More from the Athletic, this time the sometimes (and I stress sometimes not always) murky world of Football Agents
Fake boot deals, illegal cash, flattery – how agents fight over players
Adam Crafton Jan 28, 2021 21
During the 2019-20 season alone, Premier League clubs paid out £263 million to football agents.
Liverpool shelled out the most, at £30.3 million, while Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea all recorded agent payments above £26 million. Burnley’s figure, standing at £3.9 million, was the lowest. Across the Championship, the total was £49 million, while League One and League Two clubs jointly spent over £5 million in payments to agents or intermediaries.
As such, in the four divisions of English league football alone, agents stood to make just under £320 million in a single campaign. It is little wonder therefore that the battle to sign up players to agency stables is only becoming more combative in the sport.
At the highest level, the superagents compete for star names, such as the case of Crystal Palace’s Wilfried Zaha, who left Unique Sports Management in late 2019 and signed up to work with Federico Pastorello, the Italian agent who has also secured Inter Milan’s Romelu Lukaku from Mino Raiola in recent times. After a short-term mandate for Pastorello, Zaha more recently moved to RocNation, the American firm whose communication nous has been credited with helping Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford take on the front line of British politics. Meanwhile, Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling was recently reported by The Times to have left his long-time agent Aidy Ward and is considering his next steps for representation.
Yet turf wars are present at all levels of the football industry, both in the race to secure the most talented young prospects and the career-long battle to retain talent throughout a career, when contract negotiations are tense, or a significant transfer falls through.
The Athletic spoke to a series of agents at different levels of the market, including from the so-called superagencies, to uncover the realities behind the tricks of the trade.
Some of the revelations, such as fake boot deals, messages to minors on social media and shock tax bills for players, will make many in the industry squirm while other agents have revealed the developing innovations they use to identify and secure talent.
The overall message, however, was not pretty. At their best, agents should, and many do, protect the interests of a footballer and safeguard their personal, professional and financial interests. Yet, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to be open and frank in their revelations, it is apparent many agents are concerned over the direction and reputation of their industry.
One concludes: “You want to work with integrity but the way people react when you say you are an agent, you see in their eyes that they think it is shifty. I want to work in a legitimate business I am passionate about, which is why we all go into it in the first place, but it is hard to make that point to people the way football is at the moment.”
In an ideal world, a footballer will meet one agent and remain with the representative for their entire career.
Current Football Association regulations forbid agents from entering into a representation contract with a player before January 1 of the year of a player’s 16th birthday, or even approaching a player with a view to doing so. An approach, according to FA guidance, would include mobile phone messages, emails, social media contact or any attempt to influence family or friends. In addition, between the 16th and 18th birthday, contact can begin but only with the explicit permission of a parent or guardian. The FA has banned six agents for approaches to minors over the past year.
They are, however, highly unlikely to be the only offenders. After all, many prominent agencies have youth identification leads whose specific job it is to identify emerging talent and ensure their company is best placed to secure a prospect.
The conversations for this report demonstrate an industry culture where suspicion is rife. As one agent explains: “We try to be good about it and go about it in the correct way but it doesn’t bloody work. It feels dodgy. We suspect some agents will have contacts on the inside of clubs. They may be mates with an under-14s coach, or find a way to attend academy games in the lower age groups. They could then speak to parents in the car park after a game. I went to one academy game between two big Premier League teams at under-15 level a couple of years ago and there were 10 agents there on the touchline. You see people handing out business cards. Some clubs use facial recognition to make sure only the people on the list to attend can actually get in. But there are probably a lot of academy games you can just walk into and say you are a parent or your brother is playing.”
A different agent, who represents Premier League players, says: “There is a list as long as your arm of agents getting in trouble for contacting minors without parents’ permission on Instagram, Snapchat or WhatsApp. Agents will also ask players at clubs to try to get the phone number of a teenager for them and a player will do it for a quick grand. The sensible kid will reply and say he needs to speak to his parents. The more daft ones — or more vulnerable ones — will meet people they do not know, grown men they don’t know from Adam, and really they are breaking the rules drastically.
