£5,653,160

Its not Sport any more....its Business...to make everyone Rich but the Fan....you buy the Shirts...and eat dust with your pre-match pie...dust blown up by the Ferraris and Porsches.
Keep on Gushing and Salivating over clips of Kane, Vardy, Firmini et all ..looking 'angry' as they punch the air and cup their ears when they've scored...
Make sure you are activated to buy something advertised by the fookin gumph on the boards around the pitches.

Pah...its all a load of Crap !
 
The amount our club spent on agents fees in the year to February
£5,653,160
that is absolutely fcuking outrageous.
Only Norwich in the championship spent more.
These bloodsuckers need to be booted out of the game.
Premier league teams paid player’s agents a total of £272,220,223 last year.
Legislation to take these leeches out of the game is long overdue - or more clubs need to take a leaf out of Paul Scally’s book (who’d believe that dick turned out to be a good example) and just refuse to deal with them.
Does it give a breakdown on where the 5 million went(e.g. to what agent for which player)
 
Every player has an agent who they will be paying part of their weekly wage to.

How much money a football agent earns depends entirely on who their clients are and how many clients they represent.

Agents take a commission (generally anywhere up to 10 per cent) from the athletes they represent, so someone who acts on behalf of stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi will earn a significant fee.

According to Sports Management Worldwide, an agent can earn anywhere between £1,200 to £550,000 per Premier League client annually.
 
Ibrahimovic touches on it in his book, how club directors/owners would screw over players during transfer deals.

Peter Crouch also spoke about it in one episode of his podcast.

I suppose the question is whether it's now the agents who are doing the shafting, taking advantage of the ignorance and talent / hard work of players to obtain huge payments for themselves. I wonder if we could point to the Ryan Fraser debacle as a potential example (just speculation of course).
 
The players control this. Surely if they all said - nah don't need an agent...that would be the end of it?
 
The players control this. Surely if they all said - nah don't need an agent...that would be the end of it?
I don't have the details, but I think Chris Sutton once did something like that.

He realised the cake was only so big and that by cutting out the agent he could take more.

He wasn't stupid though, he utilised a service available from the PFA, probably intended for lower grade players who couldn't afford to retain agents and they took care of all the complex legals and contracts for a significantly reduced amount thus taking home a larger share of the cake, and not having agent leeching for the rest of the contract.

The irony is that great majority of these players come through an academy that includes some degree of schooling. Only takes the clubs to put in some very useful personal finance savvy to curriculum and wouldn't take long before more players wake up to lessons on fair value of advice and representation, dress it up as how you go about getting a mortgage or something and more pennies will drop. When they find out it's cheaper in some cases to have a barrister who might defender you in a criminal trial when you crash your motor than an agent to negotiate your contract, then agents will have to respond.

Flip side is that if agents do offer poor value for everyone, why hasn't a bunch of them started lowering their rates to build their portfolios and still make a handsome living. Why would a player pay 10% when they can sign with someone else and they will only take 2%?
 
I don't have the details, but I think Chris Sutton once did something like that.

He realised the cake was only so big and that by cutting out the agent he could take more.

He wasn't stupid though, he utilised a service available from the PFA, probably intended for lower grade players who couldn't afford to retain agents and they took care of all the complex legals and contracts for a significantly reduced amount thus taking home a larger share of the cake, and not having agent leeching for the rest of the contract.

The irony is that great majority of these players come through an academy that includes some degree of schooling. Only takes the clubs to put in some very useful personal finance savvy to curriculum and wouldn't take long before more players wake up to lessons on fair value of advice and representation, dress it up as how you go about getting a mortgage or something and more pennies will drop. When they find out it's cheaper in some cases to have a barrister who might defender you in a criminal trial when you crash your motor than an agent to negotiate your contract, then agents will have to respond.

Flip side is that if agents do offer poor value for everyone, why hasn't a bunch of them started lowering their rates to build their portfolios and still make a handsome living. Why would a player pay 10% when they can sign with someone else and they will only take 2%?

I think your last paragraph sums it up. Players will only use agents if they think they are value for money. If the have the ability to do it themselves like De Bryune or Sutton then they will. There's a lot of money at stake so you'd think these agents would have to prove their worth, there's plenty of other agents who would gladly take their clients I'm sure.

Some people use traditional Estate Agents, some use low-fee online Purple Bricks type agents and some don't use an agent at all.
 
I do wonder about some agents though.
I often think that although they do represent their clients sometimes their advice can be poor.
Josh King’s agent for example.
How on earth has he benefited Josh’s football career?
 
I think your last paragraph sums it up. Players will only use agents if they think they are value for money. If the have the ability to do it themselves like De Bryune or Sutton then they will. There's a lot of money at stake so you'd think these agents would have to prove their worth, there's plenty of other agents who would gladly take their clients I'm sure.

Some people use traditional Estate Agents, some use low-fee online Purple Bricks type agents and some don't use an agent at all.

I struggle to imagine most players are anywhere near capable of negotiating tge best deals for themselves if agents weren't around.

Professional negotiators/business men would ensure it wouldn't happen over time.
 
My local club. Quite a controversial owner but yes, it's good to see.

Anyone notice Surs in the background there looking distraught?

Pretty happy recently tho - I wonder if he's the reason MK Dons have the 3rd highest possession % in Europe? Bonkers stat they rolled out on Soccer Saturday last week.
 
My local club. Quite a controversial owner but yes, it's good to see.

Anyone notice Surs in the background there looking distraught?

Despite the headline Gillingham is still paying agents it's just hidden in the player's contract probably disguised in the player's wages or a negotiated signing fee.
 

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