False Nine

5

There was a knock at the door of my hotel room. I opened my eyes and stared out of the window at my Standard Room view. It wasn’t much different from the view in the Presidential Suite except for the fact that there seemed to be a little more cloud at this level. Then again, maybe that was just my outlook on the day. Cloudy with a chance of aggro.

‘Go away,’ I shouted. ‘I’m trying to sleep.’

There was another knock and this time I picked up my iPhone and with the help of the translation app, I shouted the Chinese equivalent, ‘Likai! Likai!’ It sounded more polite than ‘fuck off’, which is what I felt like saying. My love affair with China was definitely over.

‘Mr Manson?’ said a man’s voice. ‘I need to speak with you on a matter of grave importance.’

‘If you’re from the newspapers you can sod off.’

‘I am not from the newspapers, Mr Manson. I promise you. Please, can we talk? Just for a minute. I can assure you that it will be to your advantage.’

The man’s English was good enough to persuade me that the least I could do was answer the door and hear him out.

I slipped off the bed and opened the door to reveal a Chinese man in his late forties. He was wearing a pair of jeans, sunglasses and a black leather jacket; around his neck were several silver necklaces and on his thin, bony fingers was a selection of grotesque rings. He looked like a Chinese version of Keith Richards.

‘Scott Manson?’

‘Yes.’

‘Forgive me, Mr Manson. In the circumstances I know this will sound like a very strange question, but have we ever met before?’

‘It’s you that’s knocking on my hotel room door, remember?’

‘Please, if you could just answer the question. Before just now, had we ever met before?’

I thought for moment. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘You’re quite sure about that?’

‘What is all this? You’re not a policeman, are you? You sound like a policeman.’

‘No, I’m not a policeman. But please. Just answer the question.’

‘No, I’m sure we haven’t met before. I think I might have remembered the necklaces and the rings. Not to mention the David Beckham aftershave.’

‘Too much?’

I shrugged. ‘Depends if you like it or not. As it happens I don’t. I think it might have been made by the same people who made his whisky. It’s all alcohol and not much else.’

‘Perhaps you’re right.’ The man smiled. ‘So then. Let me introduce myself, Mr Manson. My name is Jack Kong Jia. I own the Nine Dragons Mining Company.’

He paused for a moment to allow this information to sink in. Which it did. I felt a huge weight start to descend on my head. It reminded me of a time when I’d had a kick-about for a telly programme using one of those old leather footballs with laces. It had been waterlogged and when you headed it the thing was like a bloody cannonball. When you play with a ball like that you wonder how any of those lads on Gillette Soccer Saturday can manage to string two words together. Maybe that’s the real reason ITV ended Saint and Greavsie.

‘Since you admit that we’ve never met before, you’ll also admit that I couldn’t possibly have hired you to be the manager of the Shanghai Xuhui Nine Dragons football club.’

‘I don’t understand. You say that you’re Jack Kong Jia?’

‘I don’t say it. I am Jack Kong Jia. Yes, that’s correct, Mr Manson. I am he. I can see you still don’t believe me. Let me prove it to you.’

He handed me his passport and after my initial surprise that a Chinese passport should be in Chinese and English I felt my heart sink as I saw that his name was indeed Jack Kong Jia. The passport also said that he was a businessman, and that he was unmarried.

‘So who was guy I met before?’

‘Did he show you his passport?’

‘No.’

‘Then it may be that we shall never know. But if I might come in for a moment then perhaps we can find an answer to these and other questions.’

‘Yes, sure. Please. I think you better had.’

Inside my room he collected the remote control off the bedside table and switched on the television. ‘Let me show something. Just to banish any further doubts you might have about who I really am.’ He searched through the channels. ‘As it happens,’ he added, ‘I’m currently on the Bloomberg Channel, on a series called Market Makers, talking about the uncertain future of the Chinese economy and our very overvalued stock market which is in line for a correction. Yes. Here we are. I am in conversation with Stephanie Ruhle. She’s rather attractive, don’t you think?’

I watched for a moment — just long enough to realise that he was probably who he said he was — and then handed him back his passport.

‘You begin to see the problem,’ he said, switching off the TV.

I nodded. ‘Shit, I knew there was something wrong the minute I got off the plane. I was supposed to have been paid a signing-on fee which never arrived.’

‘In business I always say that the only thing you can trust these days is the money. A man’s word is worth absolutely nothing next to the certainty of a CHAPS transfer.’

‘And there was to be a medical, too.’

‘A medical?’ Jack Kong Jia laughed. ‘For you? This is not necessary for a manager. Even for a player this would be possible to fix. Frankly I can fix anything here in Shanghai. Especially a medical. I should know.’ He grinned. ‘I have a minor heart condition — a hole in the heart — that somehow never shows up on my regular health check. Although everyone now knows about this.’

‘I’m wise after the event on that one, I’m afraid. Look, I don’t get it. Why would someone want to make me look a fool like this? In China?’

‘Not you, Mr Manson. This isn’t really about you at all. I’m sorry to disappoint you on that score. This is all about me. Someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to impersonate me and embarrass my company. You’re just the fall guy in all this. Which I very much regret as I was an admirer of yours when you were managing London City.’

‘But I went to the club,’ I said. ‘We watched a match against Guangzhou Evergrande in a private box. I had a tour of the Yu Garden stadium the next day. I even met some the players. It all seemed so plausible.’

‘The box was probably one of our top executive hospitality packages. The one with the hostess girls? And the Krug champagne?’

I nodded.

‘As for the private tour of the stadium, with a player-meet, this costs five thousand yuan. About five hundred pounds. No, you’ve been had, Mr Manson. And had good, too. The man hired to impersonate me was an actor, probably. A man with some ability, it seems, since I don’t assume for a moment that you’re a complete idiot.’

