My life as a Football Agent (introduction)

so my name's jason mack i run a company

called max sports management

international

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lucky enough for me i was blessed to

have my father start the business

first agent in the uk

42 years ago

and

you can imagine what's happened in the

industry over the last 42 years changed

dramatically so

after some pestering from one of my good

friends behind the camera this is what

makes us sit here mate um and i think

generally speaking one of the reasons

that we wanted to do this sort of thing

was it's very very difficult to

differentiate yourself in this industry

we're on our way to

london coney arsenal's training ground

uh where lino's gonna be signing his

first professional contract

there's a lot of people doing it some

people do a really really good job um

some people not so much

and for families directors chairman you

know it's hard to get a grasp of what

people are really like so

when you come up with the idea um i

wanted to jump at it but just very

apprehensive due to

you know our clients lives are very very

private so for me it's um

trying to gauge what we do

but also keeping it fairly private

because that is something that's very

important plus i don't like being on

camera

um but yeah i think that look i don't

know uh you know how much detail i can

really go into but generally speaking

away from that yeah we've been going for

a long period of time we think we've got

a niche as an agency we are quite a

bespoke

uh kind of agency that focuses in on

history versus the future i probably is

the best way that i could describe it

you know we've obviously done four

thousand transactions

over a long period of time in 15

countries worldwide

you know we have partners across certain

different countries which hopefully you

can see one day

we travel a lot have a couple of guys

that are working under me

very blessed to still have some advice

around me from some great mentors and um

yeah we we sort of given it a real go

and recently we've signed some real top

youngsters

involved in a new market which is um

once again very hard another reason to

try to try and differentiate yourself

you have to let people know what you're

up to

so for me um you know it's important

that people know how we operate what we

do the service that we give

where we go

the doors that we open the people that

we see it's really important so families

don't always see that players don't

always see that people that we're in the

industry don't always see that and

generally speaking it's private so you

know you can get an understanding of

what we do um maybe through

for a camera so who knows where it goes

as people won't know behind the camera

i'm one of jace's very close friends and

i've had bing bang like he said about

portraying his life and his work ethic

towards the masses

and i think everyone would agree with me

by saying we'd like to see the highs and

the lows

um how do you feel about portraying that

to the public about the low times again

yes hard really hard because once again

it's private and you know we that we

can't obviously mention names etc but

we're looking after some high profile

individuals some players that haven't

made it yet some players that are young

some players that are coming to the end

of their careers not sure what to do yet

and through that period there's not a

lot of agencies out there that have done

it once again you know we're quite lucky

we have players that are coaches

managers

and players that haven't even made it

yet so through that period of

on an average eight good years of the

game but sometimes 15 years of career

sometimes 20 sometimes five sometimes

players don't make it so

it's a guarantee of high and lows you

know even this week we've come up with a

situation where you know a player

struggling personally uh doesn't know

what to do luckily enough i have the

relationship with him that he reaches

out we have to sort that situation it is

what it is you know it's um it's

something that

it's never a burden for us you know we

we portray a 24 7 approach

that's why we don't sign hundreds of

players and that's not what we ever want

to do we want to be very specific so it

does come with highs and that's why you

have to enjoy and it also comes with

lows and the lows you have to try and

bring the players back to where where

they need to be so

it's

it's hard to then open that up you know

some players would never want to open up

but for me i can give you an idea

um of the injury itself of the industry

itself should i say and um yeah it's a

it's a hard hard industry

so going forward what are you going to

show us

so um

lots of different things hopefully i

think that first and foremost we want to

show what we are as a company how we

operate as a company and then what we do

as a company um you know there's so many

different things that i think people

maybe don't know about what we do and

then when we're talking to people you

can give them an idea and until you

actually do it um you don't have an idea

so that could be anything from moving a

player could be buying a car could be

buying a house um could be meeting an

ifa could be

traveling europe meeting my partner

getting involved in a transaction

walking into a football club walking

into a scouts office being around your

client going to the house pitching to a

player and no one really has an idea and

that makes for a 24 7 industry which

doesn't ever stop

so we know how important social media is

to everybody and it's a part of our

everyday society

says it's the platform that you're going

to try and reach out onto

yeah i really hope so um i think that

you know i've actually had a few

conversations with people quite high in

the industry about this and they've

given me some real valuable advice and i

think the main thing i've took out of it

is you have to show who you are um so

i'm really hoping that this can go

somewhere but mainly for the reason that

people get an idea that when they're

stepping into the world of msmi that

they already have an idea which is very

hard to portray when you're one of five

10 15 20 agents that are trying to

approach a player and through social

media i really think we can give people

an idea so i'm sure

through the videos that are going to

come in the future there is going to be

some negativity and some positivity yeah

um

is this something you can take in your

strides

and how will you deal with it yeah um i

think

look everything gets thrown at you in

this industry and i have to take on a

lot of problems and a lot of those are

confidential which i don't talk about

and i have to get up every day and be

positive and i think that's why you have

to stay on a level playing field yeah

it's going to come with negativity but

so what you know there'll be other

people that want to try and do that in

our industry you know people will either

be you know happy about what i'm doing

or they won't and i you know

as an agent i think that generally

speaking as you know

the mo the main reason is i've been

apprehensive about it and if there's

negativity that comes with it that's the

highest of lows at the uh of the game

generally speaking not only i have the

highers and lows but imagine what the

players go through one minute there were

60 000 people you know playing out there

the next minute they're not or they get

their professional contract then they

get released you know there's lots of

different things that they go through

that i'm happy to handle this is a minor

like i said like i've known you you're

one of my very close friends

and

the what your work ethic is something to

behold um

and

yeah from my perspective i can't wait to

film you on this journey and i'm sure

the masses that are watching this

will love their insight into

what goes into being a successful

football agent and uh yeah we wish you

very well on the journey and i need

it's going to be it incredible insight

and

yeah i look forward to it thank you mate

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