Football Dynasty-Chapter 525: Manchester City Makes Headlines

Thanks to Richard’s schedule and his parents’ New Year vacation, Harry, Richard’s brother, had to postpone their Christmas and New Year family dinner to January. It was a small change, but it meant a lot to the family, because every year they tried their best to stay connected and keep the tradition going.

"Hello there, Jarred,’" Richard said softly, gently holding his newborn nephew’s tiny hand. His fingers were warm and careful, as if he was afraid even the slightest movement might disturb the fragile little life resting in front of him.

After a delightful dinner, he dashed upstairs and came down with a pile of gift boxes, acting like an elder giving out Christmas presents to the younger ones, including Rowling’s daughter, who had also been invited to the dinner.

"I’m sorry for inviting you over so suddenly. I wasn’t sure if it would put you in an awkward position, since you’re very busy," Richard said helplessly.

Richard had invited Miss Rowling because his mother missed Jessica, her daughter. She also wanted to introduce their family to their newest member, baby Jarred.

"Don’t worry about it. I actually liked it," Rowling said, amused. "At least now I know I’m still welcomed by your family."

Rowling had a flexible work schedule, which allowed her to make time to visit. In past years, she had spent Christmas at her sister’s house, and although she was with family, she often felt a little lonely since it was only her sister and her husband. The last three years, however, were different. After getting to know Richard and his family, visiting the Maddox family felt warm and lively — especially since Jessica had made a new friend and found older figures who looked after her like their own.

"Uncle, is it a little brother? He’s so tiny!" said Jessica Rowling.

Richard chuckled softly and knelt beside her, holding the newborn a little higher so she could see.

"Yes, that’s your little brother," he said gently. "His name is Jarred. Want to say hello?"

Jessica’s eyes widened with wonder as she leaned closer, her voice dropping into a careful whisper, as if she thought loud sounds might break him. "Hi, Jarred..."

The room grew warmer with quiet laughter. Someone snapped a photo. Someone else poured more tea. For a brief moment, the noise of the world outside faded, and all that existed was the soft breathing of a baby and the fragile, golden feeling of a family holding itself together.

The scene also brought a smile to Ms. Rowling’s face.

As she arrived at Maddox Square Garden, previously known as Wilmington Square Garden, she carried several copies of a Harry Potter novel, each one neatly signed with her signature. Along with the special books, she also brought small, thoughtful gifts for everyone else.

Harry, though, was generous; he had prepared a collection of expensive gifts to give away. He chose a Cartier necklace for Rowling, and for his brother Richard, he gifted an impressive suburban mansion in London.

Richard was speechless when he saw the mansion. Still, he accepted the present happily, even though he wasn’t interested in living in a multimillion-pound home. It seemed too troublesome and too far from the training facility. He preferred living in Manchester.

Right at 9:00 p.m., it was time for the kids to sleep. Richard and Harry were already standing, preparing to head to the office to discuss a few matters.

The first issue was Maddox Entertainment. The Spice Girls had achieved huge success in North America and were planning a global tour right after the New Year. The concert schedule was overwhelming — dozens of performances lined up throughout the year.

"What about your new boy band?" Richard asked.

"Westlife?" Harry said, then sighed. "Luckily, you reminded me to change their name before we started promotions. Otherwise, we would have wasted millions."

The group Richard was asking about had originally been called Westside, but they renamed themselves to Westlife after Richard suggested checking whether the name was already in use. Sure enough, there was an existing band with that name.

"If we’d gone ahead with ’Westside,’ we’d be dealing with lawsuits instead of albums," Harry added with a tired laugh.

The newly formed Westlife had signed a four-million-pound record deal with Maddox Entertainment.

"We’ve already lined them up to perform as the opening act for Boyzone and the Backstreet Boys concerts in Dublin," Harry said, scrolling through a stack of schedules.

Performing in front of massive crowds who had come for established stars meant the boys would either rise under pressure or be swallowed by it. But Richard believed in these guys.

"They need to learn fast," Richard replied calmly. "Big stages don’t wait for anyone."

Harry nodded. "That’s why we’re throwing them straight into the fire. If they survive this, they’ll be ready for anything."

Seeing Harry still busy with documents about Westlife, Richard decided to pick up The Independent newspaper that had been sent to him.

From the monthly report, he saw that the sales of The Independent had picked up after serializing Harry Potter in their newly launched small-format newspaper. Richard often spoke about the importance of redesigning The Independent.

