A Frustrating State of Affairs
Dermot Corrigan summarizes disturbing revelations about the role of agents in the modern game

23 January 2004

One of the most frustrating things about being an Everton fan for the last decade or so has been our lack of purchasing power.  We are forever hearing about how broke the club is, and how there is no money available for new players.  This is the same club that, when I were a lad, was breaking the transfer record by signing Tony Cottee for £2.2M.  Now we are scrounging around looking for bargain foreigners and cheap youngsters.  Although we have a decent-sized stadium, a big fan base, and a top-quality heritage, clubs like Charlton and Southampton seem to have become "bigger" than us in every sense of the word.

So what has gone so badly wrong?  Peter Johnson got a lot of the blame, and maybe that is fair, I don't know.  However he didn't ruin the club on his own...

Some more answers are contained in Broken Dreams by Tom Bower, a very interesting book.  It details rampant corruption throughout the English game in the 1990s.  Most interestingly, it looks at the role and power of agents in transfers, including the whopping commissions they get to 'facilitate' deals.  According to Bower, agents often initiate the deal, work with both clubs and the player involved, and get paid more than any of these parties.  These agents tend to be very cosy with managers and chairmen.  Rules are lax, and ignored anyway.

It's just rotten.  Managers and chairmen complain about agents in the press, but also don't seem to be able to put together deals without them.  Money often goes missing, and can end up in the most unlikely of places, including the manager's pocket, as the cases of Clough and Graham showed.  Most fans wouldn't complain if it meant a successful team [I don't think too many Man Utd fans give a damn who got paid what for the Tim Howard transfer], but Everton fans should definitely be asking where the money has gone.

Bower has lots to say about Walter Smith, who authorized his fair share of big money deals during his time in charge at Goodison.  It seems Smith was on very good terms with a number of shady agents, most obviously Dennis Roach.  Smith and Roach became very close when Smith was at Rangers, and Roach made a lot of money transferring foreign players to Ibrox, including his share of £500k commission for transferring a washed up Andrei Kanchelskis from Fiorentina.  When Smith moved to Goodison, big money was spent on players like Materazzi, Bakayoko and Dacourt.  Decent players maybe, but we certainly did not get them for cheap.  Reading Bower makes you wonder if all the money Everton paid ended up in the proper place.  And in the case of Bakayoko, Roach was involved in both deals, when we bought him for £4.75M only to sell him on 1 year later for £2.5M after 17 league starts yielding 4 goals.  Value?

Bower also delves in depth into the controversy surrounding Duncan Fergusons return to Goodison in 1997.  Bobby Robson went public afterwards to complain that Roach had demanded £700k from Newcastle on Duncan's behalf to facilitate the deal.  Roach was to get £60k of this.  After some more negotiation, the transfer went through, and Everton paid over the odds for an obviously injury-prone player who — decent recent form not withstanding — has been a millstone round the club's neck ever since.  You can be sure the deal was better for Roach than for Everton!

Graham Bean, the FA's "compliance officer", became very interested in the close relationship between Smith and Roach.  However, he had a lot of trouble investigating the secret deals and confusing paperwork which seem to be common practice in transfer dealings.  It wasn't until October 2001 that Roach was charged with illegally receiving money from both Ferguson and Newcastle for his role in Duncan's return.  Roach scoffed at the FA's charge, and applied to the High Court to stop the investigation.  Things dragged on, and when Bean lost his job in 2002, Roach escaped any punishment.

Bower also concentrates on the dealings of Paul Stretford's Proactive agency, one of the biggest in the game.  Bower claims that it was John Gregory's close relationship with Stretford that lead to his strained partings with both Villa and Derby.  Stretford was also responsible for one of Walter Smith's most useless signings: Peter Degn.  Stretford recommended Degn, brought Walter over to Denmark to see him play, and facilitated the deal.  Apparently Michael Dunford was so angry after seeing Degn in action that he claimed he wouldn't buy a second hand car from Stretford.  However he subsequently calmed down enough to use Stretford to buy four more players.  Unfortunately Bower doesn't name them.  Degn finally started one game in 3 seasons, the humiliating defeat to Oxford in the Worthington Cup.  It is fun to wonder what other wastes of space Stretford 'helped' Smith sign.  Well kind of fun.

Bower also examines the Richard Wright transfer from Ipswich to Arsenal.  He claims Arsenal were about to buy Jerzy Dudek until Dudek's agent refused to share the negotiations with David Dein's preferred deal-maker Jerome Anderson, who co-incidentally employs Dein's son Darren.  So, despite Wenger's preference for Dudek, Dein signed Wright instead.  Wenger was never happy with Wright, and was glad to make his money back from us.  I am not sure we got a great deal at £4.5M.  Incidentally, Wright's agent Jonathan Barnett made £520 commission on the move from Ipswich to Arsenal.  Bower does not mention how much he made the following summer to negotiate Wright's move to Goodison.

Dein's liking for dealing with Anderson also helped smooth through Frannie Jeffers's move to Highbury in the Summer of 2001.  Although this time I think that at £8M, Everton did ok with the deal.  Then, a year later, Jeffers dropped Anderson in favour of Stretford.  And soon enough found himself back at Goodison.  It seems that agents have as much control over where the players play as managers.

These are just the Everton-related bits from the book.  There's plenty more interesting stuff.  Smith's mate Roach set Southampton up with the rarely-spotted £3M Ecuadorian striker Augustin Delgado, and helped Spurs pay £1.4M for Goran Bunjevcevic, even though he was available on a free.  Future Everton manager [?] Peter Reid's purchases of Nicholas Medina, Milton Nunez and Lillian Laslandes for combined fees of more than £10M are investigated.  'Appy 'Arry Redknapps wheelings and dealings make a great read, with the Rio to Leeds and Titi Camara deals being particularly dodgy.  Not so funny I would think if you're a Sunderland or West Ham fan reading on the bus back from Rotherham or Walsall.

Everton doesn't get mentioned too often in the book, which isn't really surprising considering our marginal role in English football recently.  Maybe we should be happy we weren't totally ruined by dodgy dealings; there is plenty about Ridsdale and Leeds.  No, we shouldn't be relieved; we should be outraged that our money was squandered.  Every single penny that comes into Everton comes in because of the fans, whether it is £30 on a ticket, £10 for a game on Premiership Plus, or £45 on an anniversary shirt.  We are the ones who shell out and we are the reason TV companies, sponsors and advertisers want to be involved with the club.

A major reason for our lack of purchasing power is that Moyes is handicapped by the wage bill.  Alexandersson and Nyarko are eating into our wage bill and offering nothing in return.  I don't blame the players for accepting the money — who wouldn't in their place?  Even the corrupt agents are just taking advantage of the situation.  Managers and chairmen are often heard moaning about the evil agents ruining the game, yet they don't seem to want to change the situation.  It seems it suits them fine.  The likes of Ridsdale and Redknapp and Smith became millionaires even if they were found out in the end. 

Clubs like Charlton and Southampton, who appear to be run properly, are prospering.  Meanwhile Everton are forced to rely on Lee Carsley and Kevin Kilbane for midfield creativity.  Hopefully Moyes will be able to sort things out.  But at the moment it's a crappy state of affairs.

Dermot Corrigan

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