“To meet a minor is a safeguarding issue. We would try to contact the parents and sometimes the only way to do that is to contact the club. If you call the Chelsea youth department and say you are looking to sign a player, they won’t give you the contact details. But nine times out of 10, you will have someone at a club, at some level, who will manage to get you a contact detail for a player directly, or their parents. Players go through a lot of age groups and coaches and all of those people will know parents. It can be someone within the administration. That is illegal and a data protection issue, but it happens. The more disingenuous agents are using social media and playing dumb to the rules. Or they will find the parents’ online details by looking through the kid’s profile and studying who they follow on Instagram, for example. They could also access people through brands or through international set-ups.”
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Privately, several agents spoken to for this piece felt the issue was overblown a little bit. One explains that he was nearly caught out calling a 17-year-old without permission from his parents, before realising his age at the final moment. He says: “The authorities are more worried to clamp down on that than any high-level corruption. Every agent knows an agent who has been banned or fined for tapping up minors. It might be an oversight on a representation contract and you get a six-month ban. There is sympathy there because these characters are made out to sound like paedophiles over an administrative oversight when all kinds of other shenanigans go on.”
Once a player is signed to an agency, this does not tie him to the agent for the entirety of his career.
In England, representation contracts last for a maximum of two years and as such, agents are vulnerable to losing their clients to rivals. Paranoia sets in.
When one Premier League player failed to secure a move during the summer transfer window in 2020, he received three calls the next day from rival agents asking if he would consider moving to them.
“We say they are like girls,” one agent begins. “You never know if your missus is cheating on you or having dinners with someone else. If they cheated once to sign with you, they will do it again. You may have a player you really trust, if it is a 10-year relationship with a player you have taken from League One to the Premier League but some are, ‘******* hell, his rep contract is ending in a couple of months and it needs sorting’.
“There’s normally a loan, transfer or contract discussion within two years, which we call a trigger point. Some are as loyal as a dog and do not entertain talking to somebody else. Others will always be talking to people. You can tell by a player’s Instagram if you check how many agencies they follow. If an agency follows them, that kind of player follows them straight back and wants to know what’s in it for them. Is it a move? Is it an endorsement? They talk about wanting someone they can trust. But then come the real questions: ‘How powerful are you?’ ‘What are your contacts like?’ If it is a young player, they want to know your track record with young players.”
Agents are concerned about retaining clients as the two-year deal ends but a particularly tense moment develops in spring when players receive their P11D tax bills. A P11D in the UK refers to the benefits provided and expense payments that are made to employees but not put through monthly payrolls. Often, agent fees for a contract renewal or transfer fall under this umbrella. As such, if a player has signed for a club the previous summer, he will then be taxed at 45 per cent for the fee the club has paid to his representative. Yet there are occasions when an agent has not clearly informed a player, particularly foreign players unfamiliar with the British taxation system, that a bill has arrived. Sources inside clubs are concerned that this is becoming increasingly frequent.
As one Premier League club source says, “Players get frustrated that agents are not open and transparent. If the agent said, ‘The club will pay me £1 million and you will have to pay 45 per cent’, they say ‘OK, I can prepare’. What players hate is receiving a shock bill after being kept in the dark.”
In these cases, several agents explained, there is a difference between agents who are calculated and intentionally do not tell players, because they wish to receive their fees and do not want players to block the payment, and those who are simply incompetent and do not know enough about taxation. “These are the cowboys,” the source continued. “If an agent has been paid £1 million, the tax bill at 45 per cent can be £450,000 and HMRC tend to want it now, rather than spread over payments. Often, the guys have sent money home or invested in property. They don’t always have that amount cash to hand. It puts them into a tough situation.”
As such, there have been instances where Premier League players have sacked their agents. One agent explains, “It is a huge own goal for an agent to do that if they have an interest representing the player going forward. Some clubs are better than others at explaining it to players and it can be awkward in the room when a club is firm with the player and say, ‘This is what your agent is being paid, £100,000, that is a P11D, a benefit in kind, so you will get a tax bill’. As an agent, you are thinking, ‘******* hell, shut up. I have explained it to him once, he doesn’t need reminding at the point we are getting our documents signed off!’
“But clubs have a responsibility to do that for players, as some have been shafted. But what this means is that May and June is a good time to recruit as players have had their feathers ruffled by tax bills that come in. The problem with such a bill is a player then says, ‘I am not paying that tax bill’. Then you are in the murky waters of clubs putting loyalty bonuses into contracts to offset tax bills, a convenient £50,000 loyalty bonus payable in June to wipe out the tax bill you receive in April. Or you get a player sending the tax bill to an agent and saying, ‘You ******* pay it — or I’m leaving’. I have heard stories where agencies are finding ways to pay players’ tax bills for them, which is illegal.”
