Leicester City Club, nicknamed the Blue Foxes, is a club located in Leicestershire, 180 kilometers northwest of London, England. It is in the same region as Nottingham Forest, called East Midlands.
Although Leicester City was founded very early, in 1884, its history is unremarkable.
Apart from three League Cup titles, Leicester City has never won any significant honours such as the top league title, FA Cup title, let alone European honours.
The team has been in low-level leagues for a long time and was only promoted last season as the first in the Championship. This season it will compete in the Premier League.
This is a newly promoted Premier League team with no presence at all.
Before Leicester City announced that Lu Wenbin would attend their press conference on July 22, no one had linked the world's top star and Forbes China's richest man Lu Wenbin with Leicester City.
Everyone thought about the two wealthy teams Manchester City and Chelsea, as well as Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and other giants, and even other strong teams such as Tottenham, Newcastle, Everton, etc., but no one really considered that Lu Wenbin would be linked with the newly promoted Leicester City.
Undoubtedly, Leicester City fans nowadays are the most enviable, jealous and hateful, but also the happiest.
Then, all the fan organizations began to unite and make banners, slogans and flags to welcome Lu Wenbin.
Fan families living in Leicester City bought Chinese flags and hung them outside their windows to create a grand welcome for Lu Wenbin.
Leicester City does not have the Eiffel Tower, nor the Bernabeu's Theatre of Dreams, so they can only spend more time on banners, slogans, flags, etc. to express their admiration and welcome for Lu Wenbin.
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As time went by, there were more and more five-star red flags and Chinese banners in Leicester City, and countless fans of Lu Wenbin rushed to the Foxes from all over the place, ready to witness Lu Wenbin joining Leicester City on the spot.
On the morning of July 22, the press conference room of Leicester City Club was packed with people. Media from all over the world could not fit in at all. Many people could only stand in the aisles, by the walls, or squat under the podium.
As a team that has been playing in the lower leagues for many years, Leicester City's press conference room is not big.
The press conference was attended by media and journalists from dozens of countries around the world, including nearly 100 media, photographers and journalists from Britain and China alone.
As for outside the press conference hall, there were tens of thousands of local Leicester City fans and Lu Wenbin's fans in an excited mood.
Everyone held slogans and banners expressing support, admiration and love for Lu Wenbin, waved the five-star red flag, and were anxiously yet full of anticipation when they heard the news that Lu Wenbin would join Leicester City.
The press conference officially began at 10 am.
After the Leicester City press officer introduced the history of Leicester City, he announced that Leicester City chairman and Thai-Chinese owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, vice chairman and Vichai's son Xu Shengyuan, team manager and head coach Nigel Pearson, superstar Lu Wenbin, as well as Lu Wenbin's agent Mendes and private lawyer would appear.
The moment Lu Wenbin appeared, the entire press conference hall was illuminated by the reporters' flash lights. Vichai and Pearson, who had never seen so many reporters, were almost dazzled.
British reporters even applauded excitedly, expressing their warm welcome to Lu Wenbin for coming to the Premier League.
Lu Wenbin is the topic, Lu Wenbin is the news, Lu Wenbin is the guarantee of newspaper sales!
Of course, everyone was also puzzled as to why Lu Wenbin brought his private lawyer with him.
However, when Leicester City announced what happened at the press conference afterwards, everyone understood why lawyers were needed, and everyone was stunned.
Leicester City announced that Chairman Vichai sold 30% of the shares to 666 Investment Company, which is wholly owned by Lu Wenbin, for a symbolic price of 1 euro, making Lu Wenbin the second shareholder of Leicester City besides himself.
At the same time, Lu Wenbin will also join Leicester City as a free transfer with an annual salary of 30 million euros, a five-year contract and a penalty of 500 million euros.
This penalty is a guarantee for Vichai, and its symbolic significance is greater than its practical significance.
Due to UEFA restrictions, after Lu Wenbin acquired shares in Leicester City, he could not play for other European clubs.
In other continents, whether in Asia, Africa, America or Oceania, no team would be willing to pay the 500 million euro penalty to take Lu Wenbin away.
In fact, if nothing unexpected happens, it is more likely that Lu Wenbin will play for Leicester City until retirement.
At the same time, according to the agreement between Lu Wenbin and Vichai, 30% of the equity is not the end.
If Lu Wenbin leads Leicester City to win the Premier League title, his equity will increase by 3%. If he wins the Champions League title, his equity will increase by 6%. If he wins all seven titles including the Premier League, League Cup, FA Cup, Champions League, Community Shield, European Super Cup and Club World Cup, his equity will increase by another 10%.
The equity added later was obtained free of charge based on the conditions.
In other words, as long as Lu Wenbin helps Leicester City achieve the feat of winning seven championships, he can get 49% of the shares for only 1 euro and become the second largest shareholder after Vichai.
From now on, Lu Wenbin will receive 49% of all Leicester City’s movable and immovable properties and commercial income.
This is why Leicester City was able to impress Lu Wenbin and sign him.
It’s not that Lu Wenbin is so satisfied with Leicester City, but that other top teams cannot reach Lu Wenbin’s psychological bottom line.
The owners and shareholders of other Premier League teams were very reluctant to see Lu Wenbin invest in the team. They still had some deep-rooted discrimination against Lu Wenbin's yellow race and Chinese identity.
No matter how famous or powerful Lu Wenbin is, they only want Lu Wenbin to work for them, and do not want Lu Wenbin to be on an equal footing with them and share their business income as a shareholder.
Even if someone agrees to let Lu Wenbin invest, the shares will be very small and will not make much sense to Lu Wenbin.
Only Leicester City, as a newly promoted team, is in urgent need of relegation and championship, and does not have the arrogance of any wealthy club. They are 100% eager for Lu Wenbin to join them.
Moreover, as a Thai-Chinese boss whose ancestral home is in Fujian and who has half Chinese ancestry, Vichai has a strong sense of identification with Lu Wenbin, a world-famous Chinese superstar.
Vichai himself and his son Xu Shengyuan are both fluent in Chinese, and Lu Wenbin felt very cordial about this when he met the two of them privately.
Vichai and Xu Shengyuan's ideals are, first, to use the Premier League platform to promote their own corporate brands, and second, to help train Thai and Chinese players. Leicester City's youth training system is already ready to lean towards Thai and Chinese players.
The club is sincere, offers a lot of shares, the boss is half a compatriot, and Lu Wenbin himself must conquer the Premier League and complete the club's main tasks, etc., all of which became the decisive factors for Lu Wenbin to join Leicester City.