Stellar deal adds to world domination
THE Stellar Group are set to consolidate their position as the biggest agents in world football by buying Prostar Sports Management.
The 50-plus players on PSM’s books will take the Stellar roster to 500 clients, ranging from Real Madrid’s world-record signing Gareth Bale to much of the top youth talent in the game.
The agency, founded by David Manasseh and Jonathan Barnett in 1993, now run their business from 10 offices worldwide, including London, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo and the latest in Madrid. Only Portugal’s Jorge Mendes, who represents a star cast including Cristiano Ronaldo, Diego Costa and Jose Mourinho through his Gesti Fute International, comes close to challenging Stellar as the most powerful of middlemen.
It was the promising young players whom PSM founder Nick Rubery signed from Manchester United and Liverpool that made the Stellar deal work. However, not part of the deal is serial bad boy Ravel Morrison, with whom Prostar have severed links since he signed for Lazio.
THIS extraordinary Premier League season may well have all issues at the top of the table settled before the final day, in which case Sky Sports will focus on the relegation struggle. BT Sport have no picks left and a sign of their vastly inferior selection this season is the fact that they only featured champions-elect Leicester twice in live matches. BOLTON WANDERERS’ new chairman Ken Anderson (right), a former football agent, was disqualified as a company director from 2005 until 2013 for transgressions including diverting company funds into personal accounts, VAT discrepancies and failure to co-operate with receivers. Yet the Football League say Anderson passed their owners and directors’ test because his sentence had been served.
LONDON 2017 have made five heavyweight director appointments to recover momentum after a damaging civil war for control of next year’s World Athletics Championships between UK Athletics and their defeated opponents on the previous board, who all resigned. Former civil service chief Sir Robin Young will be co-chairman alongside UKA’s Ed Warner, with the other directors being Jockey Club overlord Simon Bazalgette, Wasps boss David Armstrong, former IOC marketing head Liz McMahon and Arsenal chief commercial officer Vinai Venkatesham.