S1 2H - 8 - A Prisoner's Dilemma [T1] (Patreon)

8.

Wednesday, 9th November

The outskirts of Chester. The UK headquarters of a small but international credit card company.

I was in the temporary office of Chester FC's 72-year-old manager, Ian Evans. There was this weird sense of being in a police interrogation room. The main piece of furniture was a desk; one whole wall was a window. Unlike a real police room, this window wasn't a one-way mirror. It was a real window looking out onto the pitches outside. To the left, some Chester players were doing a light session, and to the right there was a game going on. I guessed it was some of the employees from the offices - part of me wanted to pop outside briefly and scout them all. It would help me get a scouting achievement. I suspected the next one would trigger when I'd scouted 2500 players, but the achievement system was so weird I didn't really give it much thought.

But the main way I got interrogation room vibes was the fact I'd been left alone in there, made to wait by two older, male authority figures. Pretty much a standard scene in every cop show. Maybe they were watching me, right now, on a camera feed. They’d wait for me to start sweating, then barge in and do good cop/bad cop on me.

They'd left a prop - a football-themed flipchart. Every sheet had a pitch outline, so coaches could scribble formations without having to draw the markings every time. I needed that! I wondered if it came in small sizes. What shop sold this stuff? One of the millions of things I didn't know.

I picked up a marker from the flipchart's little tray and put the cap back on properly. No sense in letting the pen dry out.

The topmost sheet had an analysis of Chester's squad with the heading ‘Week 45 Squad Overview'. Each position on the pitch had the nicknames of every first team option, ranked in order. Some names appeared twice or three times depending on how flexible those players were. Some names were followed by numbers in brackets - I guessed the length of their current injury. In the goalkeeper position there were three names. The second was Ben Cavanagh (Cavvers), who I suspected was actually the best goalie. In the right-back position there were another three names. And as a 4th option, someone had added, in a different colour and different handwriting, the name Magnus. So someone had been paying attention on Sunday!

I glanced at the door. It was pretty weird that they'd left me alone in here. But that was their problem. I was feeling nosy. If they updated this chart once a week then the page behind this one would be the week 44 squad, the one from before my trial. I flipped it over - very noisy! - and grinned. I turned another sheet, and there was the week 44 squad. I went back to the intermediate sheet.

Its title was 'January' and there was only one name in each position - basically, Chester's strongest lineup. Aff on the left of midfield and Carl at right-back. But it had Henri as one of the strikers, Raffi in centre mid, and 'Max' as the right mid. One potential future version of Chester FC. If they played their cards right!

I thought about what was best from my point of view - to let Ian and MD know that I knew that they wanted all three of us, or to pretend I hadn't seen it.

I decided to change it back to how I'd found it, and went to pee. When I got back, Mike Dean and Ian Evans were waiting to give me a quick handshake. I wasn't sure if they knew I'd seen the 'January wishlist', and I suddenly felt excited.

The Prisoner's Dilemma is a famous thought experiment where two prisoners have to make a decision based on inadequate information. A prisoner, and this will be annoyingly simplistic to some people, can choose to cooperate with the other prisoner - or betray him. The catch is they don't know what the other prisoner will choose, and choosing wrong is catastrophic. The optimal outcome is when both prisoners cooperate.

Was this a Prisoner’s Dilemma kind of situation? Chester FC wanted things. I wanted things. My clients wanted things. There was a very simple version of this meeting where we would talk through our wants until we reached a compromise that satisfied every single party.

But that wasn't the dynamic. Ian Evans was hostile to me but wanted Henri. MD's job was to get the players Ian wanted for as little money as possible while not burning bridges with the child prodigy that the next manager might want to work with. And that's where the most thrilling part of this particular social dynamic came in. I controlled the destinies of three players - what if I wasn't the prisoner? What if I was the jailor?

This was a high stakes game where every player had their own goals, information, and even their own rule books. Absolute chaos. I loved it.

MD MD was behind the desk. Making Ian sit somewhere less alpha in his own office. Bit of a show of power there! I was proud of him. Ian was on a hard-backed chair by the wall, facing me. I adjusted my chair so that I was angled more towards Ian, House of Commons-style. Adversarial.

