Whoosh, we spent £2.7m on Agents fees in the last year. We didn’t lay out a lot in transfers so, guess the ‘frees’ were far from free. Here’s the Club statement: “Payments to intermediaries – 2014/15 Total amount paid to intermediaries (formerly known as agents) in the period 1 October 2014 to 30 September 2015: £2,735,336. Explanatory Note: The amount shown is the aggregate of all payments made to intermediaries during the reporting period for intermediary activity, including payments made by the club on behalf of players.” Still trying to take this in. Don't know if it has any bearing on rumours about us falling foul of FFP. Anyone any thoughts? For sure it doesn’t look great when compared to other clubs (2nd highest to Cardiff and only just) as can be seen via this link – http://www.football-league.co.uk/ne...l-league-club-payments-to-agents-2828445.aspx
Still trying to get my head round why we gave so much to Agents. Is it possible that a fair chunk of it went for players (on high wages) who we’ve sent out on loan – Stekelenburg and Mitroglou for instance? And also some we sold to get off the wage bill - like Hugo and Bryan? Hence the Club’s phrase “on behalf of players”. Anybody got thoughts??
We pay so much in fees because there is so much money washing around in the game that it is so easy to spend it without thinking of the consequences. I deal with it on almost a daily basis in the finance world. When we sign players for free (such as O'Hara) or sign a good player (like Cairney), then agents will be all over those deals, taking a slice. Ugh, the finances of football disgust me. On a side note, intermediary fees could include other benefits to players such as renting a flat for Mitroglou whilst he's on loan or meeting their portion of the agent's fees in lieu of paying the player a bonus or paying up their salary (just some suggestions of what it might be).
It's mainly the maths I can't get round. If an Agent is only (sic!) on 10% that means we've spent over £27m on players, somehow. And that's without regular wages. In which case it's no wonder that we're likely to be in an FFP pickle. Surly you know about these things. Would those sums count as operational costs and be weighed against revenue (which is obviously down because of less TV money if nothing else) for the purposes of FFP? All quite worrying really - on top of everything else.
Sticking to the possibility of us falling foul of FFP. The Fulham Supporters Trust had one of their regular meetings with the Club yesterday and FFP was on the agenda. After having sight of a note of the meeting by FST, Alistair Mackintosh asked them to withhold the FFP part until the Football League and the Club synchronise an announcement later this month. The fact that it's going to be a joint statement sounds ominous. Might be reading far too much into this but it may be that our finances, just as much as the manager situation (perhaps even more so), is why Mr Khan has made an unscheduled visit. Either way I suspect both Mackintosh and Rigg are feeling a tad uncomfortable right now. PS Mike Rigg absented himself from the FST meeting.
Yes, agents fees would be operational costs. However payments made on behalf of players could be deemed to be non-operational - it's possible that we thought we were getting around FFP by making payments in this way rather than straight up staff costs, but got caught out. That statement certainly sounds like we're in trouble. Honestly, if we have failed FFP I think it is completely unacceptable. As a qualified accountant, Ali Mac should be very embarrassed and pay with his job. That is what would happen in a normal business, anyhow. But football is hardly normal and is staffed by far too many cowboys.
