So how do you vote for all of the top four answers? Money grabbing bastards, Dirty stinking leeches, Scumbags, Useless waste of space bloodsuckers. Would also add that they have absolutely no interest in the long term career development of the players they represent, just in the amount of commission they can make by whoring them to the highest bidder! (Have I gone too far; or not far enough? ;o)
They are not all bad. Just because a few are completely ruthless doesn't mean they all are. You also have to look at it from the players perspective. For some/many players, they do a fantastic job of getting them the best pay. If I was a footballer I'd definitely want a ruthless one to take care of me. LOL.
But Bangkok when a transfer or new deal is done, the football club pays their commision ! And they get a percentage of the fee, there maybe good ones out there but if a player wants one, then bloody pay for it themselves, if you used an accountant or solicitor would you expect your employer to pick up the tab ? They are the estate agents of football, and take money out of football and drive up players wages to such an extreme that it could quite possibly bankrupt a whole raft of clubs, there is no need for agents at all, a decent solicitor can go through the legal aspects of a contract, an accountant can handle financial aspects, and a pa can handle other matters! I believe tatey doesn't have an agent so it is possible
I agree Jager, Clubs should not be paying them the players should its really as simple as that, they are parasites.
Jager - I think this in true in many professions. I used to work in IT and got all my work via agents. The company that took me on paid the fees, which were often large and ongoing. That's just the way the contract industry works. The club is paying the agent for finding a player. In IT contract work it is almost impossible to get a job without going through an agent. Even where I have found my own work, the company has told me to call the agent and do it through them. It's the same with all employment agencies. If Tesco gets new staff via a recruitment agency, then Tesco pays the agency. This isn't like hiring a lawyer or an accountant. If the fees are too high then it's up to football clubs to negotiate lower fees. The agents make good money because the clubs and players both agree to it. If they don't agree then don't pay it. Simple. I agree that agents have a part in trying to drive up prices, but it's the clubs who have the money and can say no. The same with estate agents. They can try to drive up the prices, but I can say no. And at the moment many are saying no. If agents are single-handedly able to extract large amounts of commission from clubs, then I really admire them. I don't go along with the argument about taking money out of football. If you think that then football is also taking money out of other parts of the economy. The economy isn't something that's in separate little segments. It's interconnected and dynamic. Money flows across all areas of the economy. You can't lock money into one sector and not let it out. Football makes more than enough money. It's just that it's not run properly. You can't blame the agents for that. If clubs go bankrupt, that is their fault not the agents. Can you imagine Tesco going bust because the agents 'forced' them to pay to much for staff? Get real. This isn't the fault of agents at all. The clubs are in charge and it's up to them what they pay. If they overpay that's their fault. Clubs can easily freeze out the worst agents if they want to and then the players involved would soon get the message.
There is a difference though, when you go through an agency for work, yes the employer pays a fee for services, but they don't pay a commision that is a percentage of a fee, for example 10% of a signing on fee, that could amount to hundreds of thousands pounds going to them for basically doing nothing more than a decent solicitor does. And it does take money out of the game, these fees are obscene and could be used in better ways than making a bunch leeches rich on the back of a sport suffering because of their actions! Your argument about football taking money out of other sections of the economy doesn't hold water, people choose to watch football and and have an escape from real life for a short while, the money spent on clubs enable them to exist, if the money didn't come in or there was no interest the sport would cease to be. I don't admire agents, I hold them in utter contempt , they have to much power in the game, are completely unregulated, and a bunch of low life chancers, and have no purpose, they leech money off the back of the game, they remind me of private parking companies leeching money off legitimite shoppers, that industry also are unregulated and lie and cheat money out of people!
Bangkok you make some very valid points there, however I liken agents in football to solicitors in divorce cases. Sometimes they are needed and can play a positive role but 99% of the time they are an unnecessary meddling middle man who is there to do one thing and one thing only and thatâs to make money from the situation and their priority is always to make money and not to do what is in the best interests of the person they are representing and definitely not the person they are negotiating with. You talk about agents in general and thatâs where I feel you are missing the point. Football agents operate in a world of their own which is very different from the agents you describe. As regards agents taking money out of football, I think the point being made here is that they earn huge sums of money from football and football gets nothing in return, its not an argument about the broader economy itâs a fact, players earn huge sums of money and entertain us, clubs, managers, grounds men, programme sellers, the guy pulling pints at half time and the woman in the ticket office all earn money from football and provide a service, what positive thing do agents do for football? What service do they provide? I accept that a footballer that is not the sharpest tool in the box may need some advice when negotiating with the Chairman of a football club I just donât accept that the club should pay for him/her to be there. BTW I'm not divorced, I'm happily married to my luvly wife........
