In Madrid in 2015, after a shareholders' meeting, Lin Chen woke up in an unfamiliar office - he was reborn as a minority shareholder of 3% of Atletico Madrid's shares, with only 20 million US dollars in his pocket, but in his mind was the rise and fall of football in the next ten years. The goal is clear and crazy: to take absolute control of Arsenal by 2020, then take charge of Atletico Madrid, and build a football empire spanning La Liga and the Premier League.
The 20 million at the beginning is not a gambling capital, but the key to breaking the game. He avoided the trap of blindly spending money, earned his first pot of gold through European Cup sponsorship arbitrage, locked in the unknown Felix to seize the share rights, and even planted a "pragmatic" foreshadowing in Atletico Madrid's management to quietly avoid future FFP crises. When Arsenal fell into Kroenke's "stingy predicament", he used Wenger's dissatisfaction to divide the management, teamed up with Usmanov to leverage the equity, attracted Qatari funds to fill the funding gap, and finally reached the top of Arsenal with 67% of the shares one year ahead of schedule.
After taking control of the Gunners, he fulfilled his promise to give Arteta a budget of 100 million yuan to sign Haaland. He also took advantage of the Atletico Madrid FFP crisis to exchange loans for equity, and gradually incorporated the Atletico Madrid shareholders alliance. With both clubs in hand, he built an integrated youth training system of "Atletico Madrid + Arsenal's transmission and control", opened up markets in Asia, North America, and the Middle East, made the commercial revenue of the Double Championship among the top three in football, and led both teams to win La Liga, the Premier League, and the Champions League.
Just as the legend of the "double crown helmsman" spreads throughout the football world, the Saudi consortium's 5 billion acquisition invitation, the coaching vacuum after Simeone's retirement, and the new layout of the African market are coming one after another - Lin Chen's football empire road will always hide the next update.
