by JBG » Sat Jul 31, 2004 3:19 pm
Some agents can make over £200,000 sometimes for a minor international transfer from the likes of Denmark to England for a second rate Danish international squad player that costs only £400,000 in transfer fees.
Tomas Linderoth left the Bluenoses last week for £1m but I guarantee you Everton will only see about £600,000 to £700,000 of that money.
Thats a shocking loss of capital from the game and its all spent by agents on villas and boats in the south of France.
If Rooney left the Bluenoses, to say, the Scum, for around £30m (likely closer to £25m), all the agents involved would get about £4-6m between them.
No wonder there has been so much transfer speculation over the likes of Gerrard, Vieira, RVN and Rooney this summer: agents engineer the move to get themselves massive fees.
I think Roy Keane and Damien Duff are part of only a small bunch where their agents are really family advisers rather than "superagents". Duff's agent is a family friend who happens to be a football manager of a League of Ireland club, while Keane's agent is his solicitor. I think that Bolo Zenden's agent is his father, and Ronaldo (of Scum) has his mother handling his affairs!
There will be a day of reckoning yet as far as agents and greedy footballers go, Rick Parry said as much last week, saying that the club won't be held ransom by agents or players anymore, and that in 2 or 3 years time the tables will be turned and will be begging clubs to sign them, not the other way around.
Its already happening: Steve Guppy is paying for all his own travel and hotel expenses while he is on trial at Leeds.
Jolly Bob Grumbine.