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Agent fees

edited June 2020 in Football

Unsurprisingly, we were the lowest spenders on intermediary fees in League One from Feb 2019 to Jan 2020 - with the exception of Bolton and Rochdale. Spent less than most League Two clubs as well. Another sign, as if it was needed, of the phenomenal job Gaz, Dobbo and co. have done. (Well, it reflects the fact we've barely paid a transfer fee, but it's another way of visualising it.)

Comments

  • Sunderland, wowsers, at least they came top of one league.

  • A while clubs are struggling to survive agents continue to prosper. Every pound is one going out of the game.
    I've never understood why clubs pay agents. Surely players should be doing that. What am I missing?

  • Possible in Sunderland's defence that some of this is to help them get rid of players or get them on reduced deals, and you'd see why you might be tempted to add in 5% to secure a key player...... but then they did raise their last final final bid for Will Grigg by £3m over the course of about 2 hours on deadline day

  • @Right_in_the_Middle said:
    A while clubs are struggling to survive agents continue to prosper. Every pound is one going out of the game.
    I've never understood why clubs pay agents. Surely players should be doing that. What am I missing?

    We all think that, but unfortunately until all clubs make a stand of we will not pay agents, one club will do so. And that just means the club who won't miss out.

    In reality if you cut out agent fees, the agent will just bump up the player requirements.

  • The fact that even Fleetwood spent £150,000 more on agents is further evidence of what a fantastic season this has been for our club.

  • I suppose agents are trying to operate as brokers rather than just negotiators for the players. And deal brokers in other industries earn fat fees too.

    Incredible that we spent so little compared to other clubs and yet performed so well on the pitch.

  • This is really interesting because it’s not as if we’ve had to sacrifice in the quality of players we brought in, despite the low spend with agents.

    Obviously much of our business is free transfers/loans, but I imagine we’d traditionally still be expected to pay an agent fee in those kind of deals.

    So to bring in the likes of Wheeler, Onyedimna, Stockdale, Grimmer, Smyth and Parker, all on a pretty shoestring agent fee budget, is really impressive and shows the shrewdness of the club.

    From listening to an interview with Andrew Howard I think a lot of the ‘we won’t pay agents’ mentality came from him at the beginning, just another item in a long list of positive legacies that he left.

    Of course we probably need to know the wage budget to see the full picture, but I imagine we’d rank in around the same place.

  • @Jonny said:
    This is really interesting because it’s not as if we’ve had to sacrifice in the quality of players we brought in, despite the low spend with agents.

    Obviously much of our business is free transfers/loans, but I imagine we’d traditionally still be expected to pay an agent fee in those kind of deals.

    So to bring in the likes of Wheeler, Onyedimna, Stockdale, Grimmer, Smyth and Parker, all on a pretty shoestring agent fee budget, is really impressive and shows the shrewdness of the club.

    From listening to an interview with Andrew Howard I think a lot of the ‘we won’t pay agents’ mentality came from him at the beginning, just another item in a long list of positive legacies that he left.

    Of course we probably need to know the wage budget to see the full picture, but I imagine we’d rank in around the same place.

    We have a real skill of getting quality loanees in who love the atmosphere and general set up so much that they want to get back here

    Other situations like Bayo have been genius too. Reading between the lines it sounds like his wage perhaps isn't relatively the highest but we allow him plenty of scope to do his higher paying sidelines.

    You can imagine this may not go down well with teammates in other circumstances but the team spirit looks spot on.

    Bayo was doing reaction to the last two Liverpool games on one sky channel! He gets every where!

  • If the player is know to us, returning for a second spell, or on loan cheaply or free, as a favour because the sending club thinks we can deveope them, or they just don't want them anymore there's not a lot to negotiate, you aren't getting much money but we won't stand in your way if you leave. If we were to go up and potentially be competing for better players we might have to get more involved with agents.

  • I seem to remember someone (Steve Evans?) saying that they couldn’t compete with us in the market for Smyth, so it’s a little surprising it is as low as it os

  • Perhaps the competition was not financial, but personal contact and preference. GA has many contacts in the game and is held in high regard, and WWFC must surely be developing an excellent record for developing young talent, and returning a better player than when they arrived. Some may regard these as elements that money can't buy.

  • edited June 2020

    For all the stick the Trust and Howard and even Gareth received over the past three years or so...what an achievement that we still have a club, we were attractive enough to get decent owners (so far so good), have some great players, we've had three pretty good seasons, we made the play-offs and paid out a fraction of what Sunderland has to do it. It's not a bad record at all is it?

  • @bookertease said:
    I seem to remember someone (Steve Evans?) saying that they couldn’t compete with us in the market for Smyth, so it’s a little surprising it is as low as it os

    The thought of Smyth going to a Steve Evans managed team makes me shiver...

  • If Steve Evans was offering me a job I'd definitely be telling him that the guy up the road was offering 10 times the salary.

  • @Wendoverman Amen to that.

    I remain intrigued, though, by the change in terms of the sale as the deal was finalised. I asked the Trust Board to clarify to members and was told that an explanation would be forthcoming.

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