Nobody forces clubs to pay money to agents. The £70.7 million spent by Premier League clubs over 12 months may have caused a stir, but chairmen and chief executives are not stupid, they know the kind of sums involved and choose to pay. The reason is that they believe agents offer value for money and, after spending 23 years working in the industry, I am inclined to agree.
Football is now more than a game, it is big business and the fees are commensurate with the extraordinary size of the industry. In my view, football equates to the biggest form of entertainment on the planet. I remember recently being in Cambodia on holiday with my family and watching Arsenal v Aston Villa in a village bar.
What other entertainment form has that kind of reach? As a result, agents represent some of the world’s biggest entertainment stars and the amount of cash they generate translates to billions of pounds.
If you consider the turnover of transactions for the period revealed in yesterday’s report, then you get some idea of the scale of money involved. The figure paid to agents represents about 5 per cent.
It is also important to recognise what agents do to earn their fees and that most Premier League transfers involve more than one agent. For many transactions, one agent acts for the selling club, another for the buying club and another for the player. Fees are divided accordingly.
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Buying clubs use agents to find the best price for a deal. For example, the buying club may not want to reveal their identity to the selling club before establishing a price for the player. Agents step up to find a price on behalf of unnamed buyers. For the bigger clubs such as Manchester City, who can find asking prices raised because of their reported financial means, this can save the club large sums.
Buying clubs also benefit from agents identifying players of whom they were either unaware or did not know were available. Selling clubs use agents to attract interest in their players, while players need them for advice in negotiating major contracts.
In many cases, agents also provide added value. My agency, First Artist, operated on behalf of Arsenal in Emmanuel Adebayor’s transfer to Manchester City. It was not an easy deal as there were many people on the outside trying to become involved, saying they could move him into this club or that club.
We added value by holding it all together, making sure the buying club, the selling club and the player’s representative were all moving in the same direction. We made the deal happen.
It was a similar story with Andrey Arshavin’s move from Zenit St Petersburg in January when we also acted for Arsenal. There had been two previous attempts to get Arshavin to an English club that had failed. Our knowledge of the Russian market and key individuals at Zenit was essential.
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Our expertise was also important on a practical level. The day before the transfer window was due to close Arshavin was in Paris preparing to fly to London to sign the paperwork. The weather forecast, however, was awful so with 24 hours left to complete the transfer, we decided to charter a private jet. Had we not done so, the deal would have collapsed because heavy snow the next day had caused major transport difficulties. Agents do a lot more behind the scenes than people realise.
Critics of agents’ fees argue against money disappearing from the game but the same principle applies to club directors’ salaries, some of which are in excess of £500,000 a year. That money is not recycled, it goes into the pockets of directors. I equate what we earn to what they earn.
Like any industry, there are good operators and bad ones but, in general, agents have had a positive influence on the game. If it was not for agents, would the Premier League be such a success story? Would players such as Ruud Gullit and Gianfranco Zola have come to England and helped to kick-start the football boom? It is agents with their network of international contacts who facilitate these kind of deals. In 1986, when I started as a football agent, the idea of the next Brazilian superstar coming to England was a pipe dream. Now there is an expectancy.
? Jon Smith is chief executive of First Artist plc