Season › 2011-12 › News

Agents' Fees in the Premier League

The Premier League recently published the breakdown of clubs spending on Agents fees over the period 1 October 2010-30 September 2011, a process introduced around 3 years ago as part of a drive to improve transparency in the game.

The “table” is shown below, and you’ll be not at all surprised to see Manchester City sitting top of the table (as they are in the Premier League table, and the Indebtedness Table).

	Club	Amount (£M) Article continues below video content
1	Man City	9.664
2	Tottenham	7.572
3	Liverpool	7.001
4	Chelsea	6.458
5	Newcastle	6.380
6	Arsenal	4.649
7	Man Utd	4.457
8	Blackburn	4.227
9	Sunderland	3.735
10	Aston Villa	3.163
11	EVERTON	2.931
12	QPR	2.499
13	Stoke	2.208
14	Bolton	1.942
15	West Brom	1.306
16	Wolves	1.110
17	Fulham	0.951
18	Norwich	0.710
19	Wigan	0.660
20	Swansea	0.249

The total of £71.8m is a slight increase over the previous period total of £70.7m and is dominated by three teams that significantly reshaped their squad in that period – Liverpool, Tottenham and of course Man City. Not surprisingly, the promoted teams fall near the bottom, with the exception of QPR – who not only spent more than their fellow arrivals from the Championship, but also had the biggest “freebie” of the close season, Joey Barton arriving from Newcastle with a £1.3m agents fee taking up more than half of their agent spend.

The Premier League states that “The amounts shown include payments made by clubs on behalf of players” which is not clearly explained, but could relate to clubs moving players on. Not stated, but I am 100% sure it will be the case, is that this would also include payments on new/extended contracts.

Therefore when analysing Everton’s spend of almost £3m on agents fees (down from almost £3.6m the previous period), given that we didn’t sign a player for money in the period covered, as well as the loans in and transfers out, we did renew a few contracts. The major one, Fellaini, should fall outside of this period, and therefore will be included for next year’s accounts. I can’t find any reference to Agents Fees in the clubs accounts after a cursory glance, so perhaps these form part of the much vaunted “Other Operating Costs”, if they are not included as part of player trading.

Just a general viewpoint, it is often cited that agent fees represent money going out of the game, but I think that argument is weak, as you can also argue that players wages is also money going out of the game. Some agents were quick to capitalise on the opportunities presented by the influx of money into the game, and engineer ways and means of making a fantastic living off the game. The test as part of the process to become FIFA Licensed is very basic – multiple choice, simple maths (calculating commissions etc) which is why there are so many out there. Some players now have a team managing their career, with all of the opportunities for image rights etc, hence they are represented by a company more so than an actual individual.

But most agents aren’t in this exalted position. Most will do this as sideline work, hoping to score the next “big” player, whilst risking the possibility of being shafted by others in their profession.

I’ve said before, if I could see one change, it would be for players to pay their own agents fees, rather than clubs. This would need to be worked in some way that it was players earning a certain amount, but would include pretty much all Premier and Championship players at least. If nothing else, it would make players think a bit more about who’s acting in whose best interests. Clubs aren’t always whiter than white of course – many will force a player out for non-football related reasons, but financial reasons – something Evertonians of any age should be familiar with.

Matt Traynor

Quotes or other material sourced from The Premier League

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