£1m on agents' fees

[FullerMagic]

2nd most in the C'ship between July-Dec 2007

Nearly £2m spent on agents' fees in 2 years
I suppose it's the way it all works these days.

Leicester £1.067m
Stoke £931,000
Charlton £782,000
WBA £633,000
Sheff U £400,000
So'ton £312,000
Cov £275,000
Bristol C £250,000
Preston £230,000
Burnley £214,000
QPR £211,000
Sheff W £190,000
Watford £169,000
Barnsley £161,000
Norwich £155,000
Hull £154,000
Wolves £142,000
Ipswich £125,000
Colchester £91,000
Plymouth £83,000
Cardiff £54,000
C.Palace £35,000
Scunthorpe £13,000
Blackpool £0

[stokecityscott]

half of them for leicester are for appointing managers

[nicco]

lawrence on the cover (well his legs anyway)

[Olgrligm]

What on Earth are we paying them to do?

[mikeyb99]

Good grief, that is a vast figure! Our turnover of players can't have been that large can it?!

Coates needs to get nasty and cut down his payments to them. I'm sure its possible to pay less than that, the three relegated Premiership sides are below us in spending FFS!

[Do it for bringbackthevic]

When we pay 1.2M for cort does that include agents fees or is it 1.2M to Palace & then Xamount to their agent?

[FullerMagic]

tinyurl.com/26emon LINK

[bigboots]

These agents need sorting out. They are a leech on the game and are just looking to exploit it. its £1m clubs like stoke cant afford to waste!! What the F%*k qualifies people to become agents anyway?? its seems to me like any slimey little F**ker with the right contacts can become 'agents'. they are t**ts (end of rant)

[Olgrligm]

Of the 635 transactions, only 150 actually used an agent, according to that link. Nice to see a Football League document with a Stoke player on the front cover.

[spitthedog]

Well done Blackpool, hope they stay up now

great if leicester go down having shelled out that much.

Our agents fee is way too high.....needs sorting
best part £1m is a lot of dosh
and way over the top, it's bordering on criminality

the fact that our bill is more than twice the amount of 20 other teams in the same division is dodgy to say the least.

[spitthedog]

btw

where is this money going??

can anybody name names??

[anarchicalan]

Good question bringbackthevic.

I wonder why it is we have to pay them at all.

I work in the arts, and have been a professional singer and actor. My agent fees were taken directly from my salary, it's standard practice.

I don't see why players on huge salaries compared to the average supporter, even at this level, should expect the clubs to fork out agents fees as well.

This is definitely a case for the PFA to get involved in, as well as the FA, FL and maybe even EUFA and FIFA. It's been a blight on the game for far too long and that money will never be returned to football in any way, shape or form.

[ukcstokie]

Also note: in the last two seasons we have spent £1.5 million on agent fees. More than any other club in the division (where amounts are listed).

We're spending an average of £25k to agents on every loan or transfer. How can Sheffield Utd get away with an average of £12k/transaction and sign the likes of Beatie?

[Deleted]

It might be agents for Stoke - Not agents for the players. The club can have advisers on a partiulcar deal itself (a good solicitor, for example)

Because it is (was?) my belief that under the new agent rules (see the Audit of Jan 2008 transfers announced by FA today) that a club cannot pay the player's agent any fee (directly). Question is, and I can't remember, when did those new rules come in? (possibly Jan 08?)

However, it is now supposed to work as Alan says that it does in "show biz" - The player should pay the agent as per the contract betwen the player and his agent (there is a way around that ... I think ... but I can't be 'arrised to type it out)

Question FullerMagic: Is that July07 - Dec07! Or July 06 - Dec 07?

ah

[FullerMagic]

It's just the last 6 months of last year, Andy. July 07-December 07

Here's the link in pdf format.

tinyurl.com/26emon

[Premiership for hutchstokie]

very confused.com!! why does a player need an agent anyway, surely if he didnt have one the player would recieve more money

[Northy]

anarchicalan, the money that players take out in huge salaries goes out of the game as well, you not telling me they all give it to grassroots football are you, we can dream though can't we

[drwhom]

anarchicalan56 said:

Good question bringbackthevic.


I work in the arts, and have been a professional singer and actor. My agent fees were taken directly from my salary, it's standard practice.

I knew I'd seen you before somewhere. You were that bloke in that thing the other night, weren't you?

Can I have your autograph?

[Deleted]

Having read the PDF ...

The players pay their agents rule only came in, in Jan08 - So this still will still be SCFC paying an incoming-player's agent.

But it does seem a lot given the money we SPENT during that period. But we did SELL a lot of players during that time too ... So I'll chuck out a not-thought-about-it-for-too-long theory ...

