Chapter 93 - 92: Cleared II
[SIDE MISSION COMPLETED]
Mission: Complete Jay Cole’s Eredivisie Contract
Requirements Completed: — Club medical passed. — Negotiated amendments preserved. — Player reviewed and signed voluntarily. — Work-authorisation process initiated. — January registration file prepared. — G11 representation and service fee recorded. — No playing-time guarantee issued.
Rewards: — Skill Points +1,000 — Negotiation SP +200 — Contract Knowledge SP +200 — Client Management SP +200 — Network SP +100 — Reputation +20
Garcia read it once and closed it.
He did not celebrate in the club’s offices, and he did not need to, because the win was the executed copy in Jay’s inbox rather than a number in a panel. He checked that Jay had actually received his own signed version before he let himself feel anything at all.
Afterward the club took a few plain announcement photographs.
Jay held a home shirt up for the camera, but there was no name on the back and no number printed on it, because he would not officially report or register until January and a squad number before then would have been pretending.
He looked less like a superstar unveiling and more like a young man who had just been told his life had changed and was still catching up to it.
Then Jay stepped out into the corridor and called home, and Garcia gave him the space for it.
He caught only pieces through the half-open door. Jay saying he’d passed, that it was signed, that it was real.
His voice cracking once on the word "signed" and steadying again straight after. A pause while his mother said something Garcia couldn’t hear, and then Jay, quieter, telling her it wasn’t a trial anymore and it wasn’t a maybe, it was a contract with his name on it.
His father must have taken the phone next, because Jay’s tone shifted to something more practical, explaining that he’d be home within days and training in England until January, that nothing about being away from her was changing yet.
When he came back in his eyes were red at the edges, but he was steady, and he did not say anything about destiny or proving anyone wrong, because he had never been that kind of player and this was not going to make him one.
Garcia handled the last of his own work before they left.
He sent the executed contract to Jay’s independent solicitor for the record, saved every document into G11’s client system, and noted the date the service fee would actually become payable.
No money moved that day. Jay’s salary did not begin until January, and the agency’s fee followed the same structure rather than appearing on the desk on signing day, which was exactly how it should have worked and exactly how a worse agent would have pretended otherwise.
Go Ahead’s announcement went live before they had reached the car.
It was measured, the way a club is measured about an unknown twenty-one-year-old on a free rather than a marquee arrival.
Go Ahead Eagles have reached agreement with English winger Jay Cole on a move to Deventer. The 21-year-old will join in January, subject to the completion of work-authorisation and international-registration formalities. Welkom, Jay.
G11 posted its own confirmation underneath, short and professional, the first senior deal the agency had ever announced.
G11 Sports Management confirms that our client Jay Cole has agreed a professional contract with Go Ahead Eagles of the Eredivisie, effective January, subject to registration. We thank everyone involved and look forward to the next step of Jay’s career.
The reaction was small, which was honest, because nobody in Dutch football had heard of him a month ago.
The regional paper in Deventer, De Stentor, ran three lines on its website under a stock photo of the training ground, noting only that the Eagles had secured a young free agent from England for January.
A transfer-news account reposted the club statement to a few thousand followers with a flat "Go Ahead Eagles sign 21yo English winger Jay Cole (free), joining January," and the replies under it were exactly what Garcia expected.
@eaglesdeventer_’85: who?? never heard of him lol
@obosfan_marten: just googled him and got basically nothing. one article and a locked profile
@transfergossipNL: another free transfer nobody. wake me up if he ever plays a minute
@deventer_till_i_die: so we’re scouting the English lower leagues now? bold
@eaglesfanpage: free is free lads. if he’s rubbish we lost nothing. relax
Somebody replied with a shrug emoji and a bald "January signing in October is a weird one," and half a dozen others just asked the same question in different words, which was who.
Nobody was calling him the future of anything, and that suited Garcia fine, because a quiet signing that overdelivered was worth ten loud ones that didn’t.
Ben Owusu shared the G11 post within the hour, adding his own line above it.
Told you lot to keep an eye on this agency. Eredivisie deal done. From a bedroom in the suburbs to the Dutch top flight, that’s a story.
For a lower-league journalist with a modest following, it was the closest thing to a trumpet Garcia was going to get.
Rafi saw it on his phone while he was chalking a training pitch two hundred miles away, and sent back nothing but a single line.
He passed then. Good. Now the real work starts.
It was the most emotion Garcia had ever gotten out of him, which for Rafi was practically a hug.
Alan Holt’s message came in a little after that, brief and decent as the man himself.
Saw the news about your other lad. Congratulations. Jamie asks if this means you’re famous now.
Garcia smiled at that one and typed back that he was not, and never would be, and that Jamie should worry about his own right-back play.
The part that stayed with Garcia was quieter than any of it.
A handful of old industry contacts, people who had let his calls ring out for months after Vantage put his name on their lists, viewed the post without saying a word.
A couple sent short, careful messages, nothing warm, nothing committing, just a cautious "saw the Cole deal, well done" from men who had crossed the street to avoid him in the spring.
He did not answer them warmly either. He had a long memory, and so did they, and that was fine.
By the time he and Jay were on the road back to the airport, G11’s inbox had started to move for the first time in its short life.
Most of it was noise, the kind an Eredivisie headline dragged in. Parents of teenagers who wanted the same magic for their sons. Sunday-league players convinced they were one trial away.
A couple of chancers who had clearly not read past the word Eredivisie.
But one message near the bottom stopped him.
It came from a contact who had refused to so much as return his emails after the blacklist went out, a man who had made a point of pretending Garcia no longer existed.
There was no congratulation in it, and no apology for the silence either. Just a single line, businesslike, from someone who had decided G11 was worth speaking to now that it had proof on the board.
Heard you got the Cole boy into Holland. I’ve got a player who might suit how you work. You available to talk?
Garcia read it twice, then opened the attachment the man had sent underneath, and a young player’s details filled the screen.
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[G11 CONTRACT REVENUE REGISTERED]
Client: Jayden Cole
Club: Go Ahead Eagles
Gross Fixed Salary: €14,000 per month
G11 Service Fee: 5%
Agency Revenue: €700 per paid month
Guaranteed Contract Period: 30 months
Projected G11 Revenue: €21,000
First Fee Due:
After January salary payment
Bonuses Included: No
Trial Expenses Recoverable: No