"Thanks for coming, Max," said MD. He was doing his 'distant businessman' thing again.

"Yep," I said.

"Where shall we start?" he said. Already trying to get information from me!

"Why ask me?" I said, pretending to be fascinated by the ornaments on Ian's desk. "I have no idea what this is all about. As far as I know, you're going to ask me to give you twenty quid for parking in your spot that time."

MD shuffled some papers with a tiny grin. The guy who'd let his hair down in front of Charlie's Angels was still in there! "Okay. Let's start with Henri Lyons." He passed a document over to me. "A standard loan contract. From January 1st to the end of the season. This isn't binding, you understand. There's still a lot of work to do. This is just to show how committed we are." I flipped through it. Seemed extremely boilerplate. It was also incredibly meaningless. MD might as well have handed me a post-it that said IOU a trillion pounds lol. "So the main questions are, will his club let him leave in January? And can we afford his wages? And if we can't, will Darlington accept a percentage?"

"That's a lot of questions, Mike."

He tried to give me his serious look, but it had no effect. "Okay, Max. Why don't you start by telling us his salary and we'll take things from there?"

I forced my eyebrows up my forehead. "You want me to tell you my client's most private information? What am I, one of Mark Zuckerberg's horcruxes?"

"Er... I don't know what that means," said MD. He was getting annoyed by my attitude. "How much does he earn, Max?"

"How much can you pay him, Mike?"

"That's... that's not..."

"It's the same discussion. One of us is going to have to make the first move." In the Prisoner's Dilemma, the guy who betrays his friend is set free. "Fortunately, it's in my interest to get Henri a move, and he loves Chester. So tell me the maximum you can pay, and then the absolute absolute maximum."

"Max," said MD, like I was a child.

I experienced a pang of annoyance so strong it made me question if I wanted to be doing this agent shit. But then I went right back to enjoying it. Negotiating a three-person transfer wasn't something that happened very often. "Mike! I should be talking to clubs in League Two. You've got a chance to get a deadly striker for pennies on the dollar. What the fuck am I saying? He should be playing in League One! Three divisions away! It's insane you even have a shot at this. And Jesus. Imagine if he likes it and wants to stay next season? Imagine if he signs a long-term contract. A top striker for free. You're welcome. Tell me your budget and your real budget."

"Max," started MD, so I picked up the 'sample contract' and threw it against a filing cabinet. From there, it slid into a rectangular waste paper basket.

"Next," I said.

"Christ," mumbled Ian Evans. The first thing he'd said. He rearranged himself and looked away from both MD and I. The new posture made him look like an Easter Island statue. It suited him.

"What's next, Mike?" I said.

MD was rubbing his temples. He didn't like this style of negotiating. The weird thing was, I kind of did. It was a bit manic but I felt like I was just about holding my own. And I'd talked myself into a position where I truly believed Henri should have been talking to bigger clubs. "800 a week," he said.

"I'm sorry. Around you saying 800 pounds a week? For Henri Lyons?"

"That's already smashing our pay structure."

I scanned their faces but saw no signs of deception. I was a bit dismayed. 800 a week was shit. It was dentist money. Call centre manager money. All I could think to say was, "Oh."

"So, Max, how much is he on?"

I shook my head. "Enough to never wear the same scarf twice." The truth was I didn't know. Now that Chester had made a move, I could ask Henri. But I was sure he'd be on over a thousand a week. Possibly as much as 1,500. I clicked a hole punch together a few times, then shook my head again. "Honestly, I don't think I can work with that. I'm... genuinely not trying to be a dick. He's Darlington's record signing." I clicked the hole punch again. "I'll try, though."

MD looked at Ian Evans, who did some kind of gesture. I didn't see it - I was still processing the revelation of the true extent of Chester's poverty. There were Premier League players who paid people 800 pounds a week to tell them what to watch on Netflix. Probably.

"Okay," said MD. "Can we talk about Raffi Brown?"

"Yes."

"We like him. He's got promise."

"I swear to god, Mike, if you offer five pounds and a bag of crisps, I'm going home."

