Year 2015. FIFA, scandalized by, in its opinion, the high commissions that many agents charge in the transfers of the footballers they represent, decides to liberalize the union. Until then, only the agent who obtained it through a specialized course on the subject and taught by the different national federations could have a FIFA license, but since then it has not been the case: «My hometown baker could be an agent if he wanted», A famous Spanish representative explains angrily to this newspaper. FIFA changed the rules of the game, but the move was misleading. And of those muds, these muds.
The body then headed by Joseph Blatter considered that there was little control over the agents and the money that they
charged, and decided to deregulate the profession by approving a new regulation in which he was not required to have a FIFA license to act as an agent. You didn’t even need the civil liability insurance that until then every agent had to have to cover their backs in the event of a job error. Nor was it necessary to prove any type of financial solvency or professional training. That got out of hand to the current point, in which on many occasions the agents earn more money in terms of commissions than the salary they achieve for their clients: “A lot of rabble has gotten into this union during these last six years. It is that I remember that in 2002, when I passed the course, more than half of those who applied failed. There was an important screening, and since 2015 it is not like that, but quite the opposite, “explains to ABC an important member of the board of directors of the AEAF, the Spanish Association of Soccer Agents.
The biggest mistake was eliminating the formation. Nine-month courses, under the umbrella of the federations, which were neither simple nor cheap. Until its abolition, prices were around 8.000-10.000 eurosTherefore, they were not suitable for all budgets, and a dense and complex matter was studied in which future agents had to learn by heart the entire legal system around the footballer and his different movements in the market. In the teaching staff there were reputable agents who recounted their experiences and lectured with practical cases, but there were also illustrious magistrates of the National Court of the Contentious Chamber that shelled the statute of transfer of players as well as the regulations of training and solidarity rights, or everything related to what a service contract should be, among many other administrative issues. His elimination was a shot to the foot by FIFA now seeking to heal.
Keys to the regulation
In the last year, the organization has consulted all parties – footballers, clubs, leagues, federations and agents – and the conclusion it has drawn is that it must have a full impact on this sector. Therefore, next March it will approve the new Agents Regulation that will bring substantial news that have put the representatives on a war footing. To be an agent, from July 1, 2022 you will have to prove a clean and immaculate record at penalty levell. If an agent is involved directly or indirectly in matters related to the world of gambling, professional malpractice, drug trafficking and corruption, organized crime, tax evasion, exploitation of minors, or sexual abuse, he will not be able to exercise.
Nor will anyone who does not submit to and pass an examination of the player transfer statute will not be licensed. In addition, there will be a continuous and mandatory academic recycling in the profession. Both measures will try to curb the intrusion generated all these years, in which they have also excelled the increase of relatives and intermediaries eager to get a piece of the pie, but neither criminal matters nor training are the issues that have most poisoned the world of representatives. As usually happens in almost everything in life, the pocket is the subject that has generated the most controversy and that will cause a tough battle in the courts.
According to the new regulation, there will only be two options to charge commissions. The first will represent 6% of the total contract of a footballer, 3% paid by the buying club and the other 3% by the footballer, and this will be the case as long as the buying club does not sell the footballer during the next two transfer windows. . I mean, yes Haaland Signs next summer a five-year contract for 30 million gross per season, Raiola will only be able to collect 6% of those 150 million total. That is, nine million commission, a figure very far from the 45 he charged for Pogba In his day when he took him out of Juventus to United, which is the same amount he wants to take now for the Norwegian forward. The second option offered by FIFA, incompatible with the first, is to charge 10% of the price of a transfer. That is, in the case of Haaland that we have mentioned, Raiola would take in this case 15 million commission, more than in the first option, but still much less than those 45 desired.
“I understand that the agents are going to challenge this new regulation and accuse FIFA of a monopoly. The path they are going to travel will be the same as what is happening now with the Super League. This will go to Court of Justice of the European Union. What FIFA proposes may not only be contrary to the free movement of capital and services but, above all, to competition laws. FIFA, like UEFA, wants to be a regulator and competitor in the same market, and this duality is difficult to assume in any other sector. A third party cannot decide how much I can charge an agent to carry out their work. Fortunately, in the European Union, we have free competition “, he details. Toni Roca, director of the Sports Law Institute and the soccer law firm Himnus.
“Why does FIFA decide?”
Roca remembers a case that he had to experience in the first person. In Spain, historically the bar associations imposed guiding criteria of what should be charged to clients for practicing law, something that professionals did not like and which was declared null by the EU: “A lawyer is free to charge whatever you want as long as the customer agrees. The same must happen with agents. Who is FIFA to say if a representative should charge 1, 3, 5, or 10 percent for a transfer commission? This will be said by the client, who is the player. Although it is true that there have been European Union resolutions giving the go-ahead to this regulation, their argument is weak. FIFA can recommend, as it does now, what percentages of commissions to charge, but there is no one to say what an agent has to charge, no matter how laudable their objectives are with the implementation of these limits ”, explains Roca.
«Ways of proceeding like those of Raiola, Mendes o Barnett They are the ones that cause all this mess. They are greedy and anger the clubs with their exorbitant commissions, they stigmatize the union and do us a disservice “, details another Spanish agent with more than 25 years in the world:” I, in part, understand FIFA. If an agent, like Jorge Mendes, directs Falcao’s career towards an investment fund, or another like Jonathan Barnett ‘steals’ Maxi Gómez … He took away his former representative in exchange for paying the striker a high amount of money. If we stick to this type of case, it is obvious that there are limits to be set “, he adds.
«What seems wrong to me is that the norm is already born contaminated and predisposed to be prosecuted. This means that it has not been done based on a consensus with the agents, who are the main stakeholders. Reps have always been seen as the dark and bad part of this business. They are considered soccer players who charge a lot of money for doing little work, which has generated high inflation demanding high salaries for their players, and who only seek more transfers to earn more commissions, which goes against contractual stability. FIFA says that all parties have been consulted, but it is not trueor. Here the reality is that the clubs are fine with it, that they are the ones that really pay the commissions. They are the ones who bear this cost and the new rule is good for them, but the agents do not think it is legal and they do well to go to court, “reflects Roca.
“Article 1 of the statutes of FIFA says that it is a company governed by private law. Perfect, but it must be subject to the rest of the laws, labor, health, commercial, civil … In what commercial or civil law is it written that a client cannot pay you a 30% commission, if he is willing to do so? Can’t a ‘broker’, a real estate agent or a lawyer collect the commission he deems appropriate with his client? What FIFA is trying to do is act in a mafia way, “the agents question angrily.
$ 500 million
According to the report ‘Intermediaries in International Transfers’ released by FIFA last week, the commissions paid for the services of club intermediaries in 2021 amounted to $ 500.8 million, 0.7% more than in 2020. European clubs accounted for 95.8% of these 500 million, and 77% were taken over by clubs in England (133 million dollars), Germany (84.3), Italy (73.5), Spain (34.8), France (30.3) and Portugal (29.3). In total, in the year that is about to end, 17,945 transfers of professional footballers were recorded in the FIFA transfer correlation system (the TMS), of which 3,545 (19.8%) were made with at least one intermediary.
These numbers want to be completely controlled by FIFA, which intends to create a new body that controls the payment of all commissions, and which will be known as ‘Clearing House’. Its function will be to manage this money to verify that its regulations are complied with and that there is no explosion of a parallel black market of commissions, a justified fear based on the absolute rejection that this regulation will provoke and that will set off a new one. battle in an increasingly confronted elite football.
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