Since acquiring The Independent, the first of his "three tricks" — adding a fiction column — had played a very effective role. Sales had gradually increased from the initial 185,000 copies to around 210,000 copies. This could be considered the largest short-term increase in sales for The Independent in the past decade. Before that, circulation had been steadily declining.

This development naturally gave hope to everyone at the Independent Newspaper Company, especially the editor-in-chief, Whitney, who had now been completely convinced by Richard’s vision.

According to the agreement he had signed with INM Group when acquiring The Independent, £1 million of the £5 million to be paid within half a year had already been received.

Richard planned to use all of this money on the revamp of The Independent. After all, launching a small-format edition and printing the entire newspaper in color both required significant funding.

In the early stages, The Independent planned to introduce more small-format editions to the market. If the response was positive, they would gradually shift the publication from large-format newspapers to small-format newspapers.

In addition, for the electronic version of the newspaper, they had begun recruiting technical staff and editors to build the official website. The website had to be well designed, and Richard told them they must always think from the readers’ perspective and try their best to give them the best reading experience.

Based on his understanding of how successful newspapers would be digitized in the future, he had already considered one key question: what makes readers stay and keep coming back?

The answer was clear — more pictures and a more casual, conversational writing style. The electronic version would mainly target young people, who were the primary Internet users. Their reading habits showed that they disliked overly long and overly formal texts, so this had to be considered.

Richard was not too worried about The Independent’s ability in layout design. Among UK newspapers, its front page could be considered one of the most unique, often giving readers a bright and refreshing feeling. This was because they had a dedicated team focused solely on designing front pages to capture maximum attention. However, he knew that the Internet was different from past challenges.

Radio and television had once worried publishers, but those media had not destroyed newspapers as badly as people had expected. The Internet, however, was different. At present, it was still limited to personal computers, and people needed a home computer to go online. This naturally limited the number of users.

Most Internet users were still young people, who were not the main audience of traditional newspapers. But things would change in the future. With the rise of smartphones, people would be able to access the Internet anytime and anywhere. Mobile Internet would take up more and more of people’s time, and the user base would expand, even allowing older generations to go online more easily.

That would be the most difficult time for paper media. Still, Richard believed that no matter how much self-media developed, people would always need authoritative, in-depth reporting and interpretation. The Independent still had enough time to transform itself from a traditional paper newspaper into a serious content producer in the Internet era.

Richard sat back, satisfied as he skimmed through the morning papers in front of him. A faint smile rested on his face. Well, that was before he saw one headline.

His smile vanished instantly.

Harry, who was checking the schedule, suddenly felt the temperature in the room shift. The air went cold. He lifted his head and looked over — and was taken aback by Richard’s expression.

"What happe—?"

"I’m going to my room."

Richard cut him off before he could finish. He didn’t wait for an answer. He turned sharply and walked straight to his room, closing the door behind him with quiet finality.

Harry didn’t stop him.

He knew that look.

Something was very wrong.

After a moment, Harry’s eyes drifted back to the newspaper Richard had been holding.

The headline stared back at him: [Manchester City Player Caught Clubbing With...]

Somewhere in a London suburb near Canary Wharf~

After returning home, the current Editor-in-Chief of The Independent, Mr. Whitney, took a shower and prepared for bed. Yet, even as he lay down, his mind kept drifting back to the article scheduled for publication the next morning.

"ITV should be a good angle," he muttered to himself.

Lost in thought, he eventually fell asleep. His rest was short-lived. A sharp ringtone cut through the silence of the apartment — a call arriving just before 11 p.m.

Groggily, he grabbed his phone. When he saw the caller ID, his heart tightened. It was his new boss. He answered — and the first thing he heard was Richard’s heavy, unfamiliar voice. Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

"What happened to the article at The Independent about the Manchester City Christmas party?"

Mr. Whitney jolted upright. Pajamas forgotten, mind fully awake, he rushed towards his work desk, hastily throwing on a coat as cold air crept through the apartment. His hands trembled as he opened the already-released file on his laptop.

On the other end of the line, Richard gripped the sofa. His face was a mix of disbelief, shock, and anger — emotions slowly twisting into suspicion.

"Where did you hear this?"

"Ah, I–I..." Mr. Whitney stammered.

There was a brief silence.

