After returning to England, Paul got back to work immediately, trying to secure a pre-season tour in Asia. He had a chat with Lineker, wanting to know his opinion.
GL Do you really think Asia is the best option for us?
PC Why not? It’s a big market and securing only 1 percent of the merchandise retailing over there would make the club rich, or should I say richer. Also they have a few decent teams. This could be a springboard into the Asian market.
GL Well, I was thinking that touring the states could be useful. You know, they’re a nation who has not fully developed their game and a promotion tour by the best team in the world couldn’t really hurt.
PC I’m glad you call us the best team in the world but I think that the Asian nations also are in developing stages. In 20 years or so they’re going to be up there competing with big nations. Playing wise, not much is different between the two nations though, so I don’t think we need to consider that. But as I said, Asia is a bigger market.
GL So, you’ve got any suggestions about which teams to meet?
PC No not really, my knowledge about the Asian teams is fairly limited. But I sent Adrian Heath to Asia a week ago; hopefully he can find suitable teams to meet.
GL And when’s he going to debrief?
Suddenly Adrian walks into the office PC Apparently now… So, Adrian, what’ve you got?
AH I’m fine. Thanks for asking… Lets see here…
Adrian opens his attaché case, drags out a yellow paper AH Well, we’ve got Japanese J-League 1 team, Kashima Antlers. Has a few decent players and could be a possibility. In addition we’ve got Yokohama F Marinos also a Japanese team. That’s about it.
PC That wasn’t a long list, was it?
AH Well, I guess not. But you’ve only got yourself to blame; most of the teams have already nailed their pre-season schedule.
PC Then I guess it’ll have to do…
GL Not necessarily.
PC What do you mean?
GL Why not do a two match tour in the US as well? The players need more than only two matches in pre-season and now I get what I want too.
PC Well, I guess you’re right. Then you’ll speak with the Japanese officials while I’ll go over to the states and sort things out there.
And so Campbell went to the states while Lineker took the flight to Japan.