after Wang Shuo, the highest annual salary belongs to the veteran captain, Kael. His pre-tax salary is estimated to be between 3.5 and 4 million euros, though the exact figure is just a guess.

In the head coaching domain, the highest-paid in the Bundesliga is currently Schalke 04’s Magath, at 5.5 million euros before tax.

Van Gaal only makes 4 million euros before tax.

However, according to unreliable sources, Van Gaal’s championship bonus is extremely high.

No one knows exactly how high it is.

Wang Shuo was most familiar with Mainz. Reportedly, Tuchel’s annual pre-tax salary was only 650,000 euros.

Klopp was also currently in renewal talks with Dortmund. His current annual salary was reportedly around 1.5 million euros.

As for the club’s management, the annual salaries were even lower.

The exact figures for Bayern’s "big three" weren’t known, but they certainly didn’t exceed 5 million euros.

Dortmund’s Watzke was likely making between 1.5 and 2 million euros.

In other words, the 8 million euro annual salary Dortmund offered Wang Shuo was the highest in the entire German Football Scene!

Of course, Bayern was still in renewal talks with Ribery, and rumor had it the French "Scarface" had very high salary demands.

No one knew what the final outcome of those negotiations would be, nor could they control it.

Shen Qinghe was currently on a hiring spree, beginning to assemble a team.

She was now Wang Shuo’s personal assistant. By successfully handling the contract renewal with Dortmund, she had earned Wang Shuo’s trust and would be taking full control of his commercial activities and various scheduling arrangements.

Thomas Essien would continue to handle Wang Shuo’s agent business, and he was also preparing to hire an assistant.

Of course, this assistant would be an employee of Thomas Essien.

In effect, Wang Shuo had outsourced his football-related agent services to Thomas Essien.

In addition to his agent services, his legal affairs would also be outsourced to an experienced professional law firm.

Shen Qinghe planned to assemble a three-person commercial team and a three-person media team.

The former was self-explanatory, responsible for business development and negotiations.

The latter would be primarily responsible for new media.

"Have you noticed? As your performance on the field improves, your Twitter following is growing larger and larger."

"And to be honest, your Twitter content is pretty boring. It’s just you checking in every day."

Wang Shuo felt a little awkward and looked intently at the outspoken Shen Qinghe.

"If my posts are so boring, then why do you like them every day?"

Shen Qinghe’s face instantly turned bright red.

"I... It’s a habit."

Thomas Essien, who was sitting across from them, almost burst out laughing.

"That’s not the point. What I’m trying to say is, this just proves that the fans have a demand for this kind of content. Even if it’s seemingly boring daily trivia, they become deeply interested because it’s connected to you."

Wang Shuo understood. "So..."

"We’ll assemble a media team to capture little moments from your daily life and training, take photos or record videos, and post them on Twitter and YouTube. I believe it will attract a lot of attention from the fans."

"If the response is good, this could become a very important source of income down the line."

Simply put, it meant taking on endorsements.

For instance, what clothes Wang Shuo wears to training, or what accessories he might have on.

Of course, how to balance product placement without alienating his followers was another matter entirely.

According to Shen Qinghe, the priority was to build up the accounts first.

That included his international accounts like Twitter and YouTube, as well as his social media accounts in China. They needed to start developing all of them.

This would require a team.

"Wouldn’t that feel really staged?" Wang Shuo was still a little uncomfortable with the idea.

Shen Qinghe smiled and shook her head. "You check in at 5 a.m. every morning. Is that staged?"

Wang Shuo thought for a moment, then nodded. "It’s mainly about the timing."

His Virgo-like obsessiveness compelled him to check in around 5 a.m. every day.

"But the key is, all the fans know you’re a Virgo, and they also know how diligent and hardworking you are. You don’t need to do anything deliberately. Just do what you always do, eat what you always eat, drink what you always drink."

"Figuring out how to spot the little details and capture the highlights that fans are interested in—that’s the media team’s job. They’re the professionals."

Wang Shuo understood what Shen Qinghe meant.

He would just go about his business as usual; at most, he’d just have a few more "colleagues" around.

The domestic commercial and media teams would also need to be assembled at the same time.

Shen Qinghe understood Wang Shuo.

So she had even broken down the costs for him.

It might seem like a lot of people, but the actual salary expenses weren’t that high.

For a full team of about ten people, the total annual expenses for salaries, social security, and other costs would be 1 million euros at most.

And every single person on the team would be a hand-picked elite.

Shen Qinghe was building the team to the standard of a world-level superstar.

Given Wang Shuo’s current status and influence in the European Football Scene, backed by the Chinese and Asian markets, he was a shoo-in to become a future superstar.

Assembling such a team now was a necessary step.

What would be the return on an investment of one million euros?

Although Wang Shuo came from a mountain village, he had seen a bit of the world by now and had met many top people in various industries.

He had especially heard a lot of inside stories about players like Beckham, Ronaldo, Messi, and Kaka, which made him understand even more clearly that salary had long ceased to be the main source of income for top-tier players.

Especially since he was backed by a powerful home country!

But what about the risk of Shen Qinghe leaving him as a mere figurehead?