Cheers Rebel. I know nothing about all that in all honesty.
It's just another sign of how strangely corrupt football has become where money is concerned.
It is a complete cartel. Licenced agents corner off their own little bit of the market and clubs have no real choice but to deal with them if they want to take a certain player from a certain country.
As we are talking about Scottish football, I'll use a Scottish agent as an example. I am not saying that he is better or worse than any others but if you want to take a footballer from France to the UK, you will almost certainly have to have some dealings with Willie McKay. He has the France to Britain market almost totally cornered. Clubs have zero choice but to use him as the agent acting on behalf of the club. Regardless of who represents the player or not.
McKay used to represent Scott Brown but he got rid of him a couple of years back as he had no intention of being shifted anywhere, which was a positive thing for the club. Having an agent, rather than a lawyer involved in contract negotiations is completely usual but not strictly necessary.
I don't know if the reports about Brown's agent are correct or not. We only seem to have Lennon's word for that. I don't think Lennon is involved in the negotiations, so that report is already at least 2nd hand. But esentially you are right. If Brown wants to sign, he will sign. If the sticking point is the agent, then Brown can solve that very easily. There will be more lucrative deals out there for both player and agent.....he'd be mad not to explore them.
I was speaking with the CE of an english club on the very day a player elected to move to a less successful club with much less ambition. I was told from the horses mouth that whilst the player was a greedy ****, he had his head filled with **** by his agent. That player has moved on a couple of times since and I wasn't surprised either time. The CE went on for 5 minutes on the subject of agents. i wish I had recorded it as it was brilliant stuff. All the things you think a club would think about agents......are exactly right.