If we were to ask who has been the biggest black shop in European football in recent years, fans around the world would, without hesitation, point to the Premier League.
Leeds United deserves it.
How dark is it?
In the summer of 2014, before the World Cup in Brazil, Paris Saint-Germain made an inquiry for Leeds United goalkeeper Keylor Navas, but Leeds United rejected the offer. Barcelona's inquiry for De Vrij was also declined.
At the time, Leeds United CEO Fernando Lucas swore in front of the media that the team would never sell core players. At the same time, he launched a contract renewal plan and claimed they would extend several core players' contracts.
For a time, almost everyone believed it.
After all, Leeds United had just finished fifth in the league and the outlook was very good. If they could use this opportunity to break into the top four, the future would be limitless. Public opinion at the time generally believed that it would not be easy to poach players from Leeds United.
But after the World Cup in Brazil, Navas's ability was fully recognized through his outstanding performances for Costa Rica, and De Vrij was named in the World Cup Best XI and voted Best Defender thanks to his outstanding displays.
Both players' values skyrocketed.
At that point, Paris Saint-Germain waved their checkbook and raised their offer repeatedly. Finally, Leeds United agreed to sell Navas to PSG for the hefty fee of 40 million euros.
At the time, that was already a sky-high price for a 27-year-old, relatively short goalkeeper.
Even more outrageous, after Van Gaal joined Manchester United, he targeted De Vrij, while Barcelona also entered the race. The two sides went back and forth, with Leeds United mediating in the middle, and the deal was finally completed at a sky-high fee of 50 million euros.
De Vrij joined Manchester United, setting the world transfer record for a centre-back at the time.
Together with Trippier's move to Newcastle and Bertrand's move to Liverpool, Leeds United earned 120 million euros in a single season, becoming the club with the highest profit in the transfer market.
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Just when the whole world was shocked and thought De Vrij's record would be hard to break, only one year later, in the summer of 2015, Stones, pursued by many Premier League teams, transferred to Manchester City for 70 million euros, further breaking the centre-back transfer record in European football.
In the same year, Martial transferred to Manchester United for 70 million euros, and Salah moved to Liverpool for 120 million euros, shocking the entire European football world.
After a long soap opera that lasted the entire summer, Barcelona, having just come off a transfer ban and urgently needing to strengthen, finally compromised and signed Coutinho for a whopping 140 million euros just before the transfer window closed.
This Brazilian is the best partner of Barcelona's future star Neymar in the national team. Barcelona clearly hoped to replicate the Brazilian national team's attacking setup.
Across 2015, Leeds United sold only four players but brought in a staggering 400 million euros in transfer fees.
Of course, as everyone knows, those transfer fees are paid in installments.
But it was stunning enough.
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As player valuations soared across Europe, by 2016 Leeds United sold only a handful, including Sterling, Zaha, Rabiot, Brozović, and Bellerín, with total income of 300 million euros.
This once again shocked the world.
More importantly, in the 2016/17 season, despite selling players for several consecutive years, Leeds United still finished third in the Premier League. In the summer of 2017, Leeds United sold five more players.
Among them, Maguire transferred to Manchester United for 100 million euros, and Felipe Anderson joined Barcelona for 150 million euros.
Both deals caused a huge stir in European football.
There have always been black shops in European football, such as Porto, Benfica, Ajax, and others. But there has never been another team like Leeds United, selling players every year while improving performance rather than declining.
Especially this season, when Leeds United unexpectedly surged to the top of the Premier League, finally beating Guardiola's Manchester City to the title, and also reached the Champions League final.
All of this is unbelievable and casts a veil of mystery over this upstart Premier League club.
Almost everyone says Gao Shen is casting magic on Leeds United, allowing this white rose of the Premier League to bloom fully and usher in its golden age.
Now, in the summer of 2018, players such as Van Dijk, Mané, Dele Alli, Kanté, Fabinho, Harry Kane, Mbappé, Alexander-Arnold, Dembélé, Bernardo Silva, and others at Leeds United have all attracted the interest and attention of European giants.
As early as last summer, Paris Saint-Germain offered a staggering 150 million euros for Mbappé, but Leeds United still rejected it.
After another season, Mbappé's current value is clearly higher.
Not to mention that Leeds United also have local players such as Sancho, Grealish, Rashford, and Foden. These players were brought in from Manchester City's academy over the past few years through trade add-ons or transfer fees.
This has given Manchester City fans very mixed feelings toward Leeds United.
