Garcia started the update and entered G11 Sports Management Ltd.

The platform accepted the company details, then moved to the registration section. Most of it was routine: identity information, contact address, company details, agent licence details, compliance declaration, conflict-of-interest declaration, and the registration fee. Because his old profile was still attached to his previous agency, the platform also asked him to confirm that he was no longer operating under that company.

That part was cold, but simple.

The conduct section was the only part that made him stop. It asked whether he had ever been sanctioned, suspended, struck off, or investigated by a football authority or sports governing body.

Garcia stared at the question for a while.

The honest answer was no. No football authority had sanctioned him, his licence had not been suspended, and no sports governing body had opened an investigation into him. What happened in that conference room had ruined his name, but officially, it remained an internal workplace dispute.

He selected No, then moved to the final confirmation page.

Every answer looked clean. Every field was complete. Every fee had been paid. Garcia checked the application from top to bottom, then submitted it before he could start second-guessing things that were already true.

The page loaded.

Agency Authority Registration Submitted.

Status: Pending Review.

Estimated Review Time: 7–14 business days.

Garcia stared at the status for a while.

Pending.

It was a small word for an ugly kind of helplessness.

He had filled the forms, paid the fee, updated the affiliation, and answered the conduct questions honestly. There was nothing left to correct and nothing else to submit.

For now, his return to football belonged to someone on the other side of the screen.

The waiting was the hardest part because there was nothing useful to fight.

Every morning, Garcia opened the platform before he left the bedroom.

Status: Pending Review.

The next morning, the same.

Status: Pending Review.

No message. No request for correction. No rejection. Nothing that gave him a target to attack or a problem to solve.

Just pending.

His father asked once over dinner whether there was any news, and Garcia said no. His father nodded and left it there.

His mother said less about football now, but she still watched him. Not with the same fear from the night in the living room, but with the careful attention of someone trying to decide whether hope was helping him or hurting him.

Garcia did not give either of them much to question. He woke early, opened his laptop, filled his notebook, and kept his routine steady.

Ten days later, the platform still had not changed.

Status: Pending Review.

By then, Garcia had stopped refreshing it every hour. Watching the same status all day only made the room feel smaller.

So he worked on the only part of the agency that did not need approval yet.

Preparation.

Mid-July gave him something to work with. Clubs were entering pre-season, trial notices were opening, lower-league fixtures were being listed, and academy release lists were starting to surface.

Garcia did not contact anyone.

Not yet.

He only built the map.

He marked trial dates, open sessions, youth showcases, and pre-season friendlies where released academy players were likely to appear. He noted which clubs had gaps in their youth squads, which non-league sides were giving minutes to trialists, and which lower-league managers had a history of taking chances on rejected academy boys.

Some events were too far away. Some were already full. Some looked like traps for desperate families willing to pay a fee for nothing.

Garcia crossed those out.

By the end of the tenth day, his notebook had dates, locations, club names, and possible routes back into football.

That morning, he opened the platform again.

Status: Pending Review.

Garcia closed the tab and pulled the notebook closer.

There were three trials happening before the end of the week that looked worth checking out.

He wrote them onto a fresh page, then checked the train routes..

The approval came two mornings later.

His phone buzzed on the table beside the bed before his alarm did. Garcia reached for it half asleep, saw the sender, and was awake at once.

It was from the football authority platform. The subject line was four words.

Agency Authority Review Decision

He sat up and opened it before he had finished bracing for a rejection.

It was not a rejection.

Agency Authority Review Complete. G11 Sports Management Ltd has been approved as a registered football agency. Linked Agent: Gabriel Garcia Status: Approved.

He read it once.

Then again.

Then three months of it broke out of him all at once.

"YES!"

Garcia was on his feet before he knew he had stood, his fist driving down through the air. The shout came out far louder than he meant it to, and he did not care.

For the first time since the glass conference room, something had gone his way. It had his name on it and no one else’s.

A moment later his mother’s voice came down the hall, sharp with alarm.

"Garcia? What is it? What’s wrong?"

He almost laughed, because this time the answer was easy, and this time it was real.

"Nothing’s wrong," he called back. "It’s good. The agency went through. It’s approved."

There was a pause. Then footsteps, and his mother appeared in the doorway, still half braced for bad news.

He turned the phone around and showed her the screen.

She did not understand all of it, but she understood the word approved, and she understood the look on his face, which she had not seen on him in a long time.

"It’s really happening," she said quietly.

"It’s really happening."

She did not smile, not all the way, but the worry in her shoulders dropped a notch.

"Then come and eat," she said. "You can’t run an agency fainting."

She went back down the hall.

Garcia sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the email again.

He still had no clients. He still had no office beyond an address that forwarded his post, no income, and a name that was as ruined in the industry today as it had been yesterday.

But the agency was real now. It was approved, and it carried Gabriel Garcia at the top of it instead of buried inside someone else’s client list.

Then the panel appeared in front of him, bright and silent and meant for him alone.

[Main Mission Completed]

Mission: Create a football agency.

Objective Complete: Football agency legally registered and approved by football authority.

Rewards:

— Skill Points +100

— Scouting SP +10

— Network SP +5

The numbers moved as he watched.

[Agent Stats Updated]

Scouting: D — 420 / 1500 SP → 430 / 1500

SP Network: Damaged — 40 / 100 → 45 / 100

Skill Points: 0 → 100

It was a small change, and Garcia knew it. Ten points of scouting and five of network undid nothing on their own.

But the direction had reversed for the first time in months. The numbers were climbing now instead of falling.

Then one last line wrote itself across the bottom of the panel.

[System Update] Skill Shop Unlocked.

Garcia looked at those two words for a long time.