Agent Fees

[stubbo-admin]

So looks like we've dropped 19m on Agent Fees this season...worthy of discussion, or just modern day parasites that you can't avoid in the football world. 

Wonder if any of these 'fees' make their way back to those involved in the deal on the Club side of things?!  Maybe if you had a 'special relationship' with an Agent in use?

 

[stubbo]

But isn't the issue that it's a 'sellers market', and it's a two-stage negotiation.

1. With the owning club
2. With the player

I'd have thought Club to Club should be viable without the agent's involvement...but at the same time, the buying club is the 'desperado' in the deal....if there's more than one involved and an agent says 'pay me some cash and I'll swing it your way' then the Club will stump up.

When it comes to the player all the power is on the player's side....so they can essentially demand the club pays for their intermediary...and again the agent can say 'pay me some cash and I'll swing my client in your direction...owe and maybe there could be some kick back for you outside of the 'player-organisation' relationship".

So without direct legustlation on the scope of agent involvement, Clubs will not be able to drive this change on their own (and in fact most won't want to, as greasing the palm of an agent is just another lever to make a deal happen in a sellers market).

[BillyJenningsBoots]

I think the problem is that its the clubs that have to pay and unless they've directly requested the Agent to find a player why should they pay £millions in fees for contract negotiations. I know its different but if you or I went into negotiate with a potential employer and brought along a contract expert Id expect to pay for that not the employer.

I think stricter rules should be put in place around who pays, its not like the top players cant afford it and arent they paying for the Agents on an ongoing basis anyway!

Ultimately if the players pay it should drive down the fees as so much is just leaking out of the game into the pockets of Agents.

[BRANDED]

Do we think a young footballer is going to walk into the London stadium on his own and negotiate his own deal?

Middle men are the scourge of society but they exist in almost all industries.

[THUNDERCLINT]

Lets be clear, the clubs aren't paying these fees, WE ARE.

 Long overdue for the governing bodies to cut this cancer out of football.

Agent's purview strictly limited to representing their client, the player, in contract negotiations and and sponsorship etc. Player pays agent a fixed percentage.

No agent to be employed as 3rd by clubs or draw payments directly from clubs. In house agents paid a fixed salary to negotiate of clubs behalf an acceptable possibility.

Never going to happen though, as IMO agents are the mechanism for people in football to siphon money out of football for themselves...and that is across the board.

Preservation of self interest.

Actually now is a cracking time for it to happen. The country is a total state and every political party is desperate for a popular gimmick, or in Labour's case massive diversion.

An amendment to their football governance bill perhaps? 

If the Premier League clubs free themselves from this these parasites how long before FIFA/UEFA are forced to fully regulate the whole scam?

It's perfectly doable with the appropriate agents of influence applying the correct pressure.

[Sir Alf]

Sullivan’s warped thinking though is that he would rather miss out on the right player than pay agent fees in excess if his agreed percentages with Salthouse and Silkman etc.   Like a very short sighted accountant he would rather save £1 million now, guaranteed rather than wait 1-5 years and potentially make £100 million in the player’s value and potential improved league position or revenue from trophies like the conference, that buying the right player might bring.   He doesnt want to wait because its not guaranteed and of course he wants to fund all player costs from TV and ticket revenues ( albeit loans borrowed against these future revenues).   

We just to start buying younger and being prepared to sell some of these players as they improve for a profit. Over time, assuming recruitment is generally ok, we start to build strength as we can regularly turnover players in the squad. 

Will take 5 - 10 years to really see the results. Fans wont want to wait but its really the only way
for most clubs now to improve.  

Only one we have done this with is Rice but our recruitment failed and we did not replace him properly. Allied to poor mangerial appomtments ( Sullivans insisyence on Lopeyegui ) has seen us   become the 4th worst team in the league.  

Sullivan is an insurmountable barrier to inprovement. 

 

[Jean-Luc Paul Goddard]

The way I think it should be done is that a player's agent is not allowed to negotiate with clubs at all. Their only involvement is in negotiating other sources of revenue, eg sponsorship, image rights, etc.

All contract negotiations with clubs should be done by an FA rep, who can advise players on how much they should expect to receive based on what other players of a similar reputation and squad status get at the club. This is better for the clubs as agents aren't pushing their players to move all the time. It's also better for the players as they won't have to pay % of their salary to an agent and also presumably clubs could pay higher salaries if they weren't being gouged by agent fees.

[stubbo]

Lets be clear, the clubs aren't paying these fees, WE ARE.

 Long overdue for the governing bodies to cut this cancer out of football.

Agent's purview strictly limited to representing their client, the player, in contract negotiations and and sponsorship etc. Player pays agent a fixed percentage.

No agent to be employed as 3rd by clubs or draw payments directly from clubs. In house agents paid a fixed salary to negotiate of clubs behalf an acceptable possibility.

Never going to happen though, as IMO agents are the mechanism for people in football to siphon money out of football for themselves...and that is across the board.

Preservation of self interest.

[THUNDERCLINT]

Lets be clear, the clubs aren't paying these fees, WE ARE.

 Long overdue for the governing bodies to cut this cancer out of football.

Agent's purview strictly limited to representing their client, the player, in contract negotiations and and sponsorship etc. Player pays agent a fixed percentage.

No agent to be employed as 3rd by clubs or draw payments directly from clubs. In house agents paid a fixed salary to negotiate of clubs behalf an acceptable possibility.

[Alfs]

I don't get what agent's fees are for.  In the entertainment world an agent takes between 10 and 15% of the earning of the person that they represent, which is reasonable as they help you get work and negotiate the contracts.  

Football agents should be the same and charge their client, not the club.  The clubs should get together and say that from next season we are not paying agent's fees.

[pulhampete]

I'm surprised at how much Liverpool have paid over the last year, considering how few signings they have made.
A quick google only showed a keeper (30m), who was loaned back to his club, and Chiesa (12m) plus a handful of youths.

I thought ours would be higher.

[Fauxstralian]

Agent fees should be set at a maximum of a fixed percentage and paid by the player who is being represented
Imagine they would drop remarkably if the player paid 
You wouldn’t mind if your agents gets you a higher wage than you could have negotiated but ridiculous situations like when we had agreed to buy Mazroui & his agent turned up saying I want another £5m for ME shouldn’t happen 
Seems obvious that Man Utd DID cough up

[El Scorchio]

That's actually not as much as I thought it might be given the money we've spent and the players coming in, unless of course some of those fees are being siphoned off to Sullivan's mates in other means. I'm surprised we spent more than spurs though.

Looks a bit fucking fishy with Forest being right down there given the turnover they've had. Villa are bigger spenders than I thought.