With UEFA Euro 2000 about to begin, Swansea City Football Club, located in Swansea, the second-largest city in southwest Wales, had sohow beco the focus of all England.
Thanks to Lynn's "farce" over the past two months, almost every football supporter in Britain knew that the madman had beco the owner of Swansea City.
The incident felt insane to everyone.
The main reason the whole affair drew so much attention was that Swansea's players and supporters had united to resist the club's new owner.
The protest that erupted on the night of June 2 was still continuing.
Because it was sumr, many supporters had simply spent the night on the road outside the club gates.
Fortunately, the crowd's conduct was still decent.
They had not turned the street outside the club into a filthy ss.
But by the early morning of June 3, the situation had not been brought under control.
Instead, it was growing more intense.
ITV Wales, BBC Wales, Swansea Sound, Gold Radio, the Western Mail, the South Wales Evening Post, the South Wales Argus, as well as mainstream Fleet Street dia outlets, had all sent reporters or presenters to cover the developnt of the incident on site.
BBC, ITV, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Tis…
Perhaps Swansea had never received so much attention before.
But neither the supporters nor the Swansea players thought any of this was an honour.
To them, it was a disgrace.
They believed they were waging a struggle, so they were willing to express their position to the dia and send their demands to the outside world.
While players, supporter representatives, and passers-by were all being interviewed by the dia and voicing their opinions, a Bentley slowly drove over.
Everything around it seed to co to a stop.
Everyone turned to look at the Bentley.
Although Lynn, who was driving, had already prepared himself ntally, being watched by hundreds, perhaps thousands of people still placed enormous pressure on him.
He had deliberately chosen a relatively restrained Bentley from his garage instead of an eye-catching sports car.
Yet he had not expected that, the mont he arrived at the club, everyone would still stare at him.
So supporters reacted and realized that the owner, Lynn, had arrived at the club.
They imdiately began shouting.
In particular, so supporters who had stayed up all night rushed forward emotionally and slapped the windows of Lynn's car, roaring at him.
"Get out! Get out here! Kid, get out and explain yourself! What are you trying to do to my club?"
The club gates opened.
Four security guards stood cautiously by the entrance. After Lynn's car entered the club, the gates quickly closed again.
Lynn parked directly in front of the office building.
The mont he got out, he first let out a breath.
Mo Yuan walked over and asked him, "Nothing happened, right? It feels like so people outside have already gone crazy!"
Lynn shook his head.
"I'm fine. All right, let's get to work."
Mo Yuan said solemnly, "The eting has been arranged in the conference room on the third floor. Go up first. It starts in ten minutes."
After saying that, Mo Yuan walked toward the club gates.
Lynn went straight up to the third floor.
After entering the conference room, he poured himself a glass of water, then sat quietly at the head of the long conference table and waited.
A few minutes later, Mo Yuan brought five people into the eting room.
Mo Yuan introduced both sides.
"This is our club owner, Lynn. These gentlen are Richard Cork, Kevin Reeves, Jason Smith, Matthew Bode, and Fred Davies. They are the representatives chosen by the supporters to speak with the club's senior managent—in other words, to speak with the owner."
Lynn stepped forward with a smile and shook hands with the five n one by one.
Before coming here today, Lynn had already gained a rough understanding of their backgrounds.
Richard Cork owned a restaurant near the Grand Theatre on the nearby West Road.
Lynn had eaten at his restaurant before, so when they shook hands, he ntioned it.
"The food at your restaurant really does taste good. But I'm still used to eating at Chinese restaurants, so I haven't visited often. I'll recomnd your place to my friends, though."
Kevin Reeves was an ordinary worker, a genuine working-class labourer.
His family circumstances were very average.
Jason Smith was a local taxi driver in Swansea.
Matthew Bode was the youngest.
He looked to be in his early thirties and worked as an investnt manager. Coincidentally, he had once worked under Lin Jiajie.
After Lin Jiajie left the British investnt group, that connection disappeared.
Unfortunately, there had been two levels between Matthew Bode and Lin Jiajie, so the two of them did not actually know each other.
Fred Davies was a lecturer at Swansea University. He looked to be in his fifties.
When Lynn shook hands with him, Davies took the initiative to speak.
"Your mother is an outstanding teacher. She has always been respected at the university."
Lynn was rather surprised, then imdiately replied, "I'm not surprised at all, because she is flawless."
After the handshakes, everyone took their seats.
These supporter representatives had different jobs and identities, but they all shared one thing in common:
They loved Swansea City passionately.
So had developed deep feelings for Swansea from birth, influenced by their elders.
Others had chosen to support Swansea during their own growth.
Although Welsh football did not have much of a foundation, and the strongest sport there was rugby union, not everyone liked rugby.
