Chapter 963: The Team’s Hidden Crisis!

After returning from Ulm, Higo joined the training session the next day without even taking a break.

Well, how could he, when the boy himself didn’t do anything other than just sit on the bench yesterday?

Even though he could claim a sabbath day like any other player who fought in that game, Higo wasn’t shameless enough to take credit for something that he had never been involved in in any way, especially just for another day off.

At the same time, Goncalo Paciencia was also back from his injury, and the moment everyone saw him, they couldn’t help but laugh their asses off at his stupidity.

"Paci, are you kidding me?! You stabbed your toe when you were drunk? And you fucking broke it?!"

"Man, if only there was an award for stupidity, you would be the number one, Paci!"

"I mean, that’s your fucking nail! What are you, a cartoon character?!"

The one who got teased just sighed helplessly, probably having already imagined that he would receive this kind of treatment from all of his friends.

Still, behind the wryness here, he also had wariness lingering inside his heart. After all, he wouldn’t still be able to play at least until two weeks later just as the doctor said, but during that time, Hoppe would only get crazy, scoring more goals for the team.

Paciencia was so helpless right now, not being able to do anything that could save his chance to play on the main team once his injury got better.

In all honesty, though, Paciencia wasn’t the only one who felt helpless right now. No, even Frohling himself was already in the same boat, what with how many offers he received for the boy’s signature.

Well, not just Hoppe, even.

No, right now, he could see at least 20 emails from the sporting director; all were offers from another team to hijack his players.

"Hoppe is being eyed by Real Mallorca... Omar’s agent has already told the team that he wanted to be back in Spain... Higo has already had some teams willing to pay high, and Morita is also the same... Why are they so eager to snatch my players away?!"

Frohling couldn’t help but groan, finding the overall situation to be a big headache.

Unfortunately, the team’s financial situation was not in a great place right now.

Due to the pandemic, the team didn’t really have that much of an income from ticket sales, commercials, and even matchday operations. Not only that, but the former head coach also left a mountain of mess that hadn’t been solved even after two years he wasn’t here.

The mess here was regarding players transfer and salaries that destroyed the team’s structure.

The former head coach brought so many useless players with a huge amount of money and paid those particular players with numbers that destroyed the team’s wage structure.

Oh, not all the players who came in as an expensive transfer flopped, really. No, Frohling still used Sebastian Rudy and Nabil Bentaleb as they both came to the team with a transfer fee of around 18 million Euros for each one of them.

Their wages were also astronomical, showing how much the head coach during that time valued them.

Still, that amount definitely wasn’t worth only two players on their level here, especially when their performance was less than stable.

There were also some players like Amine Harit or those guys on the bench, coming to the team with a high fee just for them to flop and couldn’t show any good performance at all.

Those guys were the ones destroying the team’s financial state, putting a lot of weight on their already thin budget.

Then, as a cherry on top, the team had been in a high accumulated debt that some reports even said exceeded 200 million Euros, creating a suffocating interest burden that was impossible to pay.

Honestly, the financial problem in the team was so complex that even buying one player seemed to be a fight to the death for them.

’The only solution is taking on a loan, huh? Like Paci? But where can I get a player ready to fight in the Bundesliga that could be loaned in the middle of the winter like this?’ He groaned inwardly.

Besides that, Frohling also had another worry, and this time, it was bigger and for the future.

With a high accumulated debt that the team suffered, if the team failed to get another good revenue like being in the Champions League, the team would truly be in trouble next year.

Yeah, it was specific to the Champions League here.

After all, the revenue that they got from the Europa League was twenty times less than the Champions League, and some even put data and showed that the bonus received from winning the Europa League was still less than the money a team got for advancing to the top 16 of the Champions League.

If the team failed to get into the top 4, which was the spot that any team required to represent the country in the Champions League, their financial situation would only get worse to the point that they had to sell a lot of their key players, and that was definitely the worst-case scenario.

"If I have to sell my players, that would be those who have a big value like Morita or Higo, right? That way, we would be able to cover a lot of our debts in the next season. Still... Without them being on the team..."

It wasn’t just Frohling being unwilling to let those two leave the team. No, more than that, those two Japanese players were the darlings of the team, being so loved by the whole city.

If even one of them left, the supporters would riot, let alone those two.

’Shit! I cannot let that happen!’ He shook his head strongly. ’Even if I have to die, I have to lead the team to the Champions League this season! That is at least what I could do to keep them here!’