Soccer

Clubs spend more than €800 million in agent fees in 2023

A 42.5% increase in total fees paid this year internationally with the Premier League leading the way

Enzo Fernandez: signed big money contract with Chelsea. Photograph: John Walton/PA Wire
Enzo Fernandez: signed big money contract with Chelsea. Photograph: John Walton/PA Wire
Thu Dec 14 2023 - 14:51

A thriving men’s transfer market has led to clubs spending a record $888 million (€810 million) on fees for intermediaries in 2023 while women’s football paid more than $1m in agents fees for the first time, to a total of just under $1.4m.

New statistics from Fifa report a 42.5 per cent increase in the total fees paid this year, with the Premier League leading the way. The English top flight was responsible for more than a quarter of all spending on agents, at €255 million. Saudi Arabia, which made headlines for its recruitment drive this past summer, spent €78 million in fees, though the Saudi Pro League recruited agents only to help facilitate the purchase of players, rather than their sale.

Fifa’s Football Agents in International Transfers Report identifies the fees spent and the total number of international transfers conducted over the calendar year. Their figures show that the number of deals involving an agent grew by 8.4 per cent in 2023, corresponding to 15.4 per cent of all transfers, another new record.

The figures come at the end of a year in which Fifa introduced new regulations for agents (FFAR), which required individuals to take examinations and log every transfer deal at an international clearing house.

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FFAR also sought to impose new caps on the amounts of fees any agents could earn. But a series of legal cases have successfully challenged the caps, with an independent tribunal in England publishing its written reasons for overturning the new rule on Thursday.

The tribunal found that the introduction of a fee cap would go against competition law in England. It also noted that Fifa’s decision to introduce a cap had been motivated by concerns that the size of fees being paid to agents was too high, especially compared to the amount of money being used to sustain solidarity within the game.

After doubts were raised as to the legality of such a move, the tribunal reported, Fifa subsequently went on to argue for the cap as a means of preventing “market failure”, by “reducing the agents’ pecuniary incentive to stimulate transfer activity”. The tribunal went on to rule, however, that it had “not been able to discern any justifiable connection between the fee cap and the claimed abuses and market failures”. – Guardian

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