In a 2019 UK survey by CV-Library, politicians, journalists and car salesman came top in the professions that people trusted the least. Ask the majority of sports fans though and they’d probably say the role of the football agent would figure highly on that list.
Last year, agents generated in the region of $653 million in commissions, a 19.3 percent increase on 2018 figures, as sometimes astronomical fees were paid in the movement of players between clubs, brokered by said agents.
So much so that the likes of Mino Raiola, Jorge Mendes, Pini Zahavi and Kia Joorabchian are almost as much household names as Mbappe, Messi, Ronaldo and Haaland.
It can certainly be big business – when French superstar Paul Pogba transferred to Manchester United from Juventus in 2016 for a then world record £89m, it was reported that super-agent Raiola earned around £20m.
However, Italian agent Giovanni Branchini, who acted as an intermediary between Manchester United and Sporting Lisbon in the deal that saw Cristiano Ronaldo move to Old Trafford in 2003, told Arabian Business that his profession is an easy scapegoat in an industry that is crying out for reform.
Asked why, he said: “First of all because it’s the easiest excuse to present, to justify your wrong-doings. Second because there are agents who are following bad inspiration by the clubs. There is one thing that people very often forget, very often they speak about the money that the agents receive from the clubs and they keep forgetting that every pound, every dollar that comes to an agent, is coming from a club.
Cristiano Ronaldo. Getty Images
“So who has the control? The clubs. But the clubs must have the knowledge, they must have the integrity, they must have the honesty, to spend well their money, not overspend, and not ask for kick-backs,” he said.
“This is why it is very simple to say that the agents are the very poison of this business. If the agents were the poison of this business, we would not have had 30-40 years gaining room and respect in this business.”
In a wide-ranging and passionate interview, Branchini, who includes Riccardo Montolivo, Angelo Ogbonna, Simone Pepe, Blerim Dzemaili, Andrea Poli and Jonathan Biabany on his books, said that often a failure by clubs to executive proper due diligence in buying players, results in problems down the line, which ends in agents branded as pariahs.
He said: “The lack of knowledge is what is costing football most of the debt because you can see almost every club, I would say every top club in the world, has signed and under contract, a lot of players that are internationals of their countries, who are on heavy contracts, heavy salaries, and who are not playing, they are on the bench.
“This is the cost because if you pay a lot of money for a player that is playing and performing and giving back a result to your club, that money is well spent. The problem is when you have eight, nine, ten, sometimes 25-30 players because there are clubs who are borrowing every year 40-50 players and they may not all have multi-million contracts, but they represent the costs for the club.
Riccardo Montolivo. Getty Images
“The big problem in football, and this is also the reason why agents are so important, because agents work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on football. We have scouting systems, we have a network all over and we know football and we sometimes, very often, we are doing now the same job the sports director used to do before.”
Football’s governing body, FIFA, has introduced new regulations in an attempt to diminish the influence of ‘super-agents’. This includes, depending on their role in a transfer, an agent would be limited to taking a one-off sum equal to three percent of a player’s annual salary or ten percent of the transfer fee to a selling club.
But Branchini slammed the move and insisted FIFA should look at the way it is performing before rounding on agents.
He said: “Now they are trying to gain popularity and respect, saying now we’re going to hit the agents. They don’t know that the first one that will go around the rules, not respecting the rules, if they put a cap, will be the clubs, because the inspiration always comes from the clubs.
“It’s the same mechanics when you have a player that is at the end of his contract and he doesn’t renew his contract with the club and he becomes a free agent; the club who is losing this player, considers the player miserable because he’s betraying the club, the agent is a mercenary. But then, a week later, the same club is signing another free agent coming from another club.”
Branchini is set to attend the annual edition of the Dubai International Sports Conference, which is being staged by the Dubai Sports Council and Globe Soccer Awards on December 27 at the Armani Hotel.
Angelo Ogbonna. Getty Images
And he hopes the aforementioned issues impacting the world of football can be discussed.
He said: “In the past ten years, with their cooperation, with Global Club Soccer, we have made a lot of debates. We could face some of the problems I’ve been discussing with you and there are not many examples in our world today of what they are doing.
“The Soccer Awards is a nice party and a nice event, but behind that, at the conference, there is a lot of interesting conversations that have taken place.”
In light of the global impact of Covid-19, this year’s Dubai Globe Soccer Awards will be a special edition, highlighting 2020’s top talent alongside legendary players, clubs and agents from the past 20 years. For the first time, four of the awards will consider the seasons contested by the nominees between 2001 and 2020 in a unique series that celebrates the Best of the Century.
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