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Agents Threaten FIFA with Legal Action


downendcity

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51211078

From the article:

Fifa want to implement their plans possibly as early as next season but Barnett, who represents high-profile players including Gareth Bale and England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, added: "The truth is Fifa doesn't know exactly what an agent does. 

"No-one from Fifa has ever been to my office or had a conversation with me. 

"If you ask players what they want, they are in favour of agents. There are never complaints about agents' fees from players.

I don't know about FIFA not knowing what an agent does, I think a lot of us would like to know exactly what an agent does to justify some of the obscene fees they now receive.

As doe players not complaining about agents' fees, that's only because they are not paying them - the big fees associated with transfers are paid by clubs! 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, downendcity said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51211078

From the article:

Fifa want to implement their plans possibly as early as next season but Barnett, who represents high-profile players including Gareth Bale and England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, added: "The truth is Fifa doesn't know exactly what an agent does. 

"No-one from Fifa has ever been to my office or had a conversation with me. 

"If you ask players what they want, they are in favour of agents. There are never complaints about agents' fees from players.

I don't know about FIFA not knowing what an agent does, I think a lot of us would like to know exactly what an agent does to justify some of the obscene fees they now receive.

As doe players not complaining about agents' fees, that's only because they are not paying them - the big fees associated with transfers are paid by clubs! 

 

 

 

you do realise that the agent has to get out of bed at some point in the day if only to have a pee(optional) or make a few calls (can't afford bedside phone).

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I’ve never understood why clubs have to pay agent fees. 

Players feel they need them. Fine. 

FIFA should simply ban clubs from making payments to agents. Let them be paid purely by the player. That will soon reduce the amount going to agents 

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9 minutes ago, Riaz said:

I’ve never understood why clubs have to pay agent fees. 

Players feel they need them. Fine. 

FIFA should simply ban clubs from making payments to agents. Let them be paid purely by the player. That will soon reduce the amount going to agents 

Because in some cases Clubs drive the move, but in many ways I agree.

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6 minutes ago, Riaz said:

I’ve never understood why clubs have to pay agent fees. 

Players feel they need them. Fine. 

FIFA should simply ban clubs from making payments to agents. Let them be paid purely by the player. That will soon reduce the amount going to agents 

I've never understood why an agent is "acting" for either club in a transfer, when he also acts for the player - surely it creates a conflict of interest.

Club A approaches club B interested in buying their player ( no agent involvement so far)

Club A chief exec makes opening Bid which club B's chief exec rejects. Further bids are made and rejected until a fee is agreed between both sides ( again, to this point no agent involvement)

Now the agent sits down with club A's chief exec ( who is, of course, acting for club A) yo negotiate the best contract terms for his client - the player. After negotiation terms are agreed, including a nice signing on fee for the player. At this stage the agent has been acting in the interest of the player, which you could argue run counter to the best interest of the club, so why would the club need/have to pay the agent anything. More importantly, if the agents sole involvement was to act for the player - his client - then surely any fee he is due has to come from the player!

It seems to me that very simply put , transfers represent the chance f the biggest pay days for agents, and with transfer fees ( even in the championship) running into multi million pounds, the agents want a slice, because their clients don;t have those amounts of money to pay them. It's not about the agent being "worth" the fee, it's the amount of power they seem now to hold over the whole process of players moving.

If what was poster on here about our interest in Nketiah is true, then it probably explains a lot. I understand that NK's agent ( who has only been his agent for 5 minutes) wanted £1/2m from City for his facilitating the players loan move. Given that we were pursuing NK through last summer, and obviously renewed our interest with arsenal whwne NK was recalled from loan in January, I'm interested to know exactly what the agent did to facilitate that move. In my view the harsh truth is that the agent facilitation was effectively saying you pay my fee or you don't get my player i.e. cold hard extortion/blackmail.

The agents have so much influence with players and thereby so much power over and a hold on clubs and particularly transfers, that the huge fees they extract from clubs I think are achieved because without payment of those fees, agents can and will break a proposed transfer.

 

 

 

 

 

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An example of how ridiculous agents fees have become is the Aaron Ramsey to Juventus deal which happened in the summer. Ramsey's agent David Baldwin had been advising the player to consider his options for a little while and when he heard that Juventus were interested, he jumped at the chance. As Baldwin doesn't speak Italian, he struggled to transact the deal so got a friend and fellow agent Iain Moody involved to negotiate on his behalf.

Moody spent a few months negotiating the move and when it was finally signed, amazingly Juventus paid David Baldwin £6m for doing next to nothing. Iain Moody wanted his share of the fees so approached David for his cut which was laughed out of the door. He explained the situation to Juve who said they'd arrange something, so he assumed he would get very little. How much did they transfer him? £1 million. 

The system is a joke and is damaging football. A footballer with an average level of intelligence could negotiate and transact the deal themselves, it really is quite straightforward. Interestingly,  16 year old Jude Bellingham of Birmingham City is on the verge of a big money move. His Dad, who was a decent amateur footballer and quite senior in the police force has now become his agent to stop him being misled (or to pocked some cash himself!)

