da esoccer bet： As a Leeds United fan I’ve been subjected to the constant moaning of Ken Bates about the “greedy agents” ruining our beloved game for too many years now. A rant about agents has become as much a part of his programme notes and weekly Yorkshire Radio interviews as his narcissistic ramblings about how football, and indeed the entire world would be a better place if only everyone would listen to his wisdom.
da stake casino： But it’s not just the outspoken Leeds United chairman who constantly attempts to vilify football agents. Listen to any manager or chairman from any division on the planet for long enough and sooner or later they’ll be blaming agents for everything that is wrong with the modern game of football. Complaining about their fees, whilst pocketing millions of pounds a year themselves from the “broken game” they so love to whinge about is an irony lost on them all it seems.
The truth is that modern football is run by ruthless businessmen who are in it solely for the money. There’s the odd exception to the rule of course, but very few clubs are a plaything for bored billionaires with too much spare time on their hands and a desperate need for attention. And even they are motivated by their own narcissism and vanity, as opposed to the almost religious love for our clubs supporters like you and I share.
From the players, to the coaches, to the executives, to the owners and beyond. There are very few people at any football club who are there because they love the club and want to selflessly give their time and effort to see it succeed.
But fans know all this. They know they are the only people who care more about the football club than what the football club can do for them. Every fan reading this will be able to identify at least one ex or current chairman, manager or player they consider to be a greedy, money-sucking leech. Mention Harry Kewell for example within earshot of a Leeds United supporter and you better be braced for a total onslaught.
But chairman, managers and players are just doing a job we reason. They’re no different from a plumber or an electrician really. Supporters of clubs on the brink of financial ruin will still defend a players right to draw a wage whilst the administrators are auctioning off pieces of their stadium.
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So why then, in an era where our beloved game is so rife with overpaid individuals do we have such a problem with football agents? Why are they the one evil that ourselves and our football club unanimously agree on? It’s simple really, it’s because we don’t see them as necessary.
Chairman are necessary as they’re the ones who pay everyone else. The management and coaches are necessary because they bring in the players and deal with the team.
And the team? They’re the reason we turn up to Oldham on an indescribably cold Tuesday night in the middle of winter when a combination of ice and rain is being smashed into your face by gale force winds. Why else would you stand in a three-sided stadium, protected from the elements by nothing more than a replica shirt and a scarf, screaming anthems out at the top of your voice constantly aware that your toes may drop off at any moment?
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The agents meanwhile are portrayed as the shady characters lurking in the background, waiting to suck every penny they can from our poor defenceless football clubs. They don’t pay our heroes to run around chasing an air-filled piece of leather. They don’t decide which players will be charged with leading our teams to success, and they certainly don’t contribute anything to our fortunes on the pitch.
What agents do is unforgivable. They demand wages for their clients our clubs can’t afford and then tout their players in the press to try and find them more money elsewhere. More unforgivable still is that they then take a healthy percentage of all this money for themselves!
And this is what the fans find so hard to stomach. No-one has a problem with paying their star winger twice what everyone else in the team earns so long as he commits his future to the club. No-one minds paying several million pounds to capture a new striker. No-one really minds that chairmen and executives profit heavily from our clubs regardless of how well we do on the pitch. But when a third party comes in and tries to take a slice of the action, that’s where we draw the line.
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Agents earn a very healthy living from football, there’s no denying that. But they are as essential to professional footballers as lawyers are to your football club.
A footballer’s contract is a legally binding document drawn up by the club’s lawyers to secure their services. It’s a document that in this day and age can be worth millions, sometimes tens of millions of pounds. In it, is everything from how a player is expected to conduct themselves in public, to how much they’ll earn/lose if circumstances at the club change (promotion/relegation for example).
The club’s lawyers and advisors will draw up this contract ensuring everything is in the best interests of the club, whilst at the same time trying to keep the amount paid to said player to an absolute minimum. These people are hired by the clubs to look out for the club’s best interests – the player is simply a pawn in their little game.
Meanwhile, the agent will be there to act on behalf of our often dim-witted yet loveable footballers. This is a man with vast experience of contract negotiations who knows exactly what kind of fee the player can command elsewhere and will do everything in his power to ensure the club don’t underpay him. If that means he has to instruct his client to go elsewhere, then why shouldn’t he? The player after all is simply doing a job, and the agent’s job is to ensure he gets paid as much for doing that job as possible.
Of course, the agent isn’t doing all this out of the goodness of his own heart. He’d be a rubbish businessman if that was the case. It all comes down to money. The club, owners and chairmen are all doing their utmost to ensure they get their slice of the pie and so too are the players. We’ve all come to accept money is all that matters in football these days. Agents are simply the stockbrokers of the beautiful game.
Read more of David’s articles at www.thescratchingshed.com
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