There were still people who loved football.
And in Swansea, aside from Swansea City, the team nad after the city itself, there were no other professional football clubs.
That made local Swansea supporters even more devoted to this team.
After sitting down, Lynn went straight to the point.
"Before we get to the main topic, I need to make my position clear: I will not sell Swansea City Football Club."
"Think about it. The day before yesterday, the Lin family bought Swansea City. Yesterday, the supporters protested. Today, I sell the club."
"That would be the real farce from beginning to end."
"And the Lin family's reputation would suffer greatly. You may not care about that, but I do. So this point is clear: I will not sell Swansea City."
Before entering the eting room, the five supporter representatives had certainly discussed things among themselves.
They must have expected the Lin family's reaction and knew the club would not be sold easily.
Cork, who had the highest prestige among the supporters, said, "Then please consider handing the club over to professionals to run. That way, at least your investnt won't end up completely wasted."
Lynn waved his hand and laughed.
"Oh, please. This argunt again. Was it Livingstone from ITV who suggested you say that?"
"My answer is no!"
"My club. How I run it is decided by . I will not be held hostage by anyone, including all of you."
"You keep saying you love the club, but what are you doing now? You are inciting the supporters to fight against the club. You are turning Swansea into a laughingstock across England."
"Think carefully. You cannot change the current situation. I will not sell the club. At the sa ti, my father said the day before yesterday that he will make an additional investnt of ten million pounds in the club. I personally will also invest ten million pounds."
"A fourth-tier English club, Swansea City, suddenly has twenty million pounds."
"This is like Swansea winning the lottery!"
"What are you fighting about?"
"You should love . You should thank the Lin family, because we will continuously improve the club's competitiveness. That is the fact."
"Let's not get emotional here. You love Swansea. Do I love Swansea? Does that matter? Your support for the club ans shouting, entering the ground to watch matches, and buying club rchandise. But the Lin family will put twenty million pounds into the club all at once. There will definitely be more after that."
"We are using the most effective and realistic thod to make the club stronger. What exactly are you still dissatisfied with?"
Matthew Bode, who worked as an investnt manager, imdiately refuted him.
"But on your first day in charge of the club, all we saw was ruthless damage and foolish decision-making!
More than half of the first-team regulars, ninety percent of the reserve team, and more than fifty percent of the youth-team players have been cleared out!
This is madness!"
"Have you considered whether Swansea City will even have a proper team tomorrow?"
"Football cannot be solved with money alone."
"You need to understand that, even if you have twenty million pounds, I assu you definitely want to buy better players. But with all due respect, as a Welsh team, Swansea are not strongly attractive within English football."
"Can you use money to make First Division clubs sell players to us?"
"And would those players even be willing to co?"
"Players who can start regularly in the First Division—why would they co to play in the Third Division?"
"Mr. Lynn, what you're doing right now is impulsive and idealistic. It is completely disconnected from reality!"
After listening to Matthew Bode, Lynn could not help applauding him.
He gestured toward Bode and nodded.
"See? This is what negotiation should sound like. Now we're getting to the point."
"Yes, I carried out a player clearout at the club. But have you thought about why?"
"Of course I know we need to bring in new players after clearing out the squad. And as Matthew said, it will be as hard as climbing to heaven for us to poach first-team players from First Division clubs right now. Perhaps so players would co, but they would definitely demand a huge signing-on fee from ."
"I'm not an idiot."
"But have you considered one question? On this matter, between you and , who is more professional?"
"You are supporters. Supporters for many years. But which of you has received formal football coaching education?"
"I have."
"Let show you. This is the coaching licence I obtained this year."
"To get it, I spent four years of my youth."
"So when it cos to professional matters, I don't want to discuss too much with you. I have my own plans and ideas."
"You think I'm just a carefree rich kid. But I devoted ti and energy, and I obtained a coaching licence."
"So let's stop talking about the club's internal operations."
"You only need to know that the club's owner is not insane, and that he is injecting twenty million pounds into the team. He will bring the club a better squad, fight for better results, and quickly break free from the mud of lower divisions like the Third Division, Second Division, and First Division—leagues that are not worth boasting about or being satisfied with."
"We are going to play in the Premier League."
"We are going to compete in Europe."
"We are going to make supporters all over the world find Swansea on the map of Britain."
"This is what I am doing, and what I plan to achieve."
"I am very clear-headed."
"You should also clear your heads and do what you are supposed to do. Do your part."
"And that is to support ."
"Support the club as it says goodbye to the past and enters a new era!"
The coaching licence that Lynn threw onto the table made the five supporter representatives look at one another.
This was a scene they had not expected at all.
It genuinely shocked them.
This rich young man actually had a coaching licence!
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