FA planning to drop popular agent Byrne
ENGLAND players will have to make a major commercial decision after the World Cup, either backing their long-time agent or the FA.
The FA want to end a 12-year partnership with 1966 Entertainment, which expires after the tournament, and run the players’ sponsorship programme themselves so they can bring all player appearances under one roof without having to go through or pay a third party.
However the situation is complicated by 1966 chairman Terry Byrne, David Beckham’s former personal manager, being under contract to represent the players until after the World Cup in Qatar in 2022. And Byrne is understood to retain the trust of the squad, who might well feel it would be unfair to turn their back on 1966 running their commercial business, as they have done harmoniously since 2006, just when the England team will be in big demand.
Byrne, who also looks after manager Gareth Southgate through his entirely separate 10Ten Talent management arm, has been in Russia and has had the opportunity to lobby players and some of their agents. The FA announced over a year ago that they intended to end their 1966 deal post Russia. But the main negotiations have been put on hold with neither side wanting to interrupt the complete focus on the World Cup. AMONG the many innovations introduced by Gareth Southgate is the captaincy role being shared amongst his leadership group. Never was this clearer than at the mandatory FIFA press conference before the semi-final when Jordan Henderson, a more confident speaker than official skipper Harry Kane, was alongside Southgate on the stage. Kane prefers to lead by example.
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will have to look at their World Cup ticket allocation policy before Qatar 2022 to ensure semi-finalists and finalists receive more tickets. There was a relatively poor atmosphere in St Petersburg for the BelgiumFrance game, partly because the two competing nations were poorly represented.