‘Fuck,’ I said.

‘Exactly so.’

‘If he’s an actor then perhaps we can trace him. He’s committed fraud.’

Mr Jia — the real Mr Jia — smiled a smile of pity. ‘There are twenty million people who live in Shanghai,’ he said. ‘Even if we could find him, what would be the point? The damage is already done.’

‘But why? Why would someone do this?’

‘Oh, it’s simple enough. You see, I — my club — was about to hire two new players from English clubs to come and play for us in a few months’ time. At the end of your season. These two players — who are household names, I might add — they may have been finished in your Premier League but they would have been paid top wages and would, almost certainly, have given us the edge over all our rival teams. Not to mention some significant marketing opportunities. However, your press conference has put paid to that, I imagine. No one in their right mind is going to sign for Nine Dragons when the evening newspapers print the story about you walking out on us before you’d even started. Even for a hundred thousand pounds a week. You were very eloquent, Mr Manson. Your signing-on fee was not paid. Your accommodation arrangements were dishonoured. There were some calculated insults. Racism. Those new players who would have come are black. No, I’m afraid it all makes us look as if we’re not to be relied on for a moment. Wouldn’t you agree?’

I nodded. ‘But who would do something like that?’

‘This is Shanghai, Mr Manson. Back in the mid-nineteenth century this city gave its name to a slang word used by seamen which means to steal, borrow, kidnap and not bring back, but frankly little has changed since then. There’s a lot of sharp and underhand work that goes on here which passes for normal business practice. Ethics and business do not yet go hand in hand like they do in London’s square mile.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that.’

‘Oh, I accept that things are not perfect in London. But however imperfect they might seem to you, Mr Manson, by comparison this place is the wild west. There are regulations but they are not enforced and if they are, a bribe can easily fix things. Being a wealthy man — one of the wealthiest in Shanghai — it’s fair to assume I have my share of enemies, not just in business, but also in the world of football. Sportsmanship is not something that we have yet learned to appreciate here in China. There is winning and not much else. A top four finish may be good enough for Arsenal but it is not good enough here. In Chinese we have a saying: second place is just a sore loser’s word for failure.

‘No, if I had to guess, I’d say it was one of my Chinese Super League footballing rivals who have tried to scupper our chances of hiring top European talent. Most likely Shanghai Taishan who are our most bitter opponents. I might almost say “Forget it, Jack, it’s Chinatown”, except that I’m afraid I can’t forget this. I’m sorry to tell you that we’ll have to call another press conference where you admit your mistake. Tomorrow. Here in this hotel. In the same conference room. You can leave the arrangements to me. There will be loss of face but this is the Chinese way. To admit you were wrong. You can tell everyone you were duped and then eat some shit. Just make sure you don’t say something like “all Chinese look alike”. That will only make things worse.’

I shook my head. ‘He didn’t look like you,’ I said. ‘Then again, we weren’t sure what you look like. There are no pictures of you on Google.’

‘As much as possible I try to remain out of the limelight, Mr Manson. My appearance on Bloomberg was a first for me. ’

I walked to the window and stared out at the awful landscape of skyscrapers and neon signs. If this was the future then they were welcome to it and, for the first time since walking out on London City in Athens, I wished I hadn’t been so principled. I missed London and I especially missed the lads in my team, which was still how I thought of them. It was the first Saturday in January. City had a derby against Arsenal and I would have been picking my first team players and preparing my pre-match talk. This was the time of year when any manager in English football came into his own — when it really mattered what you said and did. It’s the hardest job in the world to motivate players who are knackered from too much football and know they’re risking injury because of the midwinter madness that prevails in the English game. It can’t be denied that there were too many fixtures between Christmas and New Year. The Germans manage to close down for forty days, which makes a lot more sense than what we do. Even the football crazy Spaniards and Catalans manage to take thirteen days off.

Only in Britain did the clubs and more importantly the television companies treat the game like it was some kind of pantomime. The show must go on, and all that bullshit. Perhaps this had been all right back in the day when the game was played on mud at a snail’s pace — as at the Baseball Ground in 1970 — but these days the pitches were as fast as billiard tables and it’s speed that causes most of the injuries in the modern game. Of course it was the injury to me and my reputation that ought to have been occupying my thoughts now. I was going to be a laughing stock. Viktor Sokolnikov’s newspaper — his latest toy — would make sure of that.

‘And if I don’t?’

‘I’m afraid I must insist. And more importantly for you, my lawyers will insist upon this, too. A top English firm. Slaughter & May. I imagine you’ve heard of them. Mr Manson, I sincerely hope you can understand just how generous I have been already, in coming to you in person like this to explain your unfortunate mistake. I could have placed the matter in the hands of the police and alleged a criminal conspiracy to defame both me and my company. And you would almost certainly have been arrested. But a public apology will be enough for now. Afterwards, when the dust has settled, we can discuss how you can make the matter up to me. It may be that there’s some sporting service you can yet do me.’

I nodded. ‘Very well. Look, I’m sorry. I really don’t know what else to say right now. I’m not usually lost for words. Perhaps when I stop feeling like a complete idiot I’ll be able to think of something.’

‘Perhaps it would help if I had my lawyers draw up a statement for you to read tomorrow. I shouldn’t like you to say nothing at all out of sheer embarrassment.’

‘Yes. That would help. You’ve been very gracious about this, Mr Jia. I can see that now.’

‘Thank you.’ He paused. ‘You’re sure you can do this?’

I nodded. ‘Oh, I’m used to looking like a complete twat in front of the television cameras. Why did we lose? Why didn’t we play better? Why did I make such a stupid mistake? When you’re a football manager, sucking it up — it sort of comes with the territory.’