Such a vote was launched in the Liverpool fan community and was quickly forwarded by well-known media such as Sky Sports.
"Should Liverpool sign Chen Xiaoliang at all costs?"
As more and more people joined the voting, the results of the voting changed in interesting ways.
At first, when the voting was limited to the Liverpool fan community, the votes were almost unanimous "yes", reaching nearly 93% at one point. Only a few fans thought that the money for Chen Xiaoliang could be used to buy 2-3 more practical players, or that Liverpool could not afford Chen Xiaoliang.
However, after Sky Sports reposted the article, the percentage of people in favor dropped sharply, eventually falling to 26%.
The reason is very simple, fans from other clubs flocked in.
Many people left comments below:
"No, Liverpool shouldn't have bought him, Manchester United should have bought him."
"Go to Manchester to be Aveiro's younger brother? If he comes to Manchester City, he will definitely become a midfield master under Guardiola."
"I'll just take a look. Although I really want it, I don't think my factory can afford it."
"If you want to win the Ballon d'Or, you have to come to Real Madrid, the best club in the world."
Although it is the opening match of the Champions League, it is a group match after all. No matter how high the attention on this game is, it will not attract the attention of fans all over Europe.
But after the scores of 2-0 and 3-0, many fans who had not originally watched the game were attracted. They never expected that Liverpool would be beaten like this by Roma, and all of them witnessed the scene of Chen Xiaoliang running from the backcourt to the frontcourt and cooperating with Abraham to score the fourth goal.
No fan can refuse such a player. After many people clicked "no" under Liverpool's vote, they went to their own team's social accounts to strongly suggest that the club buy Chen Xiaoliang.
And one person actually took action.
He is Chelsea's new owner, American Todd Burleigh, whose ranking on the world's richest list is very close to that of Roma chairman Dan Friedkin, both in the 500-600 range, with a net worth of nearly $5 billion.
But as someone who has invested in the MLB (Major League Baseball) Los Angeles Dodgers, NBA Los Angeles Lakers and WNBA Los Angeles Sparks in the United States, his investment in Chelsea is much crazier than that of the Friedkin family.
Perhaps the word that should be used to describe Burleigh's smashing is not crazy, but violent.
He only took over the team in May this year and spent a staggering 282 million euros in the summer window to buy eight players including Wesley Fofana, Cucurella, Sterling, Koulibaly and Aubameyang. However, Chelsea's performance has plummeted and the club is in a mess. The big purchases have not brought about a rapid improvement in the league standings.
After firing the meritorious coach Tuchel and poaching Brighton coach Graham Potter to take charge of the first team, he actually promised the new coach that after the World Cup and the winter transfer window opens, he will spend another 300 million euros to continue buying the players the team needs.
Obviously, Burley, who was eager to bring Chelsea back to the forefront of the Premier League, was also watching this game. He directly asked his secretary to send a naked and straightforward winter transfer invitation to Roma in his own name, seeking to buy Chen Xiaoliang.
Why in his own name? Because he is currently also the club's transfer director, and the German Christopher Weville, the sports director of Leipzig Red Bull, whom he tried hard to invite, is also confirmed to join Chelsea to help the Blues replicate the Red Bull model established by Rangnick and be in charge of the global scout network and youth talent discovery system.
Haaland, Nkunku, Gwadiol, Cesco, all of these people have benefited from the youth player training system headed by Vivil.
But Borri didn't want to wait, so he sent a 150 million euro, ten-year contract to Pinto via email, without specifying that no bargaining was allowed.
Pinto was dumbfounded at first. He didn't expect that the battle to defend Chen Xiaoliang would start so soon. It was originally expected that it would not start until the end of the winter transfer window in February next year.
Because many outstanding players will definitely emerge in the World Cup, they will become the protagonists of the winter window. At the same time, with Roma's current state, there should be no problem in reaching the knockout stage of the Champions League, and Chen Xiaoliang is unlikely to leave the team in the winter window.
