WHY FOOTBALL'S SUPER AGENTS MAKE SO MUCH MONEY! | Explained

in march 2021 the guardian revealed that

premier league clubs had spent a

combined 272 million pounds on agents

fees over the previous 12 months with

chelsea the highest spend is on 35.2

million pounds west from the lowest and

4.2 million and gillingham the only club

in the top four divisions of english

football to not pay anything and weirdly

this represented an increase on the year

before despite top flight clubs making

huge losses in the pandemic and with

transfer spending decreasing by 10.6

percent between 2019 and 2020. figures

like this suggest that the power that

football agents hold in the game is

continuing to grow with their profits

increasing even as those in other areas

of the industry plummet according to

forbes jonathan barnett george mendes

and mino raiola all rank among the top

five most lucrative sports agents in the

world making more money from their

profession than any agent working in

basketball or american football and

according to build raiola will demand

wages of eight hundred and twenty-five

thousand pounds a week for his most

sought after client erling horland as

well as agent fees totaling almost 35

million pounds once the norwegian

striker's release clause comes into

effect next summer but why are figures

like raiola able to exploit the transfer

market like this on today's fd explained

we aim to find out

to understand why football agents profit

so handsomely from the beautiful game we

must first establish what exactly it is

they do and take a look at how they

become so powerful the exact

responsibilities they hold varies from

agent to agent and can include giving

guidance on lifestyles and finances

helping secure commercial deals for

their clients and representing them in

contract and transfer negotiations often

getting a five to ten percent cut of

earnings agreed in said negotiations

with fifa allowing agents or

intermediaries as they're also known to

charge commission rates as high as this

as opposed to the nfl and nba for

example only allow them to charge three

percent and four percent respectively it

therefore explains what the biggest

intermediaries working in football earn

more than their american counterparts

and it's this aspect of an agent's job

negotiating transfers and wages which

has put them increasingly under the

spotlight over the last 20 years acting

as a middleman between the player the

setting club and buying club and

sometimes even working for all three

parties in tandem agents can potentially

bag millions in commission for their

work in brokering a deal with the likes

of mendes and raiola labelled super

agents with the empires they have built

but the concept of a super agent is

still a relatively new one agents have

existed in some form throughout the

history of the game as far back as the

late 1800s and the advent of

professional football they were hired by

clubs to perform a scouting style role

seeking out talent as the transfer

markets began to emerge by the end of

the 1950s they were also working for

footballers with the long-standing

salary cap that existed within english

football forcing players to seek out

other means of income from public

appearances to advertising and playing

in friendly matches and following the

abolition of the salary cap in 1961

negotiating higher wages for players

suddenly became a much bigger part of

the job for agents who had previously

worked primarily on behalf of clubs

according to a study done by sporting

intelligence the average salary in the

english top flight more than doubled

between 1961 and 1966 with george best

becoming the first 1 000 a week player

in 1968 but it wasn't until 1994 that

fifa decided to take a conclusive stand

on the role of agents as rising wages

and reports of unethical behavior saw

pressure build on authorities to

implement regulations for the first time

the international governing body

formally recognised the profession and

introduced a licensing system whereby

football associations in each country

had to set out rules for agents to

become registered involving background

checks exams and bank guarantees and

just a year later the bosman ruling

which stipulated that clubs were no

longer able to block players from

joining rivals in other countries at the

end of their contract and banned quotas

on players moving between eu member

states gave footballers more power over

their employers coupled with the rapid

commercialization which was already

afoot in the european game this heralded

a new era of rising transfer fees and

wages with the average premier league

salary increasing from just under 4 000

pounds a week in 1995 to over 11 000

pounds a week in the year 2000. in 1999

roy keane became the first premier

league player to earn 50 000 pounds a

week and within two years soul campbell

had doubled it following his own bosman

transfer between tottenham and arsenal

now earning a lot more money it was

becoming increasingly important for top

level players to hire agents with a deep

knowledge of the football market who

could look out for their best interests

whether it be securing them big

contracts or a move to a better club and

no more so was this the case than with

david beckham the english midfielder was

the sport's biggest superstar in the

early 2000s and the value of his global

brand boosted by partnerships with

adidas and pepsi meant he was one of the

first players for whom image rights

played a major role in contract

negotiations when he signed a new

contract with man united in 2002 it was

reported that twenty thousand pounds a

week was negotiated for the use of his

name and image on club merchandise alone

with negotiations over this detail going

on for months after his base salary had

been agreed tony stevens the man who