It is one thing to know that a player may be unhappy with their agent but another altogether to then win the considerable battle in a saturated market to represent him.
The most effective advocates for an agency are the clients they already represent. One widely-known example is the case of Ivan Rakitic, who admired the trajectory of Gerard Pique’s professional career at Barcelona and subsequently began to work with Pique’s agent Arturo Canales. In Nicklas Bendtner’s autobiography, he revealed former Arsenal team-mate Ashley Cole put in a “good word” of recommendation for the agent David Manasseh.
Word of mouth is an agent’s most powerful tool in a dressing room.
“Players talk about everything,” one highly prominent agent explains. “They know how negotiations are going, how much players earn, buyout clauses, everything. We are lucky enough to have some players interested in working with us and we are approached by some players who are interested to know us because they know how we work with their team-mates.”
The challenge is then to have a player in the room. “For a young player, just take him to Nando’s,” one agent says. Another explains: “You want somewhere public but private: a quiet hotel bar, off-peak time, near where the player lives. Sometimes in a team hotel on the eve of a game, but that is a better place to see existing clients.
“You get more out of a player going for a meal but often there’s an age gap and it can be intense. These meetings are hard to get with players and when they are there, they often give the air of not wanting to be there. You are trying to sell them something and they are looking at their watch and really they just want to play Fortnite with their mates. You know you have 40 minutes with them and you aren’t worrying about food and drink. You want to get down to it and make sure you aren’t disturbed. It is great to show off a snazzy office but it is hard to get them there — they are lazy and don’t want to travel.”
Other agencies take schmoozing to a different level. Some, for example, might take a player to a gig or provide tickets in a box at a Premier League stadium to entertain them. The pitch to a client is an evolving field.
One leading European agent explains: “We do a deep analysis of the player: football, image, their current contract situation and their future potential options, with names, numbers and comparisons with other players in their position. It is a detailed presentation. We provide a list of clubs they could consider. What is important is you cannot talk at a player for 45 minutes. After 10 minutes, they are switching off. You get occasionally attentive guys, sure, but it is what it is. Smart people don’t want to listen for ever, either. You have to be concise, direct or you waste your time. I feel sometimes we talk too much and do not listen enough.”
Several British agencies now have their in-house scouting software and algorithm models that allow them to identify the talent that clubs would consider around the world and also produce presentations that highlight a player’s qualities. They show “spider-web radar images like Football Manager.” One agent says, “it is ego-boosting. A lot of agencies put together a slick video package of the player and literally just play the player his own highlights. I always think that is stupid because the player is watching himself but some people just like to be told they are wonderful. You want the player to recognise you are the best person to promote them. Ultimately we are salesmen and so we have to say, ‘This is how we will promote you and sell you’.
Sometimes, the introductions come not from team-mates but from a club. One former president of a major European club told The Athletic that a prominent agent once took him to lunch. “The agent explained how good the rich life is and how I could go to very nice parties all over the world with him or boxes in big stadiums. I said to him, ‘I love this club, my wife and my children, I don’t need you. I don’t need your houses, your parties, just tell me what you can do to help my club’. The guy was upset I did not want to enter his sphere of pleasures: money, women and parties.”
One agent says that a player who ended up at top club was introduced to him by an academy manager because the young player was receiving a lot of approaches and he was the agent most trusted by that coach. On other occasions, a club might have identified a prospective signing but dislike their current agent. This may give a second agent an opportunity to be involved in the deal.
One beneficiary explains, “Sometimes a club might say, ‘We like this player but think the agent is a shambles’, or, ‘We have heard he is in the process of leaving his agent’. You are then going into a meeting with the player, cutting to the chase, saying, ‘This club wants to sign you — are you interested in working with me?’ You may already have a player there (at that club) and know their pay structure. That’s a golden ticket for an agent.”
Sometimes, however, a club’s introduction of an agent to a deal can upset a player.