But when Pinto calmed down and looked at the ten-year contract plus installments, he understood why Burley was so crazy about buying and how he could circumvent UEFA and the Premier League's Financial Fair Play regulations.
It’s still what Americans are best at, using one law to exploit loopholes in another law.
Simply put, it is a "long-term contract."
Although FIFA and UEFA have long had clear rules to restrict the big clubs from using extremely long contracts to share costs, FIFA even clearly stipulates that the maximum contract limit for professional players is 5 years, but this is not absolute.
Although football is the world's number one sport with unparalleled influence, FIFA is essentially just an industry organization, a larger organization that still cannot override the laws of any country.
If the player's country allows workers to sign labor contracts of more than five years, the club can completely overcome FIFA's obstacles through legal means.
For three players over 25 years old, Koulibaly, Sterling and Aubameyang, Burley signed five-year contracts. After all, these three players will be over 30 years old after the end of the contract, and too long a contract is not beneficial to the club.
For players under the age of 25, all the contracts given by Burley are longer than 5 years.
For a player like Chen Xiaoliang who is only 18 years old, he will be 28 years old in ten years, still in his prime. Whether it is investment or competition, it is a sure win for the club unless he suffers a serious injury.
Of course, Burley would not be stupid enough to challenge the bottom line and face of FIFA and UEFA by directly signing a 10-year contract.
For example, in the case of Chen Xiaoliang, if the transfer is successful, when Chelsea applies for a work permit for Chen Xiaoliang in the UK, the reported contract is 10 years, but the implementation method is 5 plus 5.
If the local labor department asks why they do this, Chelsea will answer that it is to fully protect the interests of the players and give them a chance to negotiate new labor negotiations after five years to cope with adverse factors such as rising prices or currency depreciation caused by inflation.
Protect human rights, financial rights, and freedom without breaking the law.
This answer is both reasonable and politically correct, and it is also commonplace in industries other than football. After all, the UK's work permit system is not just for professional players. This system is legislated to protect the job opportunities of domestic workers and prevent a large influx of foreign workers. For the labor department, foreign players are only a small part of their daily work.
Therefore, after obtaining the legal approval documents from the UK labor department, the Premier League Committee no longer had any possibility of obstruction.
Again, government bills outweigh industry regulations.
Then, the contract that Chelsea reported to FIFA and UEFA was for five years, but there was a renewal clause in it.
The terms can also be set to be reasonable and without loopholes.
For example, if the player has played 30 games for the club in the past five years, or helped the club win a championship, or sold 10,000 pieces of his jersey, etc., as long as it appears that the player has contributed to the club, made money, and brought benefits, it is all acceptable.
Of course, if someone feels that even these clauses may not be achievable, they can be set to something simpler, such as players not having any violations such as being late, leaving early, or going on strike for five years.
In essence, it is consistent with the spirit of the clauses set for ordinary company employees in other industries, which automatically renew their contracts if there are no job-related problems such as absenteeism or corruption during the contract period.
Under current laws, FIFA and UEFA have no possibility of rejection. This is the fundamental reason why UEFA warned that Chelsea would be put on the financial fair play key monitoring list but could not come up with any sanctions.
Everyone knows that you are taking advantage of a loophole, but if it is not prohibited by law, it is allowed, so I will do it openly for you to see.
Of course, the players and the opposing clubs are not stupid. Extremely long contracts and extremely long installment payments of transfer fees have their pros and cons, but Burley's solution is also very direct, which is high prices plus high salaries.
For example, if a one-time payment would cost 50 million pounds, and now it has to be paid in installments over 7 years, then it would cost 70 million pounds, and the premium would be regarded as the seven-year loan interest rate.
For example, if a five-year contract is worth £150,000 per week, but now it's a seven-year contract, then it's worth £180,000 per week, but the payment period for the signing fee and loyalty bonus will also be extended.