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10 hours ago, Kempson said:

Rich people in trying to preserve their wealth controversy.

 

I actually think it's a little unfair to just go after agents alone as if they are the only people making ludicrous amounts of money from football related business.

Yeah, they should go after anyone selling those half and half scarves, for starters. 

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One of the episodes of The Price of Football podcast was on Agents. Quite interesting. They had Jonathan Booker on (an Agent, I've never heard of him either prior to this). Talked about a few things including the role of an Agent, how they can come to represent all parties in a transaction (the conflict of interest point) and how some footballs don't know how much they pay their Agent!

Spotify link below but available elsewhere too.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0CiCYoclOH5ZVn0xYxMumw?si=IYAIGpdrQ6G84PxrpeVR1A

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11 hours ago, Kempson said:

Rich people in trying to preserve their wealth controversy.

 

I actually think it's a little unfair to just go after agents alone as if they are the only people making ludicrous amounts of money from football related business.

Its probably the case though, that agents put the least effort in.......to get the most rewards out?   Possibly, other than a couple of our ex players who shall remain nameless?  I think a spoof documentary in the vein of 'The Office" would be appropriate? Get on it Gervais??

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12 hours ago, downendcity said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51211078

From the article:

Fifa want to implement their plans possibly as early as next season but Barnett, who represents high-profile players including Gareth Bale and England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, added: "The truth is Fifa doesn't know exactly what an agent does. 

"No-one from Fifa has ever been to my office or had a conversation with me. 

"If you ask players what they want, they are in favour of agents. There are never complaints about agents' fees from players.

I don't know about FIFA not knowing what an agent does, I think a lot of us would like to know exactly what an agent does to justify some of the obscene fees they now receive.

As doe players not complaining about agents' fees, that's only because they are not paying them - the big fees associated with transfers are paid by clubs! 

 

 

 

Perhaps the players don’t pay the agent’s fees so they wouldn’t complain would they ? 

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1 hour ago, hodge said:

Everyone saying 'the player should pay the agent' you just realise this will lead to bigger signing on fees so the agent still receives the same amount

Maybe so, but if a deal falls thru because of a greedy agent - the agent will have some explaining to do. Instead of Agents using clubs as blank cheque books, the players would be the boss and the agent has to do a good job for them.

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12 minutes ago, Riaz said:

Maybe so, but if a deal falls thru because of a greedy agent - the agent will have some explaining to do

Implying they don't at the moment? The proposal wouldn't change anything in the process merely the form the agents payment takes, wouldn't change the amount or anything

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6 minutes ago, hodge said:

Implying they don't at the moment? The proposal wouldn't change anything in the process merely the form the agents payment takes, wouldn't change the amount or anything

You think the players will not question why the agents are taking such a huge chunk??

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5 minutes ago, hodge said:

How's it different to now? Agents are still taking as a big a chunk

Its very different. Club is dealing with a players agent. if they want the player they have no choice but to deal with that agent.

For a player its different. If a player isnt getting a good service/deal, then he can change agents. The agent literally works for the player. He does not work for the club, so the club has little power.

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13 minutes ago, hodge said:

How's it different to now? Agents are still taking as a big a chunk

What you say is true, but the players will see it differently.

Let's say at the moment the player gets a £10m signing on fee and the agent gets £5m paid by the club.

In the future payments to agents are banned and so the player gets a £15m signing on fee and the agent demands £5m of it from the player.

It is exactly the same amount of money, but you can guarantee the player will be wondering what the hell the agent did to deserve £5m.  At the moment the player doesn't care, they aren't paying them.

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1 hour ago, BS2 Red said:

What you say is true, but the players will see it differently.

Let's say at the moment the player gets a £10m signing on fee and the agent gets £5m paid by the club.

In the future payments to agents are banned and so the player gets a £15m signing on fee and the agent demands £5m of it from the player.

It is exactly the same amount of money, but you can guarantee the player will be wondering what the hell the agent did to deserve £5m.  At the moment the player doesn't care, they aren't paying them.

Perhaps if that were the case then players would start representing themselves more? Mind you some of them are thick as sh....

The other way it could work, is that a good agent gets a good deal for the player, player recommends them to their mate and so on. Eventually you would have a group of reputable agents that would have loads of players on their books. If the agents are crap, they have nobody to represent. 

I accept that this scenario is highly unlikely to happen because they already have too much power and money in the first place though.

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Nobody from FIFA needs to visit 'their office'.

It's not their say.

Regulation needs to be stringent. 

Players won't complain during a deal.

Club representatives and owners truly dislike agents.

Costs need to go down, or be paid by players for representation.

Worse than estate agents FFS.

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Why do you care, whether a player, an agent or an owner has this money?

Transfer amounts are done based on how much money is floating around football and supply and demand.

It's not going to the fans, so it doesn't really matter if a fee is £10 million or £8 million and £1 million agent fees and £1 million bribe to the family of the player.

You're not getting it, so why do you care?

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