Figures have just been published about how much Premier League clubs paid Agents in the period 1st October 2011 to 30th September 2012. Fulham paid a whopping £1.6m more than in the same period last year. As they say, "there's no such thing as a free transfer" !! However we were by no way near the biggest spenders. For example QPR paid £2.5m last year (their first year after promotion) but topped £6.8m this year. The full list of payments by club was: Manchester City - £10,537,982 Liverpool - £8,600,444 Queens Park Rangers - £6,818,688 Tottenham Hotspur - £6,595,905 Chelsea - £6,490,382 Arsenal - £5,580,873 West Ham Utd - £4,436,992 Manchester Utd - £3,681,580 Newcastle Utd - £3,485,503 Everton - £3,092,891 Aston Villa - £2,730,539 Fulham - £2,581,208 Sunderland - £2,173,762 Reading - £2,167,833 Wigan Athletic - £1,974,305 Stoke City - £1,717,266 West Bromwich Albion - £1,341,301 Norwich City - £1,248,725 Swansea City - £1,100,845 Southampton - £646,106
Out of curiosity as to why our fees to Agents has jumped so much, I did some maths. I reckon we spent £9m on transfer fees in this period so the £2.5m paid to Agents equates to 28%. In the corresponding period last year we spent £13.5m on transfers and paid £1m to Agents, which is 8.5%. I can't imagine MAF or MAC countencing such a difference. To test this I used the QPR figures. They spent £27m on transfer fees this year and they £6.8m paid to Agents, which is equal to 25%. Last year it was £10m on transfers and £2.5m to Agents. Therefore again equivalent to 25%. So why such a wide margin in our case? One explanation is that the extra money went to 'free' transfers but that doesn't quite stack up (it would amount to something like £1.7m going to their Agents). An alternative is that the transfer fee for Bryan was spread over the two years in which case the corresponding percentages in Agents' fees would be 17% this year and 13% last year (I've assumed a straight split in each year). That seems a lot more logical and would preserve my belief in Ali Mac's business acumen. Sorry to be a bore but the discrepancy has been niggling me. Of course there me be yet another explanation !?
Another factor could be the free transfers' signing on fees. A fee to the player and the agent would bump things up.
