By Andrew Warshaw
August 22- FIFA plans to reform the status of agents have incurred the wrath of the UK-based Association of Football Agents who are taking their case the European Commission.
The proposals, designed to weed out rogue parties and make for a more transparent process, were approved in March and are due to come into effect on April 1 next year.
However the AFA, which represents more than 300 agents in the UK, says the deregulated system would be totally counter-productive and according to The Daily Telegraph, the organisation has asked the EU Commission to look into the proposals before they become law.
Under Fifa’s plans, agents will be replaced by ‘intermediaries’, who will have their commission on deals capped at 3 percent.
AFA chairman Mel Stein was reported as saying: “We think this whole concept will reduce football to a circus.. As an industry that is faced with annihilation, we also believe it is illegal and anti-competitive. If the new regulations are enforced it will be like bees around a honeypot because of the money and there will be an awful lot of bees out there stinging everybody.
“Generally speaking, everybody involved in football is highly vetted, regulated and controlled but, if that goes out the window, the results will be catastrophic.
“I am not just talking about the transfer market, either. Corruption will be rife and there will be a very real danger of match-fixing with individuals whose credentials are not known associated to players and clubs.”
While agents are often accused of being self-serving, the danger is that a cap on commission will lead to unregulated extra payments. Leon Angel, who sits on the board of the AFA, formed in 2005, and is chairman of the Base Soccer agency, was quoted as saying: “Allowing unlicensed individuals to conduct deals with a three per cent commission cap will just drive the industry underground.
“It is naive in the extreme to think some individuals will not try to find a way around it and that will further limit the ability to properly control the way in which these intermediaries and clubs work.”
Fifa first proposed a wholesale review of the system in 2009 claiming that over 70% of international transfers were being conducted using unlicensed agents, proving the current system did not provide the desired level of control.
It instead wants clubs and players to record the use of any intermediary in an international transfer and to register the information with its own team of experts. Fifa also revealed that the average commission paid by clubs to agents for international transfers at the time was around 28% of the value of the deal.
But AFA board member Jonathan Barnett, chairman of Stellar Group Limited who negotiated Gareth Bale’s world-record £85 million move to Real Madrid, pointed out that the planned intermediaries will not have to take any kind of exam.
“Qualified and experienced agents are essential for the well-being of players,” he said. “Many of these so-called intermediaries will not have the skills or the knowledge to look after the well-being of their players, even if they have the best intentions.”