Football League reveles Agents’ fee

A document publish by the English Football League has reveled that 118 deals made by the League’s clubs between January and June 2004, involved an aggregate £ 1.4m payments to agents. The document shows that fees were not paid at all by clubs in 844 of those 963 transactions. The “big spenders” according to the document are Derby County which spent some £279,000 on agents’ fee despite the club continuing to have debts of around £ 30m, and West Ham who paid out almost £250,000. On the other hand, Crystal Palace won promotion to the Premiership without paying even a penny in agents' fees. Football League chairman and Conservative MP Sir Brian Mawhinney hoped the report would open the debate as to why such monies were being lost to the game and perhaps spark the FA Premier League into conducting a similar study. However, chief executive of leading football management and representation company First Artist Corporation plc, Jon Smith told The Press Association that agents were involved in probably 80% of those transactions and it may well be that the other clubs who haven’t listed agents fees have dealt with agents. Agents and clubs are often in agreement that the agent’s fee is included in the costs of the deal and paid by the player. While there is some general agreement concerning the necessity for players to have someone brokering their deals, opinions on what constitutes appropriate representation diverge. Some agents not only negotiate on behalf of their clients, they often do so in their absence. This leaves open the possibility of covert maneuvering between the agent and the club which may be at variance with the player's interests. It's also because of the clubs that the agents have thrived; the clubs are in cahoots with the agents. They scream when they feel that an agent is unsettling one of their players and yet they'll do anything for them when they are looking to get a player from another club. An interesting comparison could doubtless be made with the outlay on agents' fees made by Premiership clubs. Manchester United has already admitted paying out around £750,000 to a third party when Louis Saha was signed from Fulham in a £14m deal. The size of agents' fees paid by Chelsea, who spent close to £160 million on rebuilding their squad under Roman Abramovich last season, would also surely make interesting reading. Agents usually get paid as laid out in the FIFA regulations (Regulations governing Licensed Players’ Agents), which provides among others that in case that the agent’s fee wasn’t settled in advance, the agent is entitled to 5% of the deal concluded. Usually, most agents will charge 10-15% of the deal, which is what any head-hunting firm would be charging.  “The figures are bigger in buying and selling oil – but nobody complains about the size of commissions given to oil brokers” said Smith.

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