⚽️ Football Agents Make a LOT of Money

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This week, we explore the world of football agents and break down just how much Premier League clubs pay to them each season.

My gosh, what a world this is!

In my humble opinion, there are two primary problems with the presence of agents in the footballing ecosystem today:

1. It’s possible for an agent to represent more than one party in any transaction

2. Anyone can be an agent. If a relative of yours is on the path to becoming a top athlete, you can register and represent them if you wanted to 

The FA have to report how much money clubs in the football league are paying agencies and intermediaries each year.

Their latest report was astonishing!

Between February 1st 2023 to February 1st 2024 Premier League clubs paid £409m to agencies!

Across the 20 Premier League clubs, it brings an average of £20.45m for each team in England’s top flight.

The major culprits won’t surprise you but the amounts might:

Manchester City are interesting. They paid £60m in the twelve months from Feb ‘23 to Feb ‘24and have been very high “agency payers” for many years.

The Erling Haaland transfer was a fascinating example of this. City signed him in 2022 for a fee reported to be £51m. That is the number that the British media reported then and that the British media still report to this day.

Alongside that transfer fee however, was a £34m fee paid to his agent Mino Raiola.

That is an astronomical amount of money that seemingly gets overlooked in the discussion around his transfer to the Premier League.

In the same realm as Raiola, Jorge Mendes is another widely-heralded “super agent”. He was Cristiano Ronaldo’s agent when he moved to Real Madrid from Manchester United in 2008. He reportedly made £4m from that transfer alone!

After that season his profile exploded allowing him to build trust around the world and sign some exceptional players. This then paid off handsomely in 2014 where he oversaw:

• James Rodríguez’ move to Real Madrid from Monaco for £63m

• Ángel Di María move from Real Madrid to Manchester United for £60m

• Diego Costa from Atlético Madrid to Chelsea for £32m  

• Eliaquim Mangala from Porto to Manchester City for £32m

Other super-agents exist too:

Raffaela Pimenta: Inherited Mino Raiola’s client base after his untimely death in 2022. Key clients: Paul Pogba, Gianluigi Donnarumma and Matthijs de Ligt,

Jonathan Barnett: He runs ICM Sports and previously represented Gareth Bale for most of his career. Other clients include Jack Grealish, Eduardo Camavinga and Luke Shaw (Manchester United).

Pini Zahavi: He oversaw Neymar’s record transfer to PSG and still represents some top talent. Robert Lewandowski. Christopher Nkunku. Alex Telles to name just a few.

Interestingly, the sums that agents are making were being noticed and recently, some very stringent rules were put in place by FIFA. I’ve summarised the 4 key ones below:

1. Cap on Service Fees

Before: No limit on the percentage agents could charge for their services.
After: Agents are capped at 3% of a player's annual salary when representing a player. 6% if representing both the player and the hiring club. 10% of the transfer fee when representing the selling club.

2. Mandatory Licensing

Before: Not all agents required licensing
Now: All agents must pass a FIFA licensing exam to provide representation services

3. Payment Structures

Before: Clubs could pay agents directly on behalf of players, see Man City
Now: Players must pay their agents directly, ensuring transparency in financial dealings

4. Protection of Minors

Before: Few restrictions were in place for agents working with minors
Now: Stricter rules govern agents’ dealings with minors to protect young players

So now consider a transfer:

• Transfer fee: £40m

• Annual salary: £6m

There are three agents involved. One representing the player. One representing the buying club. One representing the selling club.

The delta in earnings are severe:

On the whole I think it's good for the sport.

But as you can see, these are pretty drastic decreases in potential earnings for agents in football and the changes (known as FFAR) have not gone down well in the agency community. There are quite a few legal appeals happening across the world from various individuals and companies.

I’m sure they will continue for months to come!

I’d love to interview an agent.

Not just about the business side of their profession but everything about their psyche, how they approach their job, their clients.

I’d love to know it all.

If you are reading this and represent talent please reach out to me. Similarly if you know of anyone in this world also please connect me to them!

As always, see you next week.