MD hesitated, then picked up another contract. He handed it over. "We know he's got a job and a kid. Our offer is actually on the high side given his inexperience and his... past."

I dropped the contract, unopened, on the table in front of me. It made a soft slapping sound and I glanced from man to man. "Raffi works in a casino keeping the peace. He's a model employee. His bosses love him. I'm not taking him away from that if it means someone brings up his 'past' every time he gets a yellow fucking card, every time someone loses a sock."

"They won't." The first meaningful contribution from Ian Evans. I stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate. "They won't," he repeated. He had this way of saying things that made it sound like he was reading from carved stone tablets.

It seemed like a promise, so I moved on. I opened the contract and skimmed it. Long story short, they were offering 450 pounds a week. About what you’d get on a supermarket checkout. Weirdly, the starting date of the contract was January 2nd. Transfers could be made on January 1st. But Raffi wasn't registered to another team, so he could start right away. Why such a strange date?

I took a deep breath. Zen master. "We're not a million miles away. I want a three-year contract. 500 a week the first year. Goal and assist bonus. 750 the second. 1000 the third. 800,000 pound release clause."

MD threw his arms wide. "Max! What are you talking about? You know we can't pay that. I just told you."

"He won't be here in the third season. This is your incentive to make sure he plays. If he plays, he'll reach his potential. If he reaches his potential, someone will buy him."

"For 800,000 pounds?"

"Yep. When it happens, that'll be cheap. You'll be annoyed. But we... But you can use that money to invest in the club."

Ian spoke again. "While you take your 10% of his new wage at his new club."

He was trying to goad me, but in such a clumsy way it was like he'd never done it before. "Yes, Ian. That's right. Perhaps you'd like me to take my 800,000 pound asset and give it to a rival club, for free?"

Ian went 'tsch' and folded his arms. So I tossed the contract against the filing cabinet and heard it slink into the bin.

MD sprang to his feet and retrieved it. "Jesus, Max! We like Raffi. We want him. Just... let me crunch the numbers."

"What's this January 2nd shit?" I asked. "You could sign him tomorrow." If you really wanted him.

"We're a small club, Max. Image is important. Reputation. When you sign a player mid-January no-one bats an eye. Sign one in November and people talk."

Gibberish. Nonsense. There was something oppressive in the atmosphere. Something off. I'd gone from being the prisoner to being the jailor, and now I got the feeling I was back to where I started. It was one thing to make a mistake that would tie Henri up at Chester for 6 months, but quite another to make the wrong decisions on behalf of Raffi and his family. I stood and walked around the room. If I was being fanciful, I'd say I was hoping to walk into a cloud of weirdness and find out if it was coming from Ian or MD. "Are we done?" I said. I needed more information to help me process the information I already had. Otherwise, I'd be taking wild stabs in the dark.

MD frowned, and slid the Raffi contract to one side. There was another one underneath. MD pushed it towards me, wordlessly.

I skimmed it while standing. Max Best. Player. "Shirt number 77," I said, even though I'd tried to stay quiet. That was just so unexpected.

"7 is taken," said MD, with a slight smile. "That's the best we could do. Er... yeah, the best. 77 Best. Could do well in the club shop."

I kept skimming all the way through to the end where the important bits were. 350 pounds a week. That was a piss-take. But what really stood out was the date. If I signed this, I would become a Chester player on the 3rd of January.

I glanced at Ian, and the crevices on his face all twitched. Our relationship had started with me trying to scam him, and this was his revenge. Every single facial nook and cranny was in on the plot. We'd been acting out some version of the Prisoner's Dilemma, except he'd smashed the betray button before I'd even arrived.

I thought about how I'd been left alone in this room with the flipchart, and how I'd 'discovered' that they wanted to sign me and my two clients. Me ‘discovering’ that was fundamental to the plot, I was sure, but it was so subtle. It was about making me feel like I was in charge. Making me complacent. Most people would have sat in a chair and not touched anything until the others arrived. Whoever planned this evening knew I'd look. So who was behind it? MD had the brains for it, but not the balls. Which meant...

"Mike," I said, "could you excuse us please? Ian and I would like to have a little chat."

...

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