As Gao Shen had often said before, with the massive influx of capital and the arrival of the globalization era, European football has undergone earth-shaking changes, many of which are beyond what ordinary fans could ever imagine.
It is almost unbelievable that clubs like Manchester City, Manchester United, and Liverpool, fierce rivals in the Premier League, would actually approach Leeds United to buy certain players, or even purchase specific data and analysis reports.
This sounds absurd, doesn't it?
Of course, from a legal standpoint, these transactions are not technically made with Leeds United, but with a company established by Gao Shen himself.
This kind of thing can never be made public, and both the buyers and the sellers maintain complete silence.
Many fans may not realize that the maintenance of many stadiums and training grounds today is outsourced to professional maintenance companies. Clubs simply pay an annual maintenance fee.
Some fans might ask, why?
The answer is simple: it saves money, saves time, saves effort, and it is professional.
What is the football industry built upon?
Division of labor and cooperation—that is the football industry.
Leave professional matters to professionals. That is industrialization.
Not only are venue maintenance services outsourced, but also matchday security, stadium operations, and crowd management. Many clubs have even outsourced their scouting and data analysis departments.
One of the main reasons is cost.
Personnel are expensive.
Many mid- and lower-tier clubs simply cannot afford to maintain a full team of scouts and analysts. So, paying a yearly fee to outsource these services to professional third parties has become perfectly normal.
It is no different from major property management companies in China such as WanX, HengX, and BiXX, which subcontract gate security, cleaning, and landscaping to specialized service firms.
If not for government regulations, even property management offices and building managers might be outsourced too.
Of course, outsourcing sometimes leads to a drop in service quality, but not always. It depends on the case.
The same logic applies to European football today.
Leeds United currently has a lot of outsourcing arrangements, including marketing consultancy, online branding, and various other business functions. Many of their partner companies are Fortune 500 firms. But the club's core technologies remain firmly in Leeds United's hands.
For instance, the big data center personally built and continuously developed by Gao Shen, the increasingly influential methodology department, and the club's scientific research and innovation division.
The same principle also applies to players.
Cristiano Ronaldo has had his own private team for a long time, including a personal chef, physical trainer, fitness coach, and image consultant.
These people are not under the scope of his agent Mendes's work.
The same goes for Messi, who also has his own team.
For example, when Gao Shen coached Real Madrid, before Ronaldo reported for preseason training each year, his team would contact the coaching staff in advance to discuss his offseason training, condition, and expectations for the new season.
In some ways, Ronaldo's private team was even closer to him than the club's coaching staff.
Many fans might recall cases where a player, after being injured, refused treatment from the club doctor and sought an external specialist instead. These incidents are usually conflicts between a player's private team and the club's medical staff.
Of course, it's difficult to say who is right or wrong in such situations. Each case must be analyzed individually.
Then there is Mendes, whose business as a football agent has grown exponentially in recent years.
Everyone knows he is a super-agent, but few truly understand the scale of his influence.
In the early days, Mendes only managed player transfers and contracts, earning commissions through deals. But that was the most basic level of agency work. Later, he began acting as a transfer broker.
In simple terms, he helped clubs find players, arranged the transfers, and collected fees in between.
But that was just the beginning.
Later came the concept of third-party ownership.
This meant that if he saw potential in a player, he would first buy partial ownership of the player's rights, and then sell him to make a profit from the transfer fee difference.
The most famous example was Falcao, whom Mendes acquired through third-party ownership at Porto, before selling him to Atlético Madrid and then Monaco.
Another example was Neymar, whose transfer to Barcelona led to the resignation of president Rosell.
Why was that transfer so murky?
Because it involved third-party ownership.
In recent years, the dark side of this "human trafficking" model of third-party ownership became increasingly apparent.
Clubs in financial distress would sell part of a player's rights to third-party companies. Those companies would then manipulate the market to inflate transfer fees. When the player was sold, the original club would have to pay the same third party to buy replacements, leaving the club with nothing while the company profited massively.
This was one of the reasons transfer fees skyrocketed across European football.
