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What effect does the agent have on football transfers?

Tuesday, 10. 27. 2009 – Category: Guide to Football Transfer Rumours

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Football agents, the black hole in the world of football, sucking all that’s light and good from the world. Or some might have you believe. Regardless of your opinion, Agents are here to stay, and they are frequently significant players in a football transfer. Here are the ways that they can get involved. The significant thing to remember is that while retained agents get a cut of a players wage, all agents that are involved in a football transfer will take a slice of the transfer fee (if they’re vaguely competent). This means that many agents only get paid when a transfer goes through.

Football agents represent a player’s interests to clubs

This is, ostensibly the sole reason agents exist. They’re there to represent the interests of the players to a club. Footballers are not deemed capable of dealing with their own contract negotiations and as such need to pay 15% of their income to have someone do it for them.

In a pure world, the agent would be there to help out with contact negotiation or renegotiation, every couple of years. Where it gets a little murky is if the player wants to leave. In theory the players current club should inform the player of any offers from clubs, but an enterprising agent will scout through their contact list to speak to directors, coaches, managers and players to try and drum up some interest for their client. On the other side of the coin, the player might not want to leave, but another club might try to sway the players interest by either speaking to the players agent (which is not exactly legal) or speaking to the players current club. We’ll cover the rest of this process in a separate article.

What can happen is agents that have no relationship to anyone, can engineer a player move by talking to the buying club and the player. The agent will try to sway the players interest by promises of trophies, wine and women, and try to sway the buying clubs head by promising the player will bring glory to the club and certainly at this bargain price. If this is successful, the agent will make a big slice of the transfer fee, all for the cost of a few phone calls.

Media Liason

Another way to get a transfer rocking is by releasing information to the media. A large proportion of the crap you read in the papers is the result of agent talk. It’s very difficult to put a finger on how much exactly is agent talk, but behind the scenes here at Football Transfer Rumours Dot Com, we’re working to do exactly that. More on that later. Anyway the point is that by releasing some rumours to the news media, it forces the hand of all parties involved. If the rumour picks up enough steam, then the buying and selling clubs involved in it, as well as the player will need to react. The reaction will give all parties some insight into the opinions of the other parties involved in the transfer. It also could start the conversation between any interested parties.

From this point, a clever agent can further stimulate the transfer by representing the interests of each party; acting as a go between to all concerned parties, and releasing timely information to the press to keep the ball rolling.

We’ve covered the rest of the football transfer process in greater detail elsewhere. Over the next few days we’ll try to shed some more light on some of the other players in football transfers.