Corleone smiled, “You should be quite familiar with the situation in Italian football. I have to keep a few companies so I can inject funds into the club at any time!” At this point, Carter paused, perhaps to organize his thoughts. “I still have shares in a few companies that are in the process of being transferred, so after taking over the new club, we might have even more liquidity. With my current funds, getting Fiorentina back to Serie A is absolutely no problem. But if we want to make a mark in Serie A, I’m afraid things will be a bit tight! Especially compared to that madman from the Moratti family!” After saying this, Carter didn’t continue, but instead furrowed his brow, clearly troubled about his future sources of funding.

Just as Leon Thompson was about to dig deeper into Carter’s financial situation, screams and angry shouts from the training ground caught his attention, forcing him to turn his gaze toward the field in front of him.

By now, the two had unknowingly walked to the side of the training ground, where a tall wire fence kept the crowd from getting any closer. Although there were some people standing around, they didn’t all look like football ‘fans’. Among them, Leon Thompson saw a mother holding a child, pointing toward the field, seemingly telling her child something exciting.

It was only at this moment that Leon Thompson realized he and Carter had arrived at the youth training base of the Auxerre club. This discovery left Leon Thompson a bit surprised—how did the two of them end up here?

Turning his attention back to the training ground, he saw a big black guy standing there being scolded by his teammates: “What are you doing? Do you want him to end up in the hospital with a broken bone? Are you even a striker? Your job is to ‘shoot’ ‘goals’! Not to tackle people!” As the angry shouts rang out, several people stormed over and surrounded the big guy. Fortunately, the coach on the sidelines rushed over in time, so nothing serious happened. Also fortunate was that Leon Thompson had learned several languages over the past few years, including French, so he could understand what was just shouted.

“Huh? That big black guy looks kind of familiar!” Although nothing particularly thrilling had happened, Leon Thompson’s attention was still drawn to the big guy, his eyes following the black figure as he moved.

After seeing the big guy say something to the coach and then go off to train alone not far away, Leon Thompson could tell from his practiced manner that this wasn’t his first time being sent to train alone by the coach. At this moment, Leon Thompson finally recognized who this guy was.

“Damn! So it’s him!”

“What?” Carter was also drawn to what was happening on the field, so when he heard Leon Thompson’s not-so-loud exclamation, he didn’t quite catch what he said.

“Oh! It’s nothing!” Leon Thompson waved his hand, but in his heart he was thinking, “I didn’t expect this kid to be here at this time. Looks like he’s not very happy. Maybe I should consider poaching him?”

This unexpected discovery in Auxerre, France, put Leon Thompson in an especially good mood. Thinking that he had just wandered around a bit and already found a few future stars, he was filled with hope for his own bright future—maybe he really could turn Fiorentina into a super ‘club’.

With this good mood, Leon Thompson and Carter took an early morning flight back to Florence, Italy the next day. On the day after their return to Florence, July 31st, Fiorentina still hadn’t raised the necessary funds and was therefore unable to pay the registration fee for Serie B. Fiorentina was in the final countdown to bankruptcy.

And on August 1st, Fiorentina fans woke up to devastating news: the Fiorentina club had officially declared bankruptcy.

At this moment, Carter was sitting in the office of the mayor of Florence.

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Chapter 4: Taking Over Fiorentina

August 2, 2002.

After negotiations between the Florence city government and the Italian Football Federation, the federation agreed to let the Florence city government form a new team and allowed this team to participate in the lowest tier of Italy’s professional leagues.

The Florence city government was quite satisfied with this, because it meant the new team could directly enter Serie C2, without having to go through numerous amateur leagues to qualify for the professional league.

The mayor of Florence then announced that the new team would be named: Fiorentina Viola ‘Flower’ 1926. He also stated that the second son of the Carter family, Anthony Carter, was willing to invest a large sum of money in the newly established club to help it get up and running as soon as possible.

Afterwards, the mayor announced that Mr. Anthony Carter would become the president of the newly established Fiorentina Viola ‘Flower’ 1926 club. And since all the funds for the new club were provided solely by Mr. Carter, the new club would be personally owned and controlled by Carter. Of course, this outcome was exactly what Carter and the mayor had negotiated in advance.