Rage Online Blog

Secretive agents

 

The Football League has published how much each League club paid to agents last season (so obviously Oxford's figures aren't included, although United apparently didn't pay anything to agents in the period covered) as part of its annual reporting of such figures, ostensibly in a bid to be more transparent. The report (PDF) shows an increase of £3.9 million in the last year, up to £12.7 million.

When the figures are broken down, they show that agents received fees in 16.6 per cent (369) of the 2,392 player transactions that took place, with just 14 of the 72 clubs not paying fees to an agent, and every club in the Championship forking out at some point or another.

So, what do these figures really mean? First, they show that although the use of agents is increasing, they are not as prevalent as many people seem to believe. Second, perhaps obviously, clubs use agents more the higher in the Pyramid they are. Third, it would appear that, although not exclusively, the clubs that achieved most success spent most on agents fees.

Agents are often portrayed as evil money-grabbing middle-men who add little value in exchange for their 10 per cent. For many players, though, they are as essential to looking after their interests as estate agents are to most house-buyers. Agents are professional negotiators, and it's in their own interest to get the best deal that they can for their clients. Clubs may not like agents particularly, but that's because they help redress the balance of power towards the players. There is possibly an argument that the balance of power has swayed too far in favour of the agents, rather than their clients, but that wouldn't appear to have been proven by these most recent figures, with over 80 per cent of transfers still not requiring agents' intervention.

Agents are becoming more common in many walks of life (for example, most publishers will not now accept manuscripts from authors unless they have been submitted by an agent) but there still appears to be a lot of non-agent space in footballing transfers. Some football managers claim that they refuse to deal with agents, but one would have to ask why a player would trust such a manager; it would be a bit like a workplace manager refusing to negotiate with a union representative, when that rep is trying to help the workers. Agents may not be quite such beneficent figures, and clearly their main motivation has to be their cut of any deal, but if they help counterbalance unscrupulous managers then their presence has to be more good than bad.

Labels: agents, Football League

The Football League rules

In our last post we looked at some new rules introduced by the FA. Well, when it comes to rule-making, the Football League are never far behind.

These new rules are, on the face of it, common sense, and nothing to get too excited about. The rules that tighten up the owners and directors tests have long been required, as have those concerning financial reporting. The prohibition on third-party ownership of players should, hopefully, eliminate the farcical situation that occurred a few seasons ago when Westam acquired the services of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano, when they were effectively owned by Media Sports Investments must not happen again. And we can't really comment on the new standard player contract because we don't know anything about it.

What does concern us, though, is that for all the good intentions behind the changes, the track record of the Football League in enforcing its existing rules, certainly in respect of the owners and directors tests, is pretty poor. There remain in the game far too many owners who quite clearly don't have the best interest of their club at heart. Property developers who have their eyes on the land that their club's stadium is built on, or local businessmen whose main concern is to satisfy their ego without having the necessary funds to maintain the club. If the new rules are accompanied by a new inclination to enforce them then there can be no complaints; if, however, there is no change to the League's attitude then it will remain as so much puff.

Labels: Carlos Tevez, Football League, Javier Mascherano

Those lovely people at the Football League have released the list of live games on television up until 20 November. Unsurprisingly, given our status, Oxford United don't feature. What's even more unforgiveable though, is that there's only one game from the fourth division that is to be shown, Stockport v Barnet on Sunday 13 November, just two days after the nation is inflicted with swindon v Bristol City. It's a shame that Sky doesn't take advantage of United's game at Northampton being moved to a Friday night (to accommodate a clash with a rugby fixture, ffs) to add that game to their list, there being no other live TV game that week (in the bottom three divisions, anyway).

Labels: Football League, Sky, TV

It's been a while since this weblog has been updated - unfortunately I just don't have the time to go around the web discovering exciting news and interesting titbits for your perusal. If anyone wishes to send in urls of good stories for inclusion in the weblog then please do so, to weblog@rageonline.co.uk.

