37 Meeting with an Agent

The glass doors of the Miami restaurant were pushed open as Jason walked into the restaurant dressed in casual clothes that consisted of a white T-shirt, blue jeans, and a black leather jacket to keep out the cold.

With the help of a waiter, he found the table he had reserved and sat there to wait, his mind a bit absent due to his thinking about the proceedings of the day before that had led him to this restaurant.

The day before, after he had just gotten off the phone with Rafael intending to find an agent as quickly as possible...

He had debated going online to search for an agent, or even calling Rafael back to ask for recommendations as he was no longer in the USA where he had such information, and calling for a contractual lawyer all the way from the USA was kind of expensive, and stupid when he could get one here.

While he was thinking, he had gone to the refrigerator to get something to drink and he had met Mylo watching TV in the living room.

He had suddenly thought to ask Mylo if he happened to know an agent who could help with a contract. 

Luckily, Mylo already had an agent and had helped Jason contact him and set up a meeting for both of them to discuss.

Jason was currently at the venue that had been set for the meeting and was now waiting for the agent.

"Are you Mr. Bolu?" Jason suddenly heard a question that pulled him out of his thoughts and his eyes fell on the middle-aged man in a gray suit standing before him with a hand outstretched for a handshake.

"Yes, that's me," Jason stood up and grasped the outstretched hand.

"Rico Gulaz," the gray-suited agent said his name as he released Jason's hand and they sat at the table.

"So, er, Mylo told me that you require my services?" Rico stated quickly getting into the reason for the meeting.

"Yeah, It's for a professional contract with the Porto senior team," Jason replied, quite liking the direct nature of Rico's question.

"Oh wow, I suppose I should say congratulations," Rico said with a bit of surprise in his tone because according to Mylo, Jason had just joined the U-19 team under trial and had only played one match for them.

"Thanks… um, so, I need to meet with the club management soon and I'd need you to be there to secure my rights, benefits, and all of that, you know," Jason explained, an American accent leaking from his voice.

"OK, I get the gist of the situation, but if I'm going to help you with that, I'd need more information about your career records until now, and if you have any special requests that you'd like me to make in the contract," Rico went into his professional mode and began to ask for the essentials that he'd need to estimate the kind of benefits to help Jason fight for.

"I don't have any special requests…"

"... as for career records, I don't really have any," Jason replied with a wry smile, a bit embarrassed at not having any career records to speak of.

"What do you mean by you don't have any career records?" Rico asked with an eyebrow raised in surprise.

"It means I've never been part of a professional side until I joined the Porto Juniors team… unless you count my time at the Lion Soccer Academy back when I was seven years old," Jason explained, the wry smile not leaving his face.

"Hmmm… " a thoughtful look appeared on Rico's face before he asked again, 

"Do you have any clips of yourself with a ball or in a match?"

"Not really… but, you can check the highlights of the last Porto Junior match against the Familicao U-19 team, I played in that one so there should be some scenes of me there," Jason answered.

"Alright, sure. Let me check that now," Rico replied and took out an iPad from his bag while thinking to himself whether he could garner enough information about a player in a single match's highlights.

In the end, all that really mattered to him was getting his agent fee after he helped Jason negotiate a deal with FC Porto and nothing else really mattered to him as he didn't see any point in becoming a long-standing agent for a player who didn't have any previous career records at eighteen years of age.

These were his thoughts as he searched "FC Porto Juniors vs Familicao U-19" to be able to watch the highlights of the game.

His eyebrow shot up as he saw the scoreline under the first video, 

'9:2? that's a shocking score,' he thought as he clicked on the video and the video opened up on YouTube.

The video opened up with the starting lineups of both teams and Rico glanced stealthily at Jason who was looking through the menu when he realized that Jason's name wasn't even in the starting line-up.

Jason noticed Rico stealthily glancing at him but didn't react as he was more interested in what was on the menu than the opinion of an agent that he wasn't planning to hire long-term.

While Jason was focusing on selecting something from the menu, Rico was watching the video that had the highlights and had watched until the scene where Umaro had gotten injured and Jason came onto the field.

Within the few minutes remaining of the highlights video, Rico's expression changed drastically from an almost neutral look to a favorable expression of Jason.

He didn't need more than a few minutes of Jason's performance on the pitch to estimate Jason's current worth and though he couldn't estimate Jason's future worth, he could already tell that it wasn't low.

How good would it be if he could become a long-term agent for a player like Jason? 

Such an opportunity would shoot his career into the realm of more famous football stars.

"Have you watched the video?" Jason's sudden question shot Rico back into reality.

"Uh, yeah, I've seen the video and you're quite talented. I believe FC Porto wouldn't mind paying a good price to add you to their rooster," Rico managed to answer despite being deep in thought just a few seconds earlier.

"About that, I wouldn't mind going a little lower on the salary as long as I can get signed to the team and secure enough playing time," Jason tried to explain to Rico that a high salary was not especially necessary right now as it was still too early for him to be making exorbitant demands from the club.

Not that Jason didn't want a high salary.

After all, who didn't like money, but he also knew it wasn't time yet for all that. 

As long as he kept performing well on the pitch, the money would inevitably follow.

He wasn't in a rush, but the same thing couldn't be said about Rico Gulaz who was adamant about getting the highest salary possible for Jason because the the better the deal he managed to negotiate, the higher his agent fees.

Of course, he didn't say that to Jason as Jason had said that money wasn't a major issue, but it was he who would be doing the negotiating anyway so, it was up to him to tell the board Jason's demands.

He could directly inflate the numbers a little bit anyway.

They discussed a few other things before Rico stood up to leave as he had another engagement after meeting with Jason.

He did not forget to hand Jason his card and try to convince Jason to hire him as a long-standing agent, which Jason responded to by saying he would think about it.