Agents

marklazarcovic

Just after reading about the pogba transfer and the agents fees involved being north of 40 million pound. Do they own players now? Do they stop players going to a club they want,make them move when they don't ? it all seems rather unfair,if say the two main agents don't allow any of their players join one club in particular. Surely there must be rules against it,what's to stop a rival club bunging a agent to stop one of their players joining their immediate rivals?

Too much control these lads have imo

theoneeyedman

marklazarcovic wrote: »

Just after reading about the pogba transfer and the agents fees involved being north of 40 million pound. Do they own players now? Do they stop players going to a club they want,make them move when they don't ? it all seems rather unfair,if say the two main agents don't allow any of their players join one club in particular. Surely there must be rules against it,what's to stop a rival club bunging a agent to stop one of their players joining their immediate rivals?

Too much control these lads have imo

There is probably some truth in all of what you say.

There is IMHO, huge corruption in football. Everyone can point to deals that a blind man would see make no sense, except to line some people's pockets. 'Agents fees'.... A vehicle for siphoning off money into the arse pocket/Swiss bank account of players, managers, club secretaries etc. as well as an to an agent.
The allegations regarding Pogba for example. 127m paid by United apparently 76m or something to Juventus....lots of palms greased in this one, and it's by no means unique.

I trust FIFA to investigate such matters thoroughly...

Dirty Dingus McGee

The players are 100% in control of their own destiny, nobody forces them to sign up to anything and frankly if I was player I'd have an agent to get me commercial deals off the field and nothing more than that and look after my contracts and transfers myself and bring on a solicitor to help with the negotiations.

theoneeyedman

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

The players are 100% in control of their own destiny, nobody forces them to sign up to anything and frankly if I was player I'd have an agent to get me commercial deals off the field and nothing more than that and look after my contracts and transfers myself and bring on a solicitor to help with the negotiations.

Would you get a move to a big club though, or to a club with certain managers who have 'relationships' with certain agents.
There are managers who only seem to sign players 'associated' with certain agents, or if the club signs other players they don't get a look in to the first team. Manager gets club to pay for a player, an agents fee is charged, money appears in a Swiss bank account belonging to the managers wife or dog or some such.

~Rebel~

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

The players are 100% in control of their own destiny, nobody forces them to sign up to anything and frankly if I was player I'd have an agent to get me commercial deals off the field and nothing more than that and look after my contracts and transfers myself and bring on a solicitor to help with the negotiations.

An important factor in all of this is just how reliant footballers are on those around them. For the most part, they've had fairly limited education, and have never had to deal with any real world grown up issues the rest of us do - it may as well be witchcraft as far as they're concerned.

So I think for a lot of players, their agent serves a "Mammy" role as much as business advisor. They take care of everything for them, and keep them in a nice sheltered little bubble. And as such, exert a huge amount of influence over players. In the options available to them, and also in the information they receive - or, crucially - don't receive.

marklazarcovic

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

The players are 100% in control of their own destiny, nobody forces them to sign up to anything and frankly if I was player I'd have an agent to get me commercial deals off the field and nothing more than that and look after my contracts and transfers myself and bring on a solicitor to help with the negotiations.

Pretty sure falcao was moved around against his will due to being more than 50% owned by a agent,I'm sure there are more, especially from South America.

Giggsy11

I think the point is missed by many. When Pogba signed for Juventus on a free transfer, there was a clause that 25% of the fee will be paid to player/agent. So they got 22 Million cut from the transfer fee. Then they got money for brokering the deal, around 16 Million which no one is sure whether it's for Pogba deal alone or for the 3 players, or who is paying the agent how much.

So in short, Juventus owned only 75% of Pogba and got 75% of the fee.

LuckyLloyd

~Rebel~ wrote: »

An important factor in all of this is just how reliant footballers are on those around them. For the most part, they've had fairly limited education, and have never had to deal with any real world grown up issues the rest of us do - it may as well be witchcraft as far as they're concerned.

So I think for a lot of players, their agent serves a "Mammy" role as much as business advisor. They take care of everything for them, and keep them in a nice sheltered little bubble. And as such, exert a huge amount of influence over players. In the options available to them, and also in the information they receive - or, crucially - don't receive.

Good post, but I think people would be correct to ask whether FIFA and the various player associations are doing enough to educate and improve players in this regard. In the NFL, players are forced to attend mandatory workshops on financial management and the basics of contract law to try and protect them against manipulation and being ripped off. A shocking rate of highly paid players still experience bankruptcy after their careers are over but the NFL *is* trying to mitigate against that year on year. And, of course, in the American sports landscape players are forced to have greater involvement/ time in fornal education before going pro (though that is smudged as much as possible by certain sections of the NCAA).

What is FIFA doing? In the absence of CBAs and considering the globalisation of football and how it transcends employment law / regulatory regimes a Wild West has developed and unscrupulous types have spotted a gold filled void and taking full advantage. IF FIFA wanted to, they could severely limit these activities. Of course, I assume the wheels are well greased.