Premier League moves to reduce influence of player agent

English Premier League chairmen will push for a ban on clubs paying agents.

Italian-born Dutch football agent Mino Raiola.

Premier League chairmen will push for a ban on clubs paying agents as an investigation by The Times revealed four out of every five deals in the top flight last season involved the same agent being paid by player and club.

The measure to insist that only players should pay agents is among a raft of new rules the league wants imposed to reduce the power of intermediaries.

Club executives believe “dual representation” has become the norm because if clubs are asked to pay part of an agent’s fee then the player has less to pay and also pays less tax.

It is understood UK tax authorities (HMRC) are looking at dual representation arrangements and will be able to demand that clubs and agents provide evidence of what has been done for each side. Premier League clubs paid agents £211 million ($381m) last year, an increase of £37m on the previous 12 months.

There were 541 player transactions involving Premier League clubs last season — transfers, loans or new contracts — and at least 426 of these, 79 per cent, involved dual representation. Every single one of Manchester City’s 52 transactions involved dual representation, as did almost all of those deals at Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United.

At least one deal involved “triple representation”, where one agent acted for the player, the buying club and the selling club.

That situation also occurred in 2016 when Manchester United signed Paul Pogba for a then world record fee of £89m.

Mino Raiola represented the buying club, United, the selling club, Juventus, and Pogba. He was paid by all three parties and earnt £41m from the transfer.

Moves to ban payments to agents by clubs were agreed in principle in June and a meeting of Premier League chairmen is expected to reinforce the desire for this and other measures.

Other rules the league chairmen want included are:

• All agents working in ­England to have to pass an exam;

• A requirement for an agent working with England-based players to have a British bank ­account;

• Transactions with English clubs should go through that bank account;

• More transparency of agents’ business arrangements and that any agents who operate in ­England must prepare annual ­financial statements to submit to the FA; and finally, players should pay an agent’s fees across the length of the player’s contract, rather than in a lump sum as soon as a transaction is completed.

Clubs hope this would stop agents trying to earn another payday by agitating for their player to move after a year or two of the contract.

The proposals were drawn up after a review of agents’ working practices by the Premier League, which has now passed them on to the FA to try to have them accepted as part of the rules.

One possible delaying factor is that FIFA has also had a task force working on agents, and although it agrees with many of the league’s proposals, instead of a ban on clubs paying agents it favours imposing a cap on agents’ fees so they can receive a maximum of just 5 per cent of any transaction.

The Premier League and FA could, however, still have a twin-track approach to use even stronger rules than FIFA.

One club chairman said: “We don’t like the arrangements as agents are rarely helping the club, so the representation agreement should reflect who they are representing.

“The dual representation arrangements exist to effectively protect the player from the full cost of the agent representing him.

“We have been told that HMRC are looking increasingly closely at dual representation arrangements and that they have the right to ask for evidence of what has been done for each side.”

Last year Liverpool spent £26.8m on agents, the most by any Premier League club, and Chelsea were second on £25.1m, according to FA data based on transactions during the summer 2017 and January 2018 transfer windows. English clubs across the top five divisions spent a total of £257m on agent fees, an ­increase of £37m on 2016-17.

The chairmen’s meeting is also expected to have an update on clubs’ responses to the early closure of the transfer window. After the tightest of votes a year ago, the Premier League decided to close the window before the start of the season rather than on August 31, the date across the rest of Europe.

Some clubs, notably Manchester City and United, remain convinced that early closure hands an advantage to their rivals on the continent. Supporters of the policy will be able to argue that no big-name player was sold by an English club during the two-week period in which they could not have been replaced.

The chairmen will also be given an update on overseas TV rights sales.

Last month the league negotiated a three-year deal for the Middle East with BeIN Sport that resulted in a slight increase on the £400m paid for the existing deal.

The Times