Read Chapter 29: The Agent's Web

The Premier League’s head of financial regulation had the courteous tone of a man about to deliver a terminal diagnosis. James held his phone to his ear with one hand and a lukewarm coffee in the other, standing at the window of his cramped office in the east stand. The January rain blurred the empty terrace below.

“It’s not personal, Mr. Okafor,” the regulator said. “But the appeal board needs certainty. Your ownership structure—historically unique, I’ll grant you—doesn’t fit the licensing criteria. And the debt, even restructured, sits above the threshold.”

“We’re paying it down. The fans’ shares are selling faster than we projected.”

“Faster than you projected, slower than your obligations require. You have three months to demonstrate a clear reduction or the League initiates a transfer embargo and points deduction review.”

James set down the coffee. “Three months.”

“I’d start looking for liquidity now, not later. Good luck.”

The line went dead. For eight seconds James didn’t move. Three months. The fan ownership victory was a storybook headline, but the League didn’t care about history. They cared about cash, solvency, the illusion of sustainability that kept broadcast partners calm.

The office door swung open and Marcus Webb, his head of football operations, stepped in with a grimace. “Please tell me that call didn’t end the way every call has ended for the past six weeks.”

“It ended worse. Three months to clean this up or we lose the license.” James rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Chidi’s permit hearing is in two weeks. That help. If he lands, he scores, and we sell out the ground. But he won’t cover the six-figure gap on his own.”

Marcus sat in the cracked leather chair across from James’s desk. “What about the idea you floated in the car last week? The transfer fee share with lower-league clubs?”

“It’s not a float anymore. It’s a lifeboat.” James pulled up a spreadsheet on his laptop. “Ten League Two and Conference sides have academy kids who’ll never get a look-in at Premier League clubs. We scout them, train them, sell them on. Then we split the future fee with the originating club—twenty percent, maybe twenty-five. They get a revenue stream they’ve never had. We get free talent inventory with zero upfront cost.”

Marcus whistled. “No club in England has ever done that.”

“No club in England has ever been owned by its fans before, either. We’re making precedent or we’re dying.”

A knock cut the conversation short. James’s assistant, a volunteer fan named Ria who worked three days a week for match tickets, appeared with an envelope. “Special delivery. No postmark. Handwritten.”

James took it. The paper was thick, cream-colored, the kind of stationery that smelled of money. Inside, a single card.

*Mr. Okafor,*

*I read about your ownership model with great admiration. I believe we share an interest in the future of the beautiful game—and in solving problems other people call impossible. I’d like to discuss an arrangement that could stabilize your finances immediately. Join me for dinner. My car will collect you at seven.*

*R. Redwood*

Below the signature was an address in Mayfair. James stared at the name for a long ten seconds.

“Redwood,” he said, half aloud.

“What about him?” Marcus asked.

“That’s the agent who started the original scheme. The one who sold the club’s debt to the consortium in the first place.” James turned the card over. Blank. “He disappeared right after Pierce was arrested. Everyone thought he’d left the country.”

“Why would he waltz back in now?”

James put the card down on the desk. “Because he thinks we’re desperate.”

“Are we?”

James didn’t answer. He pulled out his phone and dialed Amara.

She picked up on the second ring. “James. Please tell me you’re calling with good news—wait. You haven’t called in three days. What’s wrong?”

“Redwood surfaced. He wants to meet. Dinner at his place in Mayfair tonight.”

A pause. Then Amara’s voice sharpened. “No. You’re not going.”

“He’s the one who orchestrated the debt trap. If he’s willing to talk, I can get information on Pierce’s remaining structure. Eleanor says the consortium’s frozen assets might not cover everything. There could be hidden liens.”

“James, listen to me. Redwood isn’t just an agent. I’ve spent the last week pulling threads on his network. He ran unlicensed player representation across three continents before the debt scheme. He’s connected to Musa Adeyemi’s operation.”

James went still. “What?”

“The same infrastructure. Same shell companies, same pattern of predatory contracts on young players from Nigeria, Ghana, the Ivory Coast. Musa is a franchisee. Redwood is the franchise.”

James’s mind raced. Chidi Okafor, trapped by a thirty percent economic rights hold in Lagos. Musa’s confident threats at the embassy. The rejection of the work permit, which Amara suspected was engineered. All of it led back to one network—and that network’s architect had just invited him to dinner.

“Then I definitely need to go,” James said.

“No, you need to call the police. Again. This evidence chain is deeper than Pierce. Redwood is the top of the pyramid.”

“And the pyramid owns the only bridge out of my current mess.” James kept his voice flat. “Amara, I don’t have time to take down a global trafficking network. I have a club that dies in three months unless I find real money. And the only person who can write that check is the man who wants to meet me tonight.”

“He’s going to offer you a deal that costs you your soul, James.”

“Let me worry about my soul.” He softened. “Can you get me background on his current holdings before seven? Anything that’s public record, anything that isn’t. What companies he controls, who his partners are, what they want.”

Amara was silent for a long moment. “I’ll do it. But only because if you walk in there blind, you’re a dead man walking.”

“That’s the kind of support I need.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Neither am I.” James hung up, met Marcus’s questioning gaze.

“You’re going,” Marcus said flatly.

“It’s a legitimate business dinner.” James picked up the envelope again, running his thumb over the embossed letterhead. “And I’m in the legitimate business of saving this club.”

“What do you want me to tell the fans when they ask why you’re having dinner with the man who helped strip us bare?”

James considered it. “Tell them I’m bringing back what he took.”

“And what did he take, exactly?”

James fixed him with a look. “The freehold, for a start. And the chain of ownership that buried our deed. If Redwood knows where the stadium title really leads—and from the 1929 trust angle Eleanor’s chasing, I believe he does—then he’s not just a threat. He’s the key.”

Marcus shook his head. “You’re playing a game with a man who wrote the rules.”

“Then I’ll learn them faster.”

James picked up his coat from the back of the chair. At the door, he paused. “One more thing. If I’m not back by midnight, get Amara’s evidence to the NCA. She knows the protocol.”

Marcus looked like he wanted to argue. Instead, he just nodded.

James walked out into the corridor and down the concrete steps toward the players’ entrance, where a black Bentley had already pulled up, its engine humming like an animal waiting to be fed.