Agents Report Is B*llocks

The Bollocks That Is The Agent Fees Report

According to the report in the period 1st January – 30th June this year, Swansea were involved in 19 dealings that could have incorporated an agent. A figure bettered only by Macclesfield (20), Kidderminster (26), Yeovil (20) and York (23) Of these 19 transactions, 8 were new registrations (transfers) – a figure bettered by 7 clubs with Kidderminster top of that tree with 16 new registrations. Yet we paid £17580 in agent fees and Kidderminster paid nothing. Bollocks again.

We cancelled two contracts, Yeovil three and yet they paid nothing? We had 8 loan signings in the period (did we?), the average was around 6 and yet only six clubs paid agents fees? Sorry, but its that bollocks word again.

A little bit of digging into what happens on a player transfer and you soon come up with a different perspective on the report. We have been told that there are two ways that an agent earns money.

1. The club doing the deal pays the agent directly and declares it.

2. The player who the agent is acting for pays the player. The club then has to declare nothing.

But how does that work? Well, option one is simple enough. The agent is involved in the negotiations and the club pays him his slice of that deal direct to him (her for the feminists out there) Option two is basically the same principle in that the agent takes the same cut but this time it comes from the player directly. Or to put it another way, option 1 sees the agents fee deducted at source, option 2 doesn’t.

This mind blowing report tells you that only 12% of the transfer dealings in the coca cola league involved an agent. Sorry but I just do not buy it. Agents are more in our game now than ever especially with the advent of more and more free transfers and yet only 1 in 8 transactions involve one? Absolute rubbish. Only 12% of transactions sees the club divulging that information directly, a very large percentage of the remainder will see the agent taking the money from the player and NONE of that is included in the report.

Only when you get a true picture of the situation can you actually say whether we are top or not but I suspect firmly not. I suspect that some sides who do the option 2 method have spent far far more than this report would lead you to believe.

Never believe everything that is written and certainly never believe anything when you are only given half the facts. How gullible do some clubs like us to believe that we are?

Why not check out the latest Vetch Verdict on the BBC site?