Meanwhile some very interesting developments took place at a meeting of the Football League chairmen at Leicester's new ground today. Full details can be found on the BBC web site, but amongst the proposals, which are bound to be controversial, are plans to extend the number of clubs contesting the play-offs to six, from next season (so when United fail this time round they can be comforted in the knowledge that they will only have to finish in the top nine for season 2003/04). Other proposals include clubs in Division Three only being allowed to spend 60% of their turnover on wages (to be extended to Divisions 2 and 1 the following season, presumably when they've worked out how to actually enforce that particular condition), clubs that go into administration to have points docked, and to be relegated if they're in administration all season. There are also several other proposals mooted in a bid to prevent clubs from doing a Leicester and wiping out all their debts via administration, such as a club going into administration twice in three years being chucked out the league and clubs coming out of administration having to work within agreed budgets. It all seems very sensible and worthy but, as with all these puddings, the proof will be in the eating.

Labels: Football League

The BBC reports on a new television deal between the Football League and ITV. The deal is worth £5 million over two years, netting Division Three clubs like Oxford just £35,000 a year. Better than nothing, but not a lot. It would seem that ITV learned very quickly the lessons of the collapse of their digital arm, and one would assume that this new contract has been closely scrutinised by the League's legal advisors. Let's just hope that the quality of coverage is better than ITV's Premiership rubbish.

Labels: Football League, TV

Following on from the article highlighted yesterday on Soccernet, comes an "exclusive" in today's Observer that only three of the 24 clubs in the First Division can actually guarantee to complete their fixtures this season due to a combination of the ITV Digital collapse and the transfer window (no mention of financial maladministration or imprudent chairmanship). A good, readable article is diminished somewhat at the end when Palace chairman Simon Jordan rehashes the argument that would split the football league, saying that the chairmen of each division should be responsible for the running of that division. Without getting into the ins and outs in this limited space, it is an argument that doesn't stand up to close scrutiny once you disregard the blatant self-interest of the first division clubs' chairmen.

Labels: Football League, TV

It looks like the Nationwide League are to be partially successful in their quest for exemption from the ridiculous transfer window. Today's Guardian reports that the League will probably be exempt for the next two years, enough time for clubs to get their squads in order, perhaps, before this window will be enforced. The good news, if this is correct, is that it allows this season to continue as normal. The bad news is that there is a reasonable chance that in the next couple of years clubs will overstretch themselves financially in an attempt to strengthen their squads before the transfer window bites, and we all know what happens when clubs spend more than they can afford.

Labels: Football League, Transfers

Gordon Taylor, of the PFA, is suggesting that the Nationwide league "sells" one of its promotion places to the Premiership for £100 million, according to this report from the BBC. It's surprising that he stops there and hasn't suggested selling all three promotion places, thus saving the Premiership the hassle of having to worry about being too competitive, or of losing its consistently average members like Westam. Presumably that idea's being saved up for when Wolves go up, so in practice it will be on the back-burner for perpetuity.

Labels: Football League, Gordon Taylor, Money, PFA, Premier League

York City's somewhat eccentric, and fairly dangerous, chairman John Batchelor, who is in the running to be chairman of the Football League, is talking about restructuring the format of the Nationwide League, including inviting Rangers and Celtic to join, according to a report on the Nationwide League web site. Batchelor wants the new league to start next season. One sensible idea he's come up with is ensuring that clubs are trading profitably before being allowed to enhance players' wages, which would otherwise be paid from a central pot. Let's hope that all this talk about inviting clubs to join leagues without starting at the bottom of the pyramid is cast aside by more sensible chairmen.

Labels: Celtic, Football League, Rangers, York City

Also from yesterday's Observer is a report that the Nationwide League is hoping for exemption from the rules concerning transfer windows, due to the financial difficulties that many of the clubs are experiencing. They are proposing that they be allowed to sign and loan players from the Premier League and each other, although they accept that Premiership clubs wouldn't be able to sign Nationwide players, despite the cash boost that would mean.

Labels: Football League, Transfers