In short, this is essentially an act of prepaying for future income. Once the team's performance is not ideal and revenue declines, the club will have to bear huge pressure of accounts payable. Unsatisfactory results will also cause the players' value to depreciate. Even if these players are sold at a low price at that time, the installment transfer fees that have not been paid that year still have to continue to be paid.
This is also why FIFA and UEFA have to establish the Financial Fair Play Act. The behind-the-scenes capital that controls the giants will never be stupid enough to take out cash every time to complete every transaction cleanly. But compared to the simpler and more brutal methods of some Middle Eastern countries and clubs, Burley's way of playing is completely legal and completely open.
The simple and crude methods are:
Yin-Yang Contract: Contract A reported to UEFA avoids financial fair play risks, and Contract B makes up for the promised salary.
Third-party money transfer: UEFA stipulates that there is a cap on the board's direct investment in clubs, so the clubs transfer money from one pocket to the right pocket. For example, Qatar Investment Group, through sovereign behavior, made the nominally unrelated Qatar Tourism Authority sign a sky-high sponsorship contract of 200 million euros with Paris Saint-Germain, thereby breaking the capital injection cap.
Consulting business: Similar to the Yin-Yang contract, after a famous coach is introduced at a high price, a small portion of the salary is paid within the club to make the accounts look good. Then, a company that is not nominally related to the coach is asked to provide a business for the coach, usually consulting business, and then a huge consulting fee is paid.
Bribery: The fate of former FIFA President Blatter and UEFA President Platini has revealed that the football world is not clean, and bribery is not as low-level as just giving money. For example, Nasser, the chairman of Paris Saint-Germain, and Bein Group, which is under the Qatar Investment Group, are the main sellers of the Champions League TV broadcasting rights and are also the largest sponsor of UEFA.
This kind of political donation is very common and completely legal in Western society. Compared with the interests behind political elections, the behind-the-scenes deals in football are just dessert after the meal.
Therefore, in recent years, there have been repeated reports that UEFA will conduct a thorough investigation of Paris Saint-Germain, but in the end, all of them turned out to be a lot of noise but little action.
The above three items are just the tip of the iceberg, and new ways of playing are emerging in endlessly.
Football has never been about fighting and killing. It has always been a game of human relationships and capital.
For Americans, who have made their fortunes through financial speculation and have seized profits all over the world, Burleigh's behavior is nothing new in all industries around the world where American capital is involved.
The Glazer family, who are also American, started by holding 3.17% of Manchester United's shares on September 26, 2003, and acquired 98% of Manchester United's shares on June 28, 2005, withdrawing the Red Devils from the London Stock Exchange and completely privatizing them. In total, they spent $1.47 billion, and only 25% of the money was paid by themselves, and the rest was completed through financing.
To put it bluntly, after they acquired Manchester United, they used the club to raise funds to pay the original shareholders the cash they should have received for their equity transfer.
The 25% they paid was also borrowed, which means they transferred all the huge debt to Manchester United.
At that time, the total assets of the Glazer family were less than 1 billion pounds.
When launching a takeover bid for the major shareholders, this plan was strongly opposed by the original shareholders led by Sir Alex Ferguson, but the Glazer family gave the two largest Irish shareholders a price that was hard to refuse, allowing them to successfully take control of this Premier League giant.
In the nearly 20 years since then, the Glazer family not only has not had to pay back a penny of debt and interest, but has also received tens of millions in dividends from Manchester United every year.
What does it mean to win big with a small investment, or to get something for nothing? The Glazer family must have a tactical retreat here.
This is a vivid example. When the United States accuses other countries of using debt traps to control industries in third countries, they are actually the originators of this trick.
So Pinto immediately felt relieved, as the offer was not aggressive at all.
Although the terms of Chen Xiaoliang's contract have not been made public, Pinto knows very well that the 150 million euro termination clause of the foreign club is clearly set and must be paid in one lump sum. Only when this condition is met must Roma unconditionally accept the transfer application.
However, the fans and players on the field did not know all this. Both sides were still immersed in the game, but their moods were completely different.