Jager - you are probably right about some agents, but I'm sure many perform an useful service. If they didn't then clubs would refuse to pay for their services. Whether the clubs or the players pay isn't really relevant, because they would still pay one way or another. For example, say Newcastle sign Taylor for £1m and Newcastle also pay the agent 10%. So Newcastle have paid a total of £1.1m. If payments from clubs to agents was banned, then Newcastle would end up paying £1.1m for the player and the player would give £100k to the agent. So, presumably, you'd be happy because they player paid the agent himself. But end result is still the same. In IT and other professions, employers almost always pay a percentage joining on fee. Just check with someone like Reed Employment. I don't know what they charge these days but when I used to get staff from them the fees used to be around 25% of first year salary for a permanent employee and 10% or so for a contract employee. Many It agents charge 20% of salary on an ongoing basis. So if they find someone a contract a 1-year contract at £100k, they might get £20k. If the contractor renews for another year, then the agent gets another £20k. It may seem a lot but these people work very hard day in and day out. I'm sure that the highest earning agents work extremely hard. Some may be leeches and try to move their players on all the time to get extra money, but that's not how most act. That is obvious by the fact that the vast majority of players stay at a club from one season to the next. If you want to blame anyone, then blame the clubs. If agents are as bad as you make out and if they can drive a club to bankruptcy (you are deluded if you really think that), then why do clubs pay them? No-one can force a club to pay the money. You are looking at this is very simplistic terms. It's not just a case of waking up one morning and thinking... oh I'll phone Newcastle and see if I can make a quick £100K before breakfast. I don't think you realise what goes on. The bottom line is that it is up to the clubs whether they want to pay or not.
GforceJack - I think the service they provide is that they find players for clubs. If clubs had to do this themselves they would have to spend a fortune on extra staff. The agents go and and do the hard work and present the players to the clubs. This saves the clubs an enormous amount of time. I have to go back to the point that if they don't provide any service then the clubs wouldn't pay. If you went shopping in Tesco and at the end they said your bill was £55 (£50 for the shopping and £5 because they were now selling through an agent) you tell them to stick and go elsewhere. No-one is forcing clubs to pay this money. And whether the club or player pays, it is still the same money. £1.1m to player and he pays £0.1m to agent is exactly the same as £1m to player and £0.1m to agent. If it can be done with agents, then why aren't clubs doing that? Are you saying that they are willingly paying money and getting nothing in return? If that's the case then you should talk to the chairman and board and ask why they are wasting money. This is like lots of things in life. Look for a scapegoat and pick the easiest target. In this case agents.
Wow ..... defending agents SCUM OF FOOTBALL If Tate, Jimmy Bullard and Paul Scholes can handle their own contract negotiations I am sure it's not that difficult! Still wouldn't mind being one.....anyone got Tate's and Bullard's phone numbers??
If you think contract negotiating is easy then it's obvious that you know nothing about the job. Negotiators are paid well in all industries because it's a job that only a minority can do well. If you think it's so easy, then how come you aren't one? The answer is because you wouldn't even be able to negotiate your way into a job. That's why we get so many numpty comments on here - people talking about things that they don't have even very basic knowledge about.
"I think the service they provide is that they find players for clubs. If clubs had to do this themselves they would have to spend a fortune on extra staff. The agents go and and do the hard work and present the players to the clubs. This saves the clubs an enormous amount of time" I think you'll find that every club already has someone that does this they are called scouts. I have to go back to the point that if they don't provide any service then the clubs wouldn't pay. If you went shopping in Tesco and at the end they said your bill was £55 (£50 for the shopping and £5 because they were now selling through an agent) you tell them to stick and go elsewhere. No-one is forcing clubs to pay this money. "And whether the club or player pays, it is still the same money. £1.1m to player and he pays £0.1m to agent is exactly the same as £1m to player and £0.1m to agent. If it can be done with agents, then why aren't clubs doing that? Are you saying that they are willingly paying money and getting nothing in return? If that's the case then you should talk to the chairman and board and ask why they are wasting money" In answer to your points above I think its a little naive to suggest that its as easy as just refusing to deal with them, they are used by most players and players have so much power that a club who refused to deal with them would find it very difficult if not impossible to attract players.This is the problem and until the money pot gets smaller and smaller and it will (see my other thread today on football finances) then these parasites will continue to prosper, the catalyst for change will be when players themselves feel the pinch. "This is like lots of things in life. Look for a scapegoat and pick the easiest target. In this case agents" To anwser you last comment I will put my own spin on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle......... when you have eliminated all the other goats, whatever remains however obvious, must be the scapegoat or if the cap fits, you take your choice. But listen Bangkok, we've clearly got vastly different views on this and are unlikely to find common ground on this topic, at the end of the day its all about opinions.
Just noticed your 'numpty' comment Bangkok, regardless of who you are talking about you should keep personal comments to yourself or find some other site to discuss your views.......
