Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2019 1:53 pm
Mister Minister | Ch. 1 | Monsieur le Ministre
Mister Minister | Ch. 2 | Monsieur le Ministre
Mister Minister | Ch. 3 | Monsieur le Ministre
Mister Minister | Ch. 4 | Monsieur le Ministre
Mister Minister | Ch. 5 | Monsieur le Ministre
Mister Minister | Ch. 6 | Monsieur le Ministre
Mister Minister | Ch. 7 | Monsieur le Ministre
Mister Minister | Ch. 2 | Monsieur le Ministre
Mister Minister | Ch. 3 | Monsieur le Ministre
Mister Minister | Ch. 4 | Monsieur le Ministre
Mister Minister | Ch. 5 | Monsieur le Ministre
Mister Minister | Ch. 6 | Monsieur le Ministre
Mister Minister | Ch. 7 | Monsieur le Ministre
Jean-Luc was minister of sport now, and it meant he had a lot on his plate--the entire ministry was brand new. But everyone knew what his first priority was. The issue had been the justification for the creation of a new government ministry, and had featured massively in the political campaign. The fact was that organized domestic football hadn't existed in Reçueçn for--well, it felt like nobody knew exactly quite how long. For sports fans in the nation, it had felt like a weird period of limbo; those who marked the passing of time by the sports calendar were thoroughly lost.
The RNFL had ceased operations in the middle of a season. Normally, this time of year, the season would be starting up again, but it took time to finish the sort of preparations needed to get an entire sports league off the ground again. Jean-Luc decided that, in order to waste no time, the league would resume at the beginning of the next year, in the middle of the season, and count it as if they were finishing out the season that had been abruptly cut short.
Reinstating a defunct league was an absolute headache. Jean-Luc had expected that, but he had not anticipated what a mess it was. It turned out that although the RNFL had ceased operations, the RNFA, its governing body, had not closed or shut down or declared bankruptcy. It had just continued along, irrelevant and pointless in the absence of any attempt to organize the sport. Its continued existence in fact made things more complicated than they might have been had Jean-Luc been trying to start things from scratch.
Jean-Luc was quickly coming to almost despise the RNFA. Working with them was an absolute nightmare. The organizational structure was painfully difficult to navigate: every club that had been in the league was represented, and had to have a say in every decision, but at the same time seven teams were 'first among equals,' and each of the seven tried to sway every vote in its favor and influence outcomes every step of the way.
Although the ministry of sport had been formed with the idea that its control and regulation would resurrect Reçuecian football and then protect it from similar disasters in the future, and this idea had been met with widespread support from players, fans, management and ownership of teams, actually working out the details with the league revealed an ugly truth: the teams were in fact not happy when the government tried to "stick its nose into things." Jean-Luc was forced to order that negotiations be kept secret after media reported on one RNFA representative saying, "I don't see how the government thinks that putting a noose of regulations on the neck of the already dead corpse of Reçuecian football is supposed to bring it back to life," and the news also covered equally antagonistic lines from government negotiators, such as, "The RNFA seems to think that cash injections are going to be some magic pill that will revive the sport, but mostly they're just looking to revive their bank accounts."
The truth was it was very difficult for the ministry and the RNFA to see eye-to-eye on the issues, because they were motivated by very different things. The RNFA was, in fact, as was to be expected, motivated by money, and had to be sure that reinstating the RNFL would be a winning venture. Jean-Luc and his team, originally motivated by their passion for the sport and their desire to see its renaissance, were finding it was hard to keep that drive in what seemed like opposition from the very people they were trying to help.
There came a moment in negotiations where Jean-Luc realized that if the RNFA wasn't going to work with him, he was going to have to use the legal powers his ministry had been granted to make the whole thing happen whether they wanted to or not. His jurisdiction over sport in the country was surprisingly large and came with a surprising amount of authority, and he would have to put that to work. It was a very surprising shift at the bargaining table.
