Football's cash obsession: Why do agents have so much power?

Football has reached the point of no return, with clubs spending more and more each year on the biggest names around. In the second installment of a three-part series on the flourishing transfer market, theScore explains the rise of agents.

Complete series:

Warning: Story contains coarse language

On the outside, agents may seem like the scourge of football, but both players and clubs know fully well they need them to make big things happen.

The fact both Manchester United and Juventus enlisted Mino Raiola to work on their behalf is proof. His involvement in Paul Pogba’s world-record transfer to United last summer netted the rotund Raiola, one of the game’s super agents, an alleged £41 million. That’s more than what Chelsea reportedly paid to sign tireless midfield engine N’Golo Kante from Leicester City.

The conflict of interest is obvious – Juventus would’ve asked Raiola to extract the highest fee, United would’ve sought the best deal possible – but as long as every party agrees to the arrangement, it’s perfectly legal.

The money, largely speaking, doesn’t mean all that much to the biggest clubs. Boosted by ever-growing television revenue, football’s elite can justify paying huge sums of cash to agents just to land the player they covet.

“There’s all this money out there from TV, and the big clubs want the best players. That means they are prepared to spend the money to get these top players. So to get to them, they have to go through agents,” Alex Duff, co-author of “Football’s Secret Trade: How the Player Transfer Market was Infiltrated,” told theScore.

“There’s a culture in football of all the top footballers having an agent. Clubs don’t go directly to players. They don’t use LinkedIn or just call up a head-hunter.”

The power of networking

Because agents have various connections in the industry, clubs see them as a genuine resource. Raiola is rare in that his stable of footballers is relatively small, but other big players on the transfer market, like Jorge Mendes, maintain good relationships with teams across Europe to deliver them their clients.

It’s why Championship side Wolverhampton Wanderers suddenly has a huge Portuguese contingent among its ranks. The big-money move for midfielder Ruben Neves drew curious glances – not because of the club-record fee Wolves agreed to pay, but because he could’ve gone to several other top-flight clubs. The difference? Mendes is his agent, and the former nightclub owner helped facilitate Chinese conglomerate Fosun’s takeover of Wolves last year.

Mendes routed four other Portuguese players to the West Midlands from the likes of Benfica, Rio Ave, and Atletico Madrid – all of them frequent stops on the Mendes tour.

Related – Jorge Mendes FC: How Ronaldo’s agent made Wolves his plaything

Although he is officially listed as an advisor to Wolves, the suggestion is that he has complete autonomy over the club’s transfer policy, treating the team as nothing more than a parking lot for his underused clients. The fact Fosun has a stake in Mendes’ agency, Gestifute, has raised more suspicions.

The problem, according to Duff, is that FIFA cannot stop situations like these from happening. Wolves could simply see Mendes as a means to supply a return to the Premier League.

“How can you prove the motives of the agent?” Duff added.

‘It’s immoral’

Without a regulatory body watching agents’ every move, it’s a lot easier for them to keep on doing business this way. FIFA deregulated the industry in March 2015, leaving the task of certifying agents to countries’ respective football federations, according to German newspaper Der Spiegel. Passing an exam is not required to become an agent, meaning virtually anyone – a parent, friend, or cousin – can become a player’s representative.

It has also opened the business to “intermediaries,” who can act on behalf of a player or club to carry out a transfer. It’s even more difficult to trace where the money is going, and who to. The only thing of interest to actual authorities is the rerouting of money – usually from a player’s image rights – to tax havens.

Because there is no cap on transfer fees, however, there is no way to limit how much an agent can expect to make off signings and even contract renewals. Premier League sides paid a record £174 million between February 2016 and January 2017 to agents and intermediaries, for example. That will only rise. Agents also take a cut of their clients’ yearly salaries, and stand to receive payments for helping clubs negotiate a new contract.

To some, it’s money coming out of the game.

“It might not be illegal but it’s immoral,” ex-FA chairman David Bernstein told The Telegraph.

