3 December 2010The Premier League has released data on member club’s spending on football agents. The 20 clubs were involved in a total of 742 transactions, some of which did not involve agents' fees, which took place in the twelve months to the end of September 2010. This was down by 6% compared to 792 transactions the year before. It is the second year in which the Premier League has released the figures, having followed the example of the Football League which first published its agents spending reports in 2004. Total spending reached £67.14m, £3.5m or 5% less than in the previous 12 months.{jcomments on}

Chelsea and Liverpool were the largest spenders paying out £9.2m and £9.0m respectively, or 27% of the aggregate.

Liverpool's outlay soared to £9.0m because of the high turnover of playing staff during the period the club was owned by its highly unpopular North American co-owners. Liverpool's new US owners, New England Sports Ventures, have made the pursuit of better value in the transfer market a priority, but as the club seeks to sell many of the players that the previous manager Benitez had on the books, their payments to agents may not look much better when the Premier League publishes its next table of sums paid to agents in a year's time. Current manager Roy Hodgson, who has complained publicly that Benitez bequeathed him an "unbelievably overstaffed" club, has sold Diego Cavalieri, Javier Mascherano, Damien Plessis, Albert Riera, Krisztiá* Nemeth, Yossi Benayoun, plus Lauri Dalla Valle and Alex Kacaniklic, part of a deal which brought in Paul Konchesky from Fulham. Each has incurred agents' fees and so, too, the loan deals including Philipp Deggen, Alberto Aquilani, Nabil El-Zar and Emiliano Insua.Hodgson did not choose to sell Mascherano and Benayoun, but he and his former managing director, Christian Purslow, mandated agents to find new clubs for some of the players they were desperate to shed. The substantial effort put into keeping those stars that Liverpool do not want to lose has brought new contracts for Fernando Torres and Pepe Reina, from which their agents also take a cut. A concern for Liverpool must be how to sell some of those players currently out on loan whom they do not want back: Aquilani has impressed at Juventus but Insua, also on a season's loan, is currently not a starter at Galatasaray. Agents may be called in to help secure deals which will spare Liverpool their salaries. Furthermore, in the past decade, only three Anfield academy graduates have played 40 or more games for a Premier League club. Meanwhile, local rivals Everton spent just much less £3.6m representing 5.3% of total spending by Premier League clubs. The next highest spending club - Manchester City, paid out £5.9m on agents, or 8.9% of total Premier League spending on agents. This figure was, however, much less than their total spending of £12.9m the year before. Their ranking may fall next year as Manchester City are also relying on their academy to reduce a £133m annual wage bill which risks leaving them in breach of UEFA's Financial Fair Play regulations, while chief executive Garry Cook's is determined to cut the influence of agents at Eastlands. Manchester United, where Sir Alex Ferguson has resolved to develop the club through investing in youth, have paid only £2.3m to agents, which is considerably less than Bolton's £3.5m. However, Manchester United still increased their payments by £800,000. Bolton Wanderers' figure reflects the club’s wage bill which led chairman Kevin Gartside to warn last month that players may need to be sold in January. Blackpool were bottom of the top-flight agent table having spent just £45,000. However, the newly promoted club imposed strict spending limits when they were promoted to the top-flight at the end of last season.

UEFA

Tweet

Tweetle                      Paylaş                        Paylaş