The seven executive RNFA representatives came into the room where they'd been having talks with Lassalle and his team on a Monday morning to find things had been totally rearranged. Tables, which had been set up in a ring for a group conference, were now in rows with chairs on one side, like a classroom. In the front of the room, Lassalle had had a podium brought in, and a screen for a projector had been unfurled. Jean-Luc was nowhere to be seen. The representatives looked at each other, confused, but took seats at the tables.
Jean-Luc walked in from the other end of the room, holding a clicker in his hand, as if he would be beginning a presentation shortly. His team followed him in the room, but it was only a clearly scripted piece of political theater--Jean-Luc, taking some documents from one staffer and putting them on the lectern, turned back to his team. "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, but I will no longer be needing your assistance with the proceedings." The staffers, unsurprised, turned and left.
Ben Müller, the RNFA representative for Zimmerich FC, pushed his chair back and stood, leaning with his hands on his table. "Monsieur Lassalle, what exactly is going on!?" Jean-Luc cut his bluster short. "If you will have a seat, Mr. Müller, I can begin." He stared him down as he gave up and resumed his seat. Jean-Luc's signalling was already working. The negotiations had changed, and he was in charge now.
"Since our conversation and attempts to come to mutual agreement had been stalling for so long, I thought maybe we could try something else. You can forget everything we've discussed, because we're starting over from square one. Here is my new proposal for an arrangement to solvent again."
Jean-Luc hit a button on the clicker and a projection appeared on the wall behind him. "Oh, this isn't part of the proposal--this is just a portion of the text of the latest amendment to the Treaties of Alliance and the Reçuecian constitution, adopted unanimously, with which of course you're all familiar." Jean-Luc turned around and read the slide. "Article I, Secion 1, Sub-Section A: 'The Minister of Sport shall have full authority to create, dissolve, regulate and control sporting organizations within the nation of Reçueçn."
Jean-Luc turned back around and hit the button for the next slide, continuing without a break as if unaware of the power play he had just made. "So here you see just a broad outline of my proposal. You will see it is largely the same as what I proposed earlier, before you raised objections to numerous and itemized parts of it. The government of Reçueçn will not be subsidizing the sport of football, but we do expect certain guarantees of solvency from professional teams operating in the country or in one of its leagues..."
The representatives were thoroughly angered, but cowed (although one or two perhaps were also impressed with the young new minister's use of his authority--apparently he was more than just the bright inexperienced staffer they'd expected). The 'negotiations,' if they could still be called that, advanced much more quickly from that point on. Lassalle did wind up giving certain considerations to the RNFA and its teams, points they had raised that he thought seemed only fair. The government did provide financing to cover the resumption of regular league play, but it was clearly a one-time thing. Explicit requirements were put in place for teams to be considered as 'professional' and participate in the league, but they were not impossible to achieve, and they had the desired effect of ensuring that those teams took proactive steps to avoid something like this happening again. In return, the RNFA was endorsed by the Ministry of Sport as the national authority on soccer, which gave the association much more clout than it had had before. League play resumed in January, and after years of inactivity, soccer was back in Reçueçn.
Previous Matches
Reçueçn 3-2 Sajnur
Independents' Cup 8 — Quarterfinals
Carl III Stadium, Reçueçn, Reçueçn
Adams (36'), Lebo (57'), Hebron (89')
Reçueçn line-up: Gerauld Firaut (c), Leo Beck, Ägidius Heissler, Norman Bright, Oliver Spencer, Luc Pélissier, Grégoire Leclair, Maynard Hebron, Hippolyte Lavigne, Franky Adams, Freeman Lebo
Substitutions: Klemm for Spencer (54'), R. Lavigne for Pélissier (59'), Nasser for Lebo (68')
Upcoming Match
Reçueçn vs Drawkland
Independents' Cup 8 — Semi-finals
Stade de la Reformation, Genève, Reçueçn
Predicted line-up: Gerauld Firaut (c), Leo Beck, Ägidius Heissler, Norman Bright, Oliver Spencer, Luc Pélissier, Harold Saunders, Maynard Hebron, Hippolyte Lavigne, Franky Adams, Freeman Lebo