Citing documents involved in the Football Leaks outbreak, Der Spiegel said Volker Struth, who owns popular agency Sportstotal, is expected to claim €5 million from Real Madrid as a “thank you” for persuading German international Toni Kroos to reject other offers and renew his deal with Los Blancos.

Even 12-time Champions League winner Madrid relies on agents to do the dirty work and keep its stars happy.

‘Everybody is working with everybody’

For other team executives looking to sign a player of Kroos’ calibre, agents flip sides.

The “tapping up” of footballers is a decades-old practice that the Premier League has only recently begun to scrutinise, especially in relation to the movement of minors. To see whether a club has a chance to sign someone, execs often ask agents to gauge a player’s mood.

“Every club lets a player know that they’re interested and anyone who says they don’t is telling lies, it’s absolute rubbish,” former Tottenham and Queens Park Rangers manager Harry Redknapp, who has a reputation in the game as a “wheeler-dealer,” said in 2009. “It’s not a case of tapping a player up, it’s a case of the agent ringing up and asking if you’re interested.”

Agents feed the press with stories – true or false – to give them even more power in the negotiating room. If a player wants out, transfer reports put pressure on the club to sell. The more clubs are linked to a player, the bigger the illusion that he is in demand and deserving of a better contract if he is to stay put. And the more money, the bigger the agent’s cut.

“Journalists have close ties to agents for scoops and stories. Everybody is working with everybody,” veteran Dutch agent Rob Jansen told Vice Sports. “Journalists and agents move carefully around each other to make sure they don’t upset each other. Everybody knows this, and nobody really thinks this is a problem.”

True chameleons, agents can change course in an instant. AC Milan’s sensational signing of Leonardo Bonucci from Juventus reportedly happened only after his agent, Alessandro Lucci, offered the ball-playing centre-back to the Rossoneri. Apparently at odds with Juventus manager Massimiliano Allegri, Bonucci sought a nearby escape. The move, which was completed mere days after news broke, cost Milan a relative cut-rate €42 million.

Lucci has since strengthened his ties with Milan, adding Spanish winger Suso, who is due for a new contract, to his collection of footballers.

‘Go fuck yourself’

Amid all the shape-shifting and menial tasks that come with being an agent, Alex Duff, who spent years co-writing “Football’s Secret Trade,” said the most important role is that of friendship.

Raiola and Mendes have close ties to many of their clients, and met them at young ages. Raiola began working for Pogba when he was 18 years old, Mendes took on a 17-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo, and Jonathan Barnett discovered Gareth Bale at 15.

Raiola has vacationed with Pogba and is listed as Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s “friend” in the Swede’s autobiography, while Mendes is a regular fixture in Ronaldo’s entourage and family gatherings, drinking wine with the Portuguese superstar.

Raiola deliberately keeps his list of clientele short “so as to offer each one a personal service,” the Financial Times’ Simon Kuper wrote in a profile of the Italian-born Dutchman.

Formerly a waiter in his parents’ pizzeria, Raiola has built on a humble beginning, using language his clients, including Ibrahimovic, appreciate. Part of the reason why Ibrahimovic chose Raiola is because one of the first things he told Zlatan was to “go fuck yourself.”

Sensing he and Raiola had come from similar backgrounds – “I had grown up with that attitude,” Ibrahimovic recounted in his book – a relationship was struck.

“So the player trusts the agent implicitly,” Duff said. “They form a bond early on, and it’s difficult to break. The clever ones form alliances with young talent early on, gain their confidence, and usually manage to retain their confidence throughout their career.”

Raiola has stood beside Ibrahimovic the entire way. With his agent’s negotiation skills, the 35-year-old striker is now one of the costliest players in world football at a cumulative €169 million in total transfer fees, according to Transfermarkt.

Despite an ACL tear, Ibrahimovic is still very much in demand. Wherever he goes next, Raiola will be there.