Soccer

State of Play: Time to ensure regulation of agents

Patrick Conliffe says footballing authorities are failing in their duties to young players

West Ham United FC: the club’s ground in London has been raided by tax officials. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Patrick Conliffe
Fri Apr 28 2017 - 12:00

It has been another bad week for the reputation of the game in England, with one player banned for betting against his own team and the British revenue raiding a couple of clubs as part of an ongoing investigation into tax evasion.

Agents, or intermediaries as we are now called, are at the heart of that investigation with the fees they are paid and, in some instances, the money they pay to club officials, among the issues being looked into. I’d like to say I am surprised, but frankly I’m not. The business I’m in is in a bit of a mess.

It is two years now since Fifa effectively decided that regulating the industry was beyond it and decided to leave the job to individual national associations. The result has seen a huge disparity in standards between different jurisdictions, with England firmly in the relegation zone.

To be an agent in England now, all you have to do is pay £500 plus VAT and sign a form stating that you are of good and reputable character. You don’t even have to undergo a criminal record check to work with senior players, although you do for minors.

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I could have a criminal record, lack any business or legal background, not know a contract if it hit me in the face but still sign up the next big thing at Ipswich town by telling him he’s going to play for Manchester United in the free boots I’ll get him.

There are over a thousand intermediaries registered with the FA. There are many reputable firms and plenty of familiar names, but there are a lot you wonder about too. When you are in the business you see the types of characters that are trying to get into it.

To be a professional agent, you need a reputable structure in place. You need contacts at clubs who respect you. You need to know how contracts work. You need to know the Fifa compensation and solidarity rules. And you definitely need legal acumen in the current marketplace.

So much goes into getting a deal over the line, there are so many variables, that if one just dives into it you, or more importantly your client, will be in trouble. Still there are people who know little about the business, but are happy to recruit kids by promising them the world.

Vetting procedure

A large part of my role with the sports agency Full Contact is to go to games. You start to see the same faces over and over again. Obviously, you have the scouts who might represent Championship or Premier League clubs, and some of them are good at what they do, but there will be a section of people who hold themselves out as agents.

There are coaches and parents, staff at football clubs, you name it, all trying, as they see it, to get a cut of the action, many of them claiming that they have links with particular football clubs, or all of a sudden are qualified to represent a minor.

Are they registered with the English FA? Have they had criminal record checks? If there was a proper vetting procedure in place, would they pass it? And do they observe the rule that no agent is supposed to be paid by a minor, or indeed sign a player under the age of 16?

This is a business for us at Full Contact of course, but you look at all these guys on a Saturday or a Sunday watching schoolboy teams and it is hard to believe that they are all waiting four or five years to get paid as, in effect, reputable agents do.

The regulations in other countries are far more stringent, and rightly so.

In Portugal applicants have to provide evidence of professional liability insurance of at least €50,000, a tax clearance certificate, a full police background check and an ‘Intermediaries Commission’ reviews each case.

In Spain the association interviews every candidate, in the UAE a minimum of five years experience in the game is required while in the likes of France, the Czech Republic and Denmark an exam like the one Fifa used to administer has been retained.

Failure rates for the Fifa exam used to be high because understanding the finer points of contracts and regulations is not all that easy, but in England there is no need to it anymore.

In Ireland the FAI lists its policies and requirements on its website and they are, to be fair, quite impressive, far more in line with the better European associations than with England’s laissez-faire approach. The problem is that they seem to be entirely aspirational. There appears to be no attempt at enforcement or genuine regulation. Just one intermediary is listed, and it is not a name I know.

Wrong move

It is not hard to see where all of this leads. You don’t have to be around the game very long to hear the stories of players who made the wrong move, or failed to get a move at all because their agent either put their own interests first or simply weren’t qualified to properly represent their client. You also have parents who are ill-advised on any pre-agreements they enter into with UK clubs in respect of their kids.

Sometimes the problems only become apparent a couple of years later when players, many of whom are still in their teens, have issues with compensation payments to clubs on foot of performance related deals and in some instances, poorly advised parents sign the wrong forms in the UK. Careers can be ended because of issues like these.

So, agents have a bad name and that will not be helped by the reports of the investigation this week. But the work they do, particularly with young players starting out, is important and needs to be properly regulated.

With the English FA failing to take the lead, my colleague, Dan Chapman, has been at the forefront of a campaign for those in the business to set the bar higher and instigate an effective system of self regulation though SOFIA, the Society of Football Intermediaries and Agents. But the real responsibility here lies with those who run the game. It is time for them to take it.

Patrick Conliffe is a practising solicitor and head of Full Contact’s Irish office. He is a registered Intermediary with the FA and is authorised by the FA to work with minors.

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