... It won't only include fees for players new to the club (for a start) ... and I still think it might include some payments SCFC made for advice on the sales during that period (Higgy, hoofer et al).

ah

[spitthedog]

If you take the time to look at the figures our payments to agents in relation to deals is extraordinarily high

we paid out 931k on 38 transactions

Sheff weds paid out only 190k for 33 transactions
QPR (a very rich club these days) paid out 211k on 33
transactions
Bristol city paid £250k on 34 transactions
and Barnsley only paid out £160k on 34 transactions

that's a huge difference

something is wrong somewhere
looks like we paid a very high price on the loans.

[LDE76]

I may be wrong, and therefore doing someone a huge disservice, but wasn't Salif Diao's agent, Charles Collymore, one of those featured on that BBC programme investigating bungs?

[santy]

Ever wonder why Whelan signed for us and not burnley on the eve? Now you know lol

[anarchicalan]

AndyHar - that's a point I hadn't considered, but having thought about it, what would be the point of having a director of football or a decent scouting system if we were paying an agent (or agents) as well?

Northwich - I agree, the salaries are not returned to grass roots either, but at least we're seeing what the money is spent on as the players perform each week. What benefit to the fans and wider community are agents? I do believe we should dream though, and here's to both us having this particular one realised.

drwhom - yes, it was me, I was on just after the one where that other bloke and his best friend had something going on to do with a plot of some sort, and immediately before the news about a few people. Sorry I can't sign autograghs without my agent present.

You know how it is ......

[anarchicalan]

Being serious though - I do believe it's time there was a severe limit on what agents can be paid. Basically they're parasites sucking the life blood out of the game.

Yes, I know this leaves me open to legal action, but I'm enttled to my opinion, and I doubt there will be many genuine fans disagreeing with me. So sue us all!

Note the first thing Capello did was to ban agents from training, hotels and contacting players on mobiles. He's already got my vote!

[spiderpuss]

Loan signings probably also ruck up the fees......and we've made a lot of loans again.

[spitthedog]

'Loan signings probably also ruck up the fees......and we've made a lot of loans again.'

there were 9 loan transactions

but why should agents end up with 25k every time we make a loan signing????

Barnsley made 8 loan transactions and their cost works out at 5k per transaction ???

[FullerMagic]

Maybe there was a large payment to Fuller's agent when he signed his new deal?

[FullerMagic]

BREAKING NEWS: STOKE SPEND NEARLY £1M ON AGENTS' FEES
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12:26 - 15 February 2008

Stoke City splashed out nearly £1m on agents fees between July and December 2007 to finance their present push for promotion, it was revealed today.

The club sanctioned the payment of £931,900 to agents (up from £560,000 in the same period in 2006) to complete a total of 38 contract transactions in the final six months of last year.

Their massive outlay was topped only by Leicester in the Championship after they broke the £1m mark in financing expenditure by no fewer than three different managers.

The figures, issued by the Football League today, paint a graphic picture of the cost of equipping manager Tony Pulis with the raw materials to reach third in the table going into this evening's home game with Scunthorpe (7.45pm).

Critics of agents will be aghast at the amount of money being lost from the game - a total of £6.6m from Championship clubs alone between July and December - to line the pockets of those largely controlling the movement of players in the modern game.

But supporters of clubs such as Stoke will also applaud the ambition being shown by chairman Peter Coates in reluctantly paying the going rate for today's better players.

And those dispensing such sums will argue that money is being paid to agents rather than the selling club in many cases.

Chief executive Tony Scholes said: "In an ideal world you wouldn't pay a penny to agents and would sign players on free transfers.

"However, as we are building towards a promotion challenge, dealing with agents becomes part and parcel of attracting the best players to this club. It's our job to make sure we always do the best deal, including minimising fees paid to agents."

Port Vale's expenditure on agents' fees rose to £29,200 between last July and December after spending nothing in the same six-month period in 2006, while Crewe continue to stand their ground by again exchanging no payments with agents.

[Deleted]

FM, I reckon so too. Simo's fella might be in there as well for a bob or two. Club doesn't pay anyone else any money when a player resigns, so it's likely an agent would want a wedge for saving everyone money by persuading 'his lad' to stay here (You know you would).

Agents for Sales: If the other side has an extremely expensive lawyer on board, our side might feel a bit worried ... No harm in a bit of advice from "someone in the know" at that point, to help us get the best possible deal for us. The payments for players moving away would be lower than those signing up for us (I would hope) but it's still likely some of that makes up the total, as we did not bring in 38-players during the period, not even if you add on players "not new to the club". And given this was all under the old rules, Stoke could end up paying all sorts of people involved (like the agent of the player who was leaving) to make the deal actually happen.

We have paid out a lot, but then we have got the players Pulis wanted (apparently) ... As someone said above, sweetening the deals maybe one of the reasons we have been successful (for once!).


Under the new system (from 01/01/08) it is likely that we won't know this much again ... No need for players to tell everyone what they pay their agent. Any players-agent fees would therefore be part of club wages and so hidden from fans and the like. Unless the FA decide to publish information - which seems unlikely - then it will be back to single line entries on the P&L Account. It's a better system, no honestly it is ... for someone ...

ah

[Stick It On Cort's Head]

blackpool - nothing ;D