Richard exhaled slowly. He realized he had been too sharp — too emotional. That never helped.

His fingers loosened around the edge of the sofa, and when he spoke again, his voice was lower, controlled, professional.

"I’m not blaming you," he said. Then, more firmly, "In fact, I support you publishing this. As I promised, I won’t intervene — as long as you follow proper editorial and legal standards."

On the other end of the line, Mr. Whitney let out a quiet sigh of relief. With that reassurance, he turned back toward his desk and tell Richard.

"I’ve been the editor-in-chief for a long time, and I also handled club promotions, so I’ve built quite a few connections. Someone from The Sun informed me about this last week. It’s not something that can be covered up. That’s why I decided to buy the story at a high price — because it involved Manchester City."

He hesitated slightly.

"Ehm... Mr. Richard, to be honest, I already told you about this, and you agreed to publish it."

"I did?" Richard was taken aback. "When?"

"Three days ago."

Three days ago?

Only then did Richard slap his forehead. He had been so busy dealing with O’Neill’s dismissal that he had absentmindedly agreed to everything his editor-in-chief had said.

"I’m very sorry for my outburst earlier," Richard said with a sigh of remorse after hearing this.

Hearing Richard apologize surprised Mr. Whitney. In his eyes, his new boss was nothing like the "aristocratic businessman" he had once imagined. He was full of energy every single day, with an impossibly packed schedule. Not only did he shuttle between multiple industries, he still took time out of his day to attend important meetings related to The Independent.

Usually, when someone reaches a certain status — like Richard, who now controlled multiple industries — they rarely involve themselves in direct operations. Most of what they do is long-term planning and strategy. For investments, they normally hire specialists to manage everything for them.

If Richard had heard Mr. Whitney’s thoughts, he might have complained.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to step back. The problem was that his current businesses — whether in media, car, or investments — all required careful, hands-on management just to get them onto the right track. He simply couldn’t afford to buy already well-run companies. They were too expensive, even with the funds he currently had. Unless it was a company in crisis — like Adidas — those were the only ones he could realistically take over and rebuild.

So, at least for now, he had no choice but to rely on himself.

Only the traditional family industries, like hotels, were more stable and didn’t require constant interference from him. After all, those hospitality businesses already had established systems in place long before he took over. He only needed to occasionally make sure they stayed on the right track.

Richard braced himself against the bed and asked in a deep voice, "What exactly happened?"

Mr. Whitney glanced at the laptop screen before answering. "On the night of December 26th, just before 11 p.m., one of our freelance reporters saw several Manchester City players entering a private nightclub. He followed from a distance and observed for about an hour. He managed to take a series of photographs."

Richard did not interrupt.

"From what he could see," Whitney continued, "there were other men there — likely friends or acquaintances. There were also a number of women present. It’s unclear who they were exactly, but the reporter believes some were hired escorts."

Richard’s grip tightened slightly, keeping his voice calm and steady, "Who was there?"

"I’ve seen some photos, and I can confirm the names of those I recognized: Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Frank Lampard, Fabio Cannavaro, Richard Wright, Paul Merson, Ashley Cole, Paul Robinson, Neil Ruddock, Jason McAteer, and David Trezeguet. However, I haven’t seen all of the photos — there are supposed to be others, like Vassell and Jeffers. I can’t say for certain how many stayed the whole time or left early; I don’t have that information."

Richard repeated each name Mr. Whitney mentioned, his head hanging lower as he forced a bitter smile.

"Ronaldo again? No wonder he hasn’t scored. And Ronaldinho..." His mouth twitched. "And most of our players? Ha! Thirty women — do they even have that kind of money?"

Mr. Whitney coughed and added more carefully, speaking softly, "It’s said the women charge several hundred pounds each. The total expense for a single night was close to £200,000. Didn’t you know?"

Richard smirked coldly.

"Why would I know that? If I were to throw a party, I wouldn’t settle for women who think a few hundred pounds means anything. If I’m going to play, I’d want the best."

Mr. Whitney choked slightly.

"Sorry. That was just anger talking." taking a deep breath, Richard straightened up and apologized.

"They’re the ones who should be ashamed," Mr. Whitney said. "You don’t need to carry that."

Richard’s eyes darkened.

"That’s exactly why I’m even angrier," he said.

Given the club’s current league form...

He paused, then added, more firmly:

"I think I need to tell the coach what the players’ real priorities should be."