Happy Club Shopping Time
"Heh heh heh~ Let's see here~"
I was going down the list of acquirable clubs Yoo-kyung unnie had handed me.
Honestly, Yoo-kyung unnie didn't care all that much about soccer. If I had to pin it down, she'd only developed an interest so she could manage me—because I kept nearly sleeping through the morning after staying up watching matches.
Which explained why she'd researched not just the K League and K League 2, but every team all the way down through K3 and K4. What a model student.
In Korea, only the K League and K League 2 counted as professional; everything below that was effectively amateur.
Of course, if Hanul Invest decided to throw its full weight behind a lower-tier side, promotion into K League 2 would be almost trivial. The sheer financial stability alone would give any club a massive boost.
But I had no interest in dragging that process out. All I wanted was to get into K League 2—or better yet, K League 1—as fast as possible and keep climbing from there.
With that in mind, I eliminated every K3 team and below from Yoo-kyung unnie's research. That left only clubs from the K League and K League 2.
Now I just had to find the best one among them.
My criteria for the ideal club looked like this.
First: the ability to draw a crowd.
Crowd-drawing power was directly tied to a club's popularity. In a professional league built on regional affiliations, a home base was a powerful tool for packing the stands with live fans.
And how did you measure that drawing power? Simple.
How large was the local population, and did the region have a proper soccer stadium?
By those standards, a solid majority of the remaining candidates passed. A few still had to go, of course.
"Out. Out. And... out."
I took a red pencil from the desk and crossed off every team that failed the test. Even so, a surprising number survived.
That was fine. The next filter would almost certainly wipe out a whole batch of them.
The second criterion—and the most important one—was that I needed a club where I could start exercising real power the moment I took over. In plain terms, it had to be a corporate club where I could seize full management rights and voting control.
The board of directors had to be weak, and it absolutely could not be a civic club. Civic ownership meant taking the long way around everything, and constant friction was guaranteed.
Even that could be fixed eventually if I played the long game, but I wanted to avoid those fights for now.
That filter knocked out a huge number of clubs. Once you limited yourself to corporate teams that were actually for sale, the pool was never going to be large.
Still, a few remained. Corporate clubs that wanted out, even without being civic teams.
Then again, soccer was never an easy business if you didn't love it. Even if you did, you had to brace for annual losses unless you were one of the rare exceptions.
That went double for a K League club without much purchasing power.
Five clubs left. For those five, two more conditions remained.
One: they had to own real assets.
I didn't mean players or coaches. I meant training grounds, a clubhouse, youth facilities—the core infrastructure that gave a club its lasting value.
If everything was leased, the recurring costs would add up fast. Better to buy it all outright once and be done with it.
A few more teams fell away at that point. The ones still standing—the real cream of the crop—numbered exactly three.
And the final condition for those three...
Their poor performance had to be the result of failed management—or complete managerial indifference. Put simply, the club needed to be undervalued because of its current owner.
Looking at what was left, one team was in the K League and two were in K League 2. Even the top-flight side was so deep in the standings it was easier to count up from the bottom.
Only one club fit the bill.
Seongjin Maseong FC—the team sponsored by the Maseong Group.
It had once been a genuinely strong side under the full-throated support of Maseong Group's previous chairman. But his son, the current chairman Ma Dong-gi, had no particular love for soccer, and the club had been left to rot.
Thanks to all that earlier investment, though, the facilities were still there, and the equipment wasn't bad. Seongjin City's large population meant solid crowd potential, and the stadium they used was at least mid-tier.
There were rough notes on cash flow and the club's loss structure, but I decided not to sweat those for now. I could cover most reasonable deficits myself, and a deep dive into the books was something I'd do later—as leverage at the negotiating table.
If Yoo-kyung unnie had already researched all of that in detail, I would have seriously owed her two full days of paid leave. I wouldn't have been able to live with the guilt.
Anyway... for something she'd put together so roughly, the information was surprisingly thorough. Excellent work.
Part of me wanted to drag her back from her shopping trip at the department store right now and beg, Yoo-kyung-emon! Please go all-out and dig up everything on Seongjin Maseong FC!—but if I did that, she'd wring my neck.
Work-mode Yoo-kyung unnie was professional, sharp, and composed. Off-duty Yoo-kyung unnie on a day like this was just another young woman her age.
Since the decision was made, I might as well take it easy for a day or two.
Rest easy—then start preparing for the acquisition.
Two days later, the moment Yoo-kyung switched into work mode, I brought it up.
"Yoo-kyung."
"Yes, Chairman."
"Please research Seongjin Maseong FC. This is a Hanul Group-level inquiry, so you're free to do it during business hours."
"...Understood."
The instant she heard she could work on it on company time, she dropped any impulse to push back and slipped straight into work mode.
Yes. That was my Yoo-kyung.
Of course, I wasn't leaving everything to her. I had my own work to do—specifically, mapping out everything I would need the moment I took over Seongjin Maseong FC, renamed it, and became its new owner.
There would be marketing overhauls and plenty more, but one thing stood above the rest.
A new manager.
Seongjin Maseong FC was currently running under an interim coach. The classic pattern of managerial indifference: fire the manager because the fans demanded it, then promote some random member of the coaching staff because you had no actual plan.
The way to rip that kind of operation out by the roots was to install a new manager—not just any manager, but one with an extraordinary gift for rebuilding.
I needed to draw up a shortlist of those candidates, and while I was at it, compile a list of prospects who would explode in value later but weren't getting any attention yet. Talent inventory, essentially.
If you surveyed the soccer world—or sports in general—the micro-level currents could differ quite a bit. Macro-level trends, though, barely shifted at all.
One player broke out a little early, another a little late. That happened often enough. But the players who were going to make it always made it, and the results that needed to be achieved always got achieved.
There were exceptions, sure, but still.
I'd been grinning to myself, ready to play some real-life Football Manager...
"Chairman, your meeting is about to start."
Yoo-kyung's voice hit me like a bolt from the blue—even though she was supposed to be busy with the work I'd assigned her.
"...Yoo-kyung, I don't suppose we could just wrap the meeting up quickly?"
"No. It's the performance presentation."
"We already crushed it. Can't I skip just this once?"
"No. Please get ready."
"Hiiing..."
"Cute act won't work."
I didn't like saying it myself, but I was pretty, personable, and had a charming voice—so when I laid on the aegyo, most people folded. Even Yoo-kyung unnie usually let it slide off the clock.
But professional-mode Yoo-kyung was a completely different person. An absolute ice queen.
"You're so mean..."
"You say that, yet you've already prepared everything."
"Well, work is work."
I grabbed the USB and laptop I'd set aside and stood up. Yoo-kyung rose with me.
"I'll accompany you."
"No need. Honestly, I don't need you for this. I can't waste someone like you on something this minor."
"Is it really that minor?"
"It is—to me."
Even after hearing that, Yoo-kyung kept walking at my side.
"Just focus on the job I actually gave you."
"Surely carrying your laptop and fetching coffee is within bounds?"
"You really never let me have the last word."
Of course, I knew that was her own quiet way of looking out for me, so I decided to accept the kindness. A little consideration like that was fine to take.
I headed to the conference room with Yoo-kyung, finished the meeting setup, and then sent her back.
"Chairman."
"Yoo-kyung, don't you trust me?"
"...I do. You're our Chairman, after all."
With that, she bowed and left the conference room ahead of me.
Right. I wasn't about to waste high-caliber talent like hers just to have someone babysit a single meeting.
Right now, Yoo-kyung needed to strip Seongjin Maseong bare—down to the color of their underwear.
That was what mattered. Absolutely.