As usual, Chen Xiaoliang used up a stamina recovery card and devoted himself to the defense in the midfield and backcourt. (6→5)
In the 75th minute, Mourinho replaced Dybala with Zalewski and replaced Celik, who was embarrassed by Luis Dias, with Binya. The game completely entered Liverpool's half-time offensive and defensive drills.
Liverpool also made the final adjustment, replacing the isolated Salah with Jota, and replacing Elliott with Arthur.
With Salah leaving the field, Chen Xiaoliang's superstar mission in this game has temporarily stopped at 2/5 of the progress. The result will be known only when the sixth round of the group stage moves to Anfield, Liverpool's home ground.
The last attack of the game took place in the 86th minute. After several attempts by Luis Diaz to pass the ball to Nunez, Enzo became familiar with the cooperation between the two. When Nunez was about to move out to receive the pass from his teammate, Enzo predicted it in advance and made a reverse run to block the ball.
Thiago on the side grabbed the bouncing ball and passed it to Arthur who had just come on the field. The midfielder who transferred from Juventus wanted to pass it to Jota, but was blocked by Gvardiol.
Thiago and Arthur came over to compete for the second point, but Chen Xiaoliang jumped high and headed the ball out. Then he caught up with the ball before Fabinho and launched a counterattack.
The three men each disrupted Liverpool's attack once, and they were like a solid wall blocking the direction of the Red Army's attack, making them doomed to defeat in the ancient city of Rome.
This time, Chen Xiaoliang did not choose to run wildly by himself. Instead, he passed the ball from behind to Abraham, who was already running in the opponent's half and had created distance between him and the two central defenders.
So, Abraham ran, Matip and Van Dijk chased, but the pace and speed of the three's sprint were obviously much slower than in the first 20 minutes of the first half.
Finally, seeing that Matip had caught up to a position parallel to him, Abraham simply stopped, let Matip move forward, then cut inside with his right foot and completed a long arc shot at the top of the penalty area, but the speed and angle of the ball were very average, and was easily caught by Alisson on the small penalty area line.
The final score was 4-1. "Roma Sports" immediately published an article saying that this was Roma's greatest game since 2018 when they reversed Barcelona 3-0 at home and 4-4 on aggregate and reached the semi-finals of the Champions League by relying on away goals.
At the same time, the three major European bookmakers all raised Roma's odds of winning the Champions League from fifth among all teams to third together with Paris Saint-Germain, second only to Manchester City and Real Madrid.
After the game, Chen Xiaoliang, who performed superbly on both offense and defense and deservedly won the man of the game, was called by Mourinho to attend the post-match press conference.
Faced with the reporter's high-profile outlook, Mourinho acted calmly, while Chen Xiaoliang answered calmly.
He did not deliberately say that Roma performed above their level today. He also admitted that with a full lineup, Roma this season is stronger than last season. But one thing is true tonight, this Liverpool team is facing huge difficulties and is not playing at the level they should have.
When talking about several new teammates, Enzo, Kwa and Gwadiol, Chen Xiaoliang did not hesitate to praise them, saying that it was the arrival of these people that made the team very balanced and had sufficient lineup depth.
But at this moment, reporters from the British Daily Telegraph received the latest media news. Romano, the most well-known reporter on transfers, got first-hand news about Chelsea's offer for Chen Xiaoliang and posted it on his personal social media.
The reporter immediately asked Mourinho a question, which completely exploded the press conference that was originally a bit like a routine question-and-answer session! The other reporters had just learned the news!
Mourinho and Chen Xiaoliang looked at each other, both very confused. However, The Daily Telegraph was not the kind of toilet newspaper that relied on hearsay, especially when it came to exposing football scandals. Their sources of content were very reliable, and Romano became famous in European football because he almost never failed to release news about transfers.
Watching the reporter give a detailed introduction to the components of the 150 million transfer fee, the ten-year contract and other information, Mourinho thought about it and decided to let Chen Xiaoliang answer the reporter's questions himself.
