For the player they take money from what he / she could keep. You pay them them to read the tabloid papers, do it yourself. If you want to move to a bigger better club apply yourself and they will come calling.
The Club pay a fee to a third party. Phone the club up you want to take a player from and offer them 20% less than what you have to if the agent was involved.
Technically Footballers are contractors the same as every offshore worker in the world. we dont have Agents. occaisionally we use agency’s for short term work but fixed contracts direct dealings between the client and yourself. The contract will be sent to you. Get a lawyer/ soliciter to look it over adjust the fee in your favour and send it back waiting for the clients responce then normally sign the second or third revision when the fee is acceptable.
To be fair most players are not the sharpest tools in the box (and some are just tools) so they probably do need help.
Saying that, agents seem to be blood sucking leeches who need to be regulated…and stop agitating for big money moves when a player is already in contract…
If the players want someone to mediate between them and the club’s I think the FA should take on this role. Ban private agents and get the supposed governing body of the game involved. Would finally make the FA relevant and take some of the bullshit out of the transfer process.
The same FA that has 140 or so Council members and only requires two of them to make a complaint in order to launch a disciplinary investigation against another one. The same FA where the Board - the statutory one, which runs this high profile multi-million £ business and has full legal responsibility- has multiple board members, but only two of them have any experience of running a multi-million £ business. Very frightening.
I think it is acceptable for players to have a representative looking out for them. Take Luke Shaw, for example. I don’t think it would have been reasonable for anyone to expect a teenager to negotiate a £25m 5 year deal with a billion dollar organisation, especially one that dopey.
However the fees involved need to be regulated. The clubs should not have to pay the wankers. Its the players rep, they should cough for it. The fees should be set too. x% of signing on bonuses, plus x% of whatever they can get from commercial deals they arrange. Anything else - they can just feck off.
Pogba’s deal resulted in £20m in agents fees apparently. £20m. No one can come close to putting forward a credible reason why that is value for money.
There is definitely a need for agents, and there are definitely some very good agents out there that look out for their clients.
That doesn’t mean they don’t need better regulation, and that some of the ridiculous fee’s thrown around don’t need to be curbed somewhat.
Transfer dealings are far more complicated than what most fans see from the outside, if I was a player, I’d certainly want someone to help guide me through the process. Then when it comes to things like image rights, sponsorship and everything else that comes with with being a modern day footballer, you are definitely going to want someone in your corner with a bit of experience.
I don’t know what the current process (lack of transparency is definitely also a problem) is, but would certainly say that agents should be required to acquire licences, with training/exams required prior to this. Untoward behaviour should then result in the suspension, or worst case, stripping of licences.
My missus is a singer! No she’s doesn’t stand up when she plays the piano!!
Anyway she has many agents and they get her various gigs, they all charge between 10% and 15% of her fee, all this for sitting at home and having pubs and clubs phone them asking for an act!!
We just need players to be a bit sharper because the agent is the real winner in many transfer deals.
Some players get moves that are clearly not good for their careers, but they’ve been advised by a bloke who will benefit financially if they do.
Players need to be intelligent enough to make sensible decisions about their future and not just agree with the first idea their agent has.
It was the same with Redknapp - put him on a cut of transfers and before you know it they’ll be a revolving door system that mainly benefits one person - and certainly not the club.
