Agents' fees paid by English clubs for Feb 2017-Jan 2018 | Liverpool spent the most, United fourth

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

http://www.thefa.com/news/2018/apr/03/payments-fees-intermediaries-030418

In comparison, PL clubs spent £174m on agent fees from Feb 2 2016 to Jan 31 2017, with City and Chelsea topping the list

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

Why would you produce such a list in alphabetical order, rather than value order?

I was gonna post the exact same thing . Those figures are shocking TBH.

Weren't City supposed to be the bastion of all that is good in football and United were supposed to be money people?

I thought United are bribing agent with money to change their client minds about joining us?

But aren't we destroying the market by overpaying?

Wait, didn't Woodward sell his soul to the devil and jump into bed with agents leaving us beholden to their omnipotence?

We paid £27m

They can’t PR (BS) their way out of this because they have to submit the figures to the PL who make them public..

How is that list accurate? Regardless of the fake media reports about Sanchez's wages, I would've realistically expected his agent to have gotten a substantial sum given the lack of transfer fee. Perhaps the list doesn't take account of possible future agent fees for past transfers?

Yeah but to be fair, when you're tasked with convincing your client to move to Merseyside, a little extra dollar helps.

virtually no one looks at total figures for this stuff. Fees are spread out over the contract whenever possible.

I would imagine that City deposit large amounts in off shore accounts for players and agents too. Why else would you want to play in front of a half empty stadium most weeks?

Watford?! Something dodgy going on there.

What would it cost to get you to live on Merseyside?...

I really couldn't care less about this number

Download the list from the FA website, it has all leagues on. Worth noting that the payments also include amortised payments from prior windows so some payments relating to deals done in the period may show up in later breakdowns also.

The payments they make to agents for this period will probably be amortised so their next set of figures will tell us more.

Clubs created those monsters, they have to feed them now.

wonder how much money in backhanders, gifts, favours, jollies etc is paid without being declared

Aye, while it makes sense from an accounting point of view, it can throw off a comparison that only looks at a single year.

How so? If Sanchez' agent fee is really high his annual fee will also be really high and reflected in the annual figures. That being said, I'm not even sure his agent fees are included in this since we could have delayed the payment until after January.

You make a good point. Do you know what sort of amortisation is done?

If it's based on the last two transfer windows then why are they showing the relegated clubs and not the recently promoted ones?

This is an absolute certainty.

What's the point when United is not at the top. They only care when it's about painting a picture about United's spending

Net spend la, 5 times.

I thought we're destroying football and there's romantic football at City and Liverpool?

In the Alternate agent-fees league United are top

What's the deal with agents? Are the big guys usually owning their own agency and then only representing the biggest players themselves, while others in the company represent slightly smaller players? That's how I imagine it.
Or is it just one guy working on his own?

I feel like an agent should be earning £50-100k a year like most people raking in that sort of money for other people.
I'm guessing dickhead clubs made things worse.

Liverpool are ruining footbal.

Yeah, the big agencies offer everything from legal consulting to PR team and accounting. And the reason they get that much is mainly clubs will try to fleece athletes, it's something that is very noticeable in American sports, even intelligent guys are bamboozled by GMs.

Exactly, this is the one area of football that I find really frustrating. These agents do literally nothing to warrant their wages. Some earn more than their clients. I can’t believe one of the governing bodies hasn’t capped it yet.

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

"The proposals include capping agents’ fees and prohibiting dual representation, whereby an agent can act for the player and a club in a transfer."