Beyond that, the entire Premier League fears and hates the White Rose.
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Gao Shen and Su Qing once ran their own numbers. In the past few years, Leeds United have earned more than one billion euros in the transfer market. After covering the cost of building the new stadium and training base, most of it was withdrawn by Gao Shen and Su Qing through financial operations.
This is also why Su Qing poached that senior partner from PricewaterhouseCoopers at a high salary.
At the same time, Gao Shen offered high salaries to several core senior executives at the club for the same reason.
Back when Twitter went public, Gao Shen asked Su Qing to sell her shares and cash out.
Last year, Gao Shen sold Bitcoin at its peak, exchanging it for a large sum of money.
All the funds were transferred to accounts in China and either invested in the Hong Kong stock market, most of it used to purchase shares in domestic manufacturing companies, such as Biyati, in which Gao Shen invested heavily, or directly invested in some of China's future famous companies, such as Jingdong, Xiaomi, Jinri Toutiao, Meituan, and others.
It is worth mentioning that in 2015, before the rise of new energy, Gao Shen took advantage of the Linde Generation share reform to buy 15 percent of Linde Generation from Japan's Tokyo Electric in advance, becoming the third-largest shareholder. The latter was also very happy to get Gao Shen's investment, using the fame of Gao Shen and Leeds United as endorsement.
The transaction cost less than 100 million RMB.
Gao Shen knew very well that new energy would be the future, so he placed heavy bets on Biomoleculars and Linde Generation.
Linde Generation not only became a sponsor of Leeds United and started gaining international recognition, but also delivered high returns.
Not long ago, Su Qing returned to China and invested 500 million RMB, together with Linde's 200 million, to establish a new energy company specializing in the production and sales of battery-grade lithium hydroxide.
To put it simply, it means being an upstream supplier for Linde Generation.
Currently, lithium mines are only being auctioned in various places in China, but Gao Shen is already impatient. He hopes this company can go overseas and bid for lithium mines around the world. He wants to seize the current lithium market before it really takes off and expand aggressively.
Contribute to the future domestic new energy industry, while taking their own wealth to a higher level.
From now on, Gao Shen can proudly tell everyone that he really has a mine.
Although Su Qing is now the chairwoman of Leeds United, she actually has little to do with day-to-day club affairs and spends most of her time managing Gao Shen's business empire.
This is their family's future.
Gao Shen is not particularly familiar with business, but as a transmigrator, he can always use his foresight and judgment to win praise from Su Qing and other partners.
Especially his investments in recent years. If he had not deliberately kept them low-key, the media would have exaggerated them long ago.
But what Gao Shen is truly passionate about is football.
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"Although we renewed many contracts and raised salaries last year, our total wage bill has been kept around 200 million pounds, which is considered very healthy in the overall European football environment."
Fernando Lucas analyzed the club's current business situation.
"But the problem is that our salary structure has not been raised. Currently, our team's wage cap is set at 100,000 pounds per week, but that is obviously no longer enough to satisfy the players."
At this point, Lucas shook his head with a wry smile. "A lot of people are even starting to question where all our huge transfer income has gone. They think I am being too stingy."
Senior executives like Lucas and Borrell certainly know where the funds have gone, but they will not disclose it publicly.
Moreover, Leeds United generates more than 30 million pounds in tax revenue for the city of Leeds every year, not including players' taxes. In addition, the club's finances are very well managed, which means the media and fans can hardly see any clues.
They do not understand the specifics.
In fact, Leeds United's current player wages are indeed low, especially compared to the top six. But the total wage bill is not much lower. For example, Liverpool's total human resource costs, including salaries, social security, and pensions, are 260 million pounds.
Leeds United's total human resource cost is 200 million pounds.
What is the difference in practice?
After Salah moved from Leeds United to Liverpool, his weekly wage jumped from 100,000 pounds to 200,000. That is the gap.
Liverpool have 13 players on at least 100,000 pounds per week, but Leeds United have only three.
Leeds United also has a large human resource cost in club staff, which is far higher than Liverpool's.
So this is the current situation. Leeds United are holding the 100,000 pound line.
Just like Harry Kane and Mané, their current weekly salaries are 100,000 pounds. Kane has been on that wage for more than a year, so it is almost time to renew his contract.
But if other clubs can offer more and Leeds United cannot, there is only one outcome. Sell.
This has happened several times in recent years, and they have become accustomed to it.
But Gao Shen believes that some adjustments should be made this time.
(To be continued.)