negotiated alan shearer's world record

transfer fee to newcastle in 1995 had

represented beckham since he was a

teenager the european marketing director

of entertainment company sfx stevens was

instrumental in securing the

midfielder's commercial partnerships

wherefore reported 17 million pounds at

the time as well as leading his contract

negotiations at old trafford and putting

in motion his move to real madrid in

2003. the pair's relationship was at the

heart of beckham's commercial success

the england captain considered the agent

one of his closest friends even saying

that stevens knew him better than anyone

else in the world by this point italian

agent mino raiola had already been in

the profession for over a decade and was

beginning to turn heads after brokering

pavel nedved's 41 million euro switch

from lazio to juventus like stevens and

beckham raiola had been known to build

close relationships with his clients

advising players from a young age on

their career prospects financial

management and aspects of their

day-to-day lives as the financial times

as simon cooper wrote in 2016 he keeps a

stable of players small so as to offer

each one a personal service and he also

puts in time and effort to make sure

that he's working for the right clients

in his autobiography zlatan ibrahimovic

revealed his first encounter with raiola

in which the agent asked him do you want

to be the best in the world or the

player who earns most and can show off

the most stuff when the player rang him

up afterwards to ask him to represent

him the agent made a firm request sell

your cars your watches and start

training three times as hard because

your stats are rubbish ibrahimovic

heeded his advice and within months

raiola had bagged him and moved from

iaxd juventus using the good rapport

he'd built with bianconeri's ceo luciano

moji to help get the deal done and just

as he has worked too for nail to push

his clients to new heights and bag them

the best possible deals the italian

agent has also made some enemies along

the way with sir alex ferguson

infamously saying he distrusted him from

the moment he met him he's also used

unorthodox tactics in order to meet his

aims in 2005 raiola claimed real madrid

had offered juventus 70 million euros

for zlatan ibrahimovic with some seeing

it as a ploy to drive up his market

value and wages and in 2016 a dia

spiegel report based on documents

obtained by football leaks alleged that

raiola had strong armed brucia dortmund

into selling henrikh mkhitaryan to man

united with a clause in his agent

contract that would have compelled the

club to pay him millions in compensation

if they rejected the english club's

offer that same year it was confirmed

that juventus had paid him 24 million

pounds for his role in brokering paul

pogba's move to old trafford and reports

soon emerged that he had received a

combined 41 million pounds from juve

united and the player these kind of

stories and the money involved has led

many fans and journalists to view agents

as a problem within the game after

finding out raiola's fee for the pogba

transfer former fa chairman david

bernstein branded it immoral while

former crystal palace chairman simon

jordan has referred to agents as evil

divisive scum and wrote in 2019 at the

center of 90 of controversies conflicts

and corruption in football is the

involvement of agents however this isn't

entirely fair as former agent jonathan

booker wrote this year quite often the

criticism of some agents is well

deserved but more often than not the

headlines are skewed and misrepresented

to feed already common caricatures of

what is a very misunderstood industry

where agents are clumped together while

riota's tendency to create media storms

and george mendes's run-ins with the law

have cast the shadow over the industry

for many there remain thousands of

agents we don't hear about making far

less money avoiding controversy and

still negotiating excellent deals for

their clients but even for those agents

at least the ones working in the top

flight remains a lucrative business

according to sports management worldwide

agents earn between 1 200 pounds and 550

000 pounds per premier league client

every year

but more recently there's been a growing

sense that footballers don't always need

professionals to help them when it comes

to the financial matters of their job

kevin de bruyne famously negotiated his

new contract with manchester city

earlier this year although he admitted

he would have requested assistance had

he been pushing for a move away and in

england at least the government is

seemingly keen to crack down on

irregularities in the system according

to accountancy firm uhy the number of

footballers being investigated by the uk

tax authorities almost tripled between

2018-19 and 2019-20 with a number of

agents under investigation more than

doubled the tax loophole relating to

image rights the prime concern and in

february 2021 it was revealed that fifa

intended to become title and agents once

again with its decision to deregulate

the industry in 2015 a move which made

it much easier for anyone to become an

intermediary receiving criticism at the

time chief legal officer emilio garcia

silveiro has now admitted that was a

mistake and they've now proposed plans

for new caps on agent commissions for

player transfers plus the reintroduction

of a licensing scheme to raise

professional standards in the industry

but as long as footballers continue to

earn huge wages they will always need

professional assistance to manage their

assets and paperwork in short while

regulation may help to keep out those

unqualified for the job super agents and

the power they hold within the game

aren't going away anytime soon

that's all we have time for today but if

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