AFRICAN football agents will launch their own industry association at the second edition of the Football Player Agent Forum, taking place in Joburg next month.
The forum will be addressed by Mel Stein, chairman of the Association of Football Agents (AFA) in the UK. The AFA was formed to promote the collective interests” of its more than 500 professional registered agents in the UK and Ireland.
Stein will speak about what the AFA has done in England and Europe to promote the concept of a win-win situation” for all stakeholders inclusive of agents, clubs and the FA under Fifa’s Intermediary Regulations.
He will, also report on the AFA’s campaign to govern agents through industry regulations as well as the appeal it lodged with the European Commission to scrap Fifa’s unfair regulations governing intermediaries.
Delegates attending the forum will also establish the African Football Intermediaries Association (Afia) and agents from all African countries have been invited to become ordinary members and to serve on the interim steering committee.
The committee will receive its mandate from agents and the main objective of Afia is to become the continental voice for football agents.
The committee will draft a constitution and create sub-committees to ensure that Afia becomes fully functional within one year.
The key topics to be discussed at the forum will focus on whether Fifa s new Intermediary Regulations have made a difference and whether the 3% commission fee is a maximum or a guide for FA’s to impose on agents when selling players.
The legality and fairness of Fifa s player Transfer Management System will also be debated and a legal expert will address the issue of disputes between players and clubs and how to solve it through mediation. The aspect of player contracts” and image rights” has also become a contentious issue and industry experts will discuss the best ways to optimise a player’s earnings while under contract. FIFA presidential candidate Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan has asked soccer’s world governing body to investigate an agreement signed between the African and Asian confederations.
Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa and Confederation of African Football (CAF) counterpart Issa Hayatou signed the co-operation agreement” in Rwanda on Friday, just over a month before the Fifa presidential election in Zurich on February 26. Salman, SA businessman Tokyo Sexwale and Prince Ali are among five candidates , with the 40year-old Jordanian royal fearing vote deals had been struck between the two confederations who will have a combined 100 votes in the 209 member poll.
I have always promoted crossregional understanding, however the timing of this MOU [memorandum of understanding] between the AFC and the CAF looks like a blatant attempt to engineer a bloc vote,” Prince Ali said in a statement.
Africa’s proud football associations are not for sale and development resources should not be used by presidential candidates and confederation presidents for political expediency.
Questions must be asked: was this deal approved by the members of the executive committees of both the AFC and CAF and is the timing of the announcement, prior to a presidential election, acceptable?
Now more than ever, this apparent exploitation of confederation resources shows the world that the actions of individuals must stop bringing Fifa into disrepute.”
Former Fifa official Jerome Champagne and Uefa general secretary Gianni Infantino are also standing in next month’s election with Fifa mired in the worst corruption scandal in its history. Criminal investigations are under way in the US and Switzerland.
Fifa president Sepp Blatter and European soccer boss Michel Platini have been banned for eight years. Both deny wrongdoing. Prince Ali, beaten by 133-73 votes by Blatter in May, published his election manifesto this month calling for more transparency and term limits for senior officials. He said Fifa faced a catastrophic future if the wrong man was elected.
…