In the past, he would have snatched the microphone or even left the field directly to protect the players, but Chen Xiaoliang is different. His importance to Roma and his weight in the hearts of the fans are not something that the head coach can answer on his behalf to reassure the fans.
Chen Xiaoliang unscrewed the water bottle on the table and took a sip, then smiled faintly: "No matter what kind of job or industry you do, it is a happy thing to be recognized by the outside world, whether it is fans, the media, or other clubs."
"But this is Roma's post-match press conference for the Champions League, not my personal press conference, and it has nothing to do with transfers."
"I just learned about this news and have not had the opportunity to confirm it with the club staff. However, I would like to take this opportunity to tell the outside world that I am not interested in any transfer at the moment. The season has just begun and my goal is to help the team achieve good results in various competitions."
The two then ended the press conference and left the meeting room.
Compared to them who were still relatively relaxed, Klopp's experience at the press conference was much more severe.
A crushing defeat left the Premier League giants humiliated, with the aging midfield and backcourt being completely destroyed by Roma's youth storm. A reporter even asked Klopp directly, if Mourinho had not replaced Kwa too early and actively withdrawn Chen Xiaoliang, how many more goals did he think Roma could have scored in this game?
Klopp was stuck in a dilemma. Even though he wanted to leave, UEFA and the club had requirements for him. He had to sit for a certain time or answer a certain number of questions before he could leave. This was related to the promotion of the event and the image of the club.
In this round of the Champions League, in another match of Group A that took place later, Salzburg Red Bull drew 1-1 with Glasgow Rangers at home, and both teams got 1 point.
After the first round, Roma ranked first in Group A with 3 points, Glasgow Rangers temporarily ranked second thanks to away goals, Salzburg ranked third, and Liverpool, which lost, temporarily ranked last.
On the second night, the other four groups of matches were all played, with Inter Milan losing 0-2 to the Bundesliga giant Bayern Munich at home;
AC Milan tied Ajax 1-1 away from home;
Paris Saint-Germain defeated Juventus 2-1 at home.
The other big teams, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Barcelona, ​​Tottenham all won, but Chelsea got off to a bad start, losing to Dinamo Zagreb by 1 goal away from home...
This defeat also made Chelsea owner Burley more determined to sign Chen Xiaoliang. He directly admitted in an interview that his transfer offer was rejected by Roma, and stressed that he would not give up and would continue to offer a higher price to Roma.
Riise also quietly told Chen Xiaoliang that Chelsea's transfer representative had contacted him privately and promised to offer Chen Xiaoliang a weekly salary of 330,000 pounds, slightly lower than Haaland's, which is equivalent to an annual salary of about 21 million euros, which is almost twice his income in Roma, and also comes with a bonus clause of 5 million pounds.
This number is definitely the highest salary in Serie A, and is far ahead of the second place. However, in the Premier League, he still ranks behind Cristiano Ronaldo, De Bruyne, De Gea, Haaland, Sancho, Salah and Varane.
Chen Xiaoliang ignored it. If it was next summer, he would definitely consider it, but now is really not a suitable time. In addition, the process of playing for two teams made him fully understand one thing: working with a certain head coach will seriously affect his future development.
Roma provided him everything within their capacity, and Mourinho also gave him absolute trust. These two things alone are not enough to impress him with the annual salary.
Changing coaches is like changing knives in the minority. Looking at the history of Liverpool over the past 30 years and the ups and downs of Manchester United in the nearly 10 years after Sir Alex Ferguson retired, it is really not an easy thing for a top club to meet the right head coach.
He doesn't want to jump into the big fire pit that Chelsea is in now.
But this made the fans of Roma and supporters of several other big clubs very happy.
"Chelsea was PASSED, but we still have a chance!"
Even the American media across the ocean reported the news that Chelsea's sky-high transfer was rejected, and said that in the summer of 2023, Chen Xiaoliang's transfer will become the most important event affecting the future pattern of football and basketball in the next ten years, just like Wenban Yama's draft.