The ears of the actors of the Belgian football world whistled last night on the occasion of the broadcast of our shocking documentary ‘Le Milieu du Terrain’. A dive into the gloomy behind the scenes of Belgian football where it is a question of amazing commissions, rigged matches and corruption with luxury watches. With a central character with a very influential role: the player agent.
After the broadcast of this documentary, we wanted to collect the reaction of an actor or ex-actor of Belgian football. Alain Courtois, former secretary general of the Belgian Football Union, accepted our request and confided his feelings.
The players no longer have the value of the club in their hearts, they have the value of money
“What the documentary highlights is the exaggerated role of agents and commissions. This role has become exorbitant, totally exorbitant. And particularly in Belgium because it is a small microcosm”, explains Alain Courtois.
“I was 16 years in the federation and at the time, the role of agents was not a central role. Now it has become a central role and everyone has an interest in there being a lot of transfers. What makes the supporter is fooled because many of these players no longer have the value of the club in their hearts, they mostly have the value for money. Just take the example of Lionel Messi who cries because he leaves Barcelona and the next day he rejoices at PSG. It makes no sense! Who settles all this, who has an interest in having more important transfer payers, it is the agents. role of agents that the authorities must absolutely regulate. At the point where we are, things will have to explode at some point. This is no longer possible “.
We play with fire, we disgust people
“I was chairman of the UEFA disciplinary committee for 10 years and I can tell you that I dealt with match-fixing, corrupt referee cases, etc. I had all of that. what has completely changed is the relationship between agents and clubs. And it can no longer work like that. Either we reduce the role of agents, or we impose that the clubs no longer pay an agent and that they arrange between them to carry out the transfer of a player “, continues the former secretary general of the Belgian Union.
“It is about the reputation of football, of the clubs, of the refereeing body, and here we are playing with fire because we are busy disgusting people and supporters. Someone who watches this documentary and who does not know football , he said to himself: It is all the same a band apart from those. Not to say something else … We will see if they are proven by justice but all the information present in this report denigrates the world of football, this n is not possible! “
Clubs must regain control
“I think some supporters will feel cheated. You will be amazed at how many fans are fed up and feel that something is missing from them. Football, the pitch, the game, it belongs first to the supporters. When I ‘hear in the documentary that we find ourselves in a situation’ bordering on mafia ‘, it hurts me. We must restore order. The clubs must take control and the agent must have only one role subordinate”, concludes Alain Courtois.