After FIFA imposed strict bans on such practices, Mendes shifted his business model. He began to directly control clubs, turning himself from a middleman into a stakeholder.
Guimarães, Benfica, Braga in Portugal, Atlético Madrid and Valencia in Spain, Wolves in England…
Yes, even Wolves—the Premier League team backed by Chinese capital—has Mendes involved behind the scenes.
Among them, Mendes and his partners control 32 percent of Atlético Madrid's shares.
Outrageous, isn't it?
Well, that's just the beginning.
Fans familiar with European football will know the name Luís Campos.
Yes, in Gao Shen's previous life, he was known as Mbappé's mentor.
After Monaco was taken over by a Russian billionaire, the club went on a massive spending spree and lost heavily on deals like Falcao's. Then they shifted strategy, becoming a player-trading "black shop."
It was then that the Portuguese Luís Campos joined Monaco. Before that, he ran a football-related IT company in Portugal, and had also served as Mourinho's assistant.
Under Campos, Monaco thrived as a selling club.
After achieving great success, Campos realized his own value. He had developed a data-driven model for assessing player value, often identifying the best-value signings.
This was mentioned when Gao Shen recommended signing José Fonte from Southampton to Leeds United. Campos believed Fonte had a special ability to make his teammates better and accelerate their development.
Later facts proved Campos's judgment was right.
In this life, with Gao Shen's appearance, Campos was not as legendary as before, but he still built his own analytical system.
After leaving Monaco in 2016, he founded a consulting firm in France and assembled his own team.
He is currently the sporting director of Lille, but interestingly, Lille's contract is with his company, not him personally.
Legally speaking, Lille purchased services such as first-team organization and player recruitment from Campos's company. Campos himself was a free agent.
Thus, he was able to simultaneously consult for several clubs, including Galatasaray in Turkey and Celta Vigo in Spain, all under similar arrangements.
This created a bizarre situation in modern football: Luís Campos was simultaneously working for multiple clubs, yet remained a free agent.
From a legal standpoint, any club could hire him through his company to handle squad planning and recruitment.
He had transformed himself from a sporting director—a salaried worker—into a club partner, holding significant power over first-team structures and transfers across multiple organizations.
…
Campos's transformation, along with the sweeping changes in European football, gave Gao Shen much to think about.
He had already been studying this issue since deciding to leave Real Madrid. During this period of rest, while he relaxed, he also studied these developments closely and oversaw Leeds United's research and innovation.
For him, there was no future in continuing as a head coach.
That role was becoming obsolete.
It may sound harsh, but not only Gao Shen—Ferguson, Wenger, Valdano, even Zidane—had discussed this same topic with him.
In the past decade, professional football had evolved at such a pace that many were left behind.
Benítez, who was dismissed from Real Madrid, Mourinho struggling at Manchester United, and many others were proof.
Capital and globalization have expanded football into a colossal industry worth tens of billions of euros.
Even within the first team of a club, no one truly has full control anymore. This was Gao Shen's experience in his final season at Real Madrid.
In recent years, as players' salaries have soared, their influence and importance have grown as well. The head coach's authority in the dressing room has been steadily eroded, and in some cases, completely overshadowed by the players.
The same pattern can be seen elsewhere. In the NBA, superstars dominate franchises. Barcelona hired Martino to please Messi. In 2017, Gao Shen strongly advocated selling Ronaldo, but Florentino refused.
All of this points to one conclusion: in the age of big capital, the head coach is no longer the center of power.
Top-tier managers like Gao Shen and Guardiola are exceptions. In lower-tier clubs, sacking a head coach can happen overnight.
Gao Shen once heard a story that summed it up perfectly.
In the Premier League, some clubs hire managers through interviews, just like any corporate job. They present the club's future plans, player lists, transfer targets, tactical expectations, and projected league finish.
The question is straightforward.
"Can you do it?"
Yes? Then proceed.
No? Next candidate.
Many might find this surprising.
Football is a team sport, and tactics are its core. Isn't that enough to make coaches indispensable?
Yes, tactics are crucial in team sports.
But the head coach himself is becoming less important.
And that is not a contradiction.
(To be continued.)