One source recalls, “I have seen a case where an agent came into the room to help a player signing at the last minute and the player says, ‘Who are you?’ They say they are the club’s agent. And the player said, ‘Who the **** are you? What the **** have you done?’ The agent said he had helped the club on the deal. They sign the piece of paper, walk out and made half a million. You are just thinking, ‘What on earth has just happened here? How is this allowed and why is this happening?’”
Agents, it should be said, are often valued by their clients. They are confidantes and business advisors, mentors and handymen. Many agents resent their industry’s reputation. The Football Agents Forum, of which Raiola is president, is currently challenging FIFA’s attempts to cap agent commissions at 10 per cent of the transfer fee and three per cent of the player’s fee. He has accused FIFA of treating agents like “lepers” and “criminalising” the industry.
FIFA said its reforms will “improve transparency, protect player welfare, enhance contractual stability and raise professional and ethical standards. In other words, to eliminate or at least reduce the abusive and excessive practices which unfortunately have existed in football.”
At crucial moments, rivalries between agents spill over and the same, it is alleged, can be said of the conduct used by certain agents to pursue clients. Agents are forbidden from using inducements to encourage players to sign with their companies but every agent spoken to for this report claimed to know of differing levels of dark arts utilised by their competitors.
Some stories are entertaining. Bendtner, for example, even received a bed from one agent who sought his registration.
Other agents use a pitch to, in one intermediary’s words, “****-talk” their rivals.
An agent says, “Everybody tries to sell negative examples of decisions taken by other people to justify themselves or to say they could do it better. I have been in conversations with agents when they said they would sign X player. They might explain how badly Mino Raiola did things with (Manchester United midfielder Paul) Pogba and make out Pogba is ****** off and say it’s Mino’s fault. I know people who use examples of a different player’s career to undermine their rivals.”
Despite the rivalry between agencies, it is not unheard of some agents to tip each other off when they suspect a client may be close to leaving their own stable. “We may give an agent we know a call and say ‘We are losing him, go and do your worst’. That way, you may get a favour back on a future deal down the line.”
Then there is the obsession among young footballers with regards to boot deals or brand endorsements.
Contrary to popular belief, boot deals are no longer particularly common, except for players at the highest level. A very small percentage are actually paid to wear a brand’s boots, while some will receive complimentary boots but are not paid by the company.
A British agent explains: “An agent always promises a boot deal but the player is not always getting a boot deal. They are secretly going to JD Sports and buying a pair of boots and pretending. The players fall for it: hook, line and sinker.”
One source at a major brand continues, “I remember a member of our digital department once came to me and said, ‘Who is this guy tagging our brand on social media saying thanks to us for these boots?’ And I say I have no idea. These players believe they have a boot deal because the agent is buying the ******* boots.”
An agent continues, “Most of these guys don’t have real deals, particularly the younger lads. They write on their Instagram they play for X club and represent Y brand. It is so their mates want to be them. They get a few more girls liking their posts and sending them nudes. That’s it.”
Inducements are, however, alleged to go beyond boots and beds. Several agents alleged that certain agencies induce players to sign with them by making cash payments.
One agent says, “We even mention in our pitch sometimes that you may get offered £50,000 by someone else, so if that is what you want, we will not continue the presentation. One, it is illegal, two, we do not have the money, and three, you are not our client potential if that is what matters to you.”
Another agent admits to have considered privately whether he and his colleagues should do the same, as they have been told by players they missed out on their registration due to cash inducements from rivals. The agent says, “When we miss out on a player, we want to know why. ‘What made you sign with them?’ Sometimes it is, ‘I liked their social media’. Other times it is simply, ‘They offered me X amount of money’. We are scratching our heads because it is not a fair fight. Realistically, therefore, we are not even at the table for a lot of players because some of the numbers are just totally insane — six-figure numbers.”
An agent based overseas believes this is more common in England than on the continent. He says, “It is supposed they pay a lot of money to have you under the contract and that way you have a current debt with the agency and you cannot leave until they have their money back. It is happening with young people and it is not nice. It is illegal, but there are always ways to solve illegal situations.
“Another common thing is if you go to an agency website and you will often find a brother, father, friend or relative of players who work with them, by coincidence. They might do one report per week and get a huge salary. These things — people buying cars for parents, people investing money in local businesses of the families — it goes on.”
One of his colleagues concludes, “It is, sadly, worse than we all think.”