Italy’s lesson for UK over murky agents
The mind-boggling fees earned by football agents in this transfer window — particularly around the proposed Alexis sanchez-henrikh Mkhitaryan swap — will prompt calls for more transparency and regulation around the middle men.
And italy, who have the second highest agents’ commission after the Premier league, have shown it can be done, with their government amending laws to bring in a national register of sports agents as opposed to the murky, free-for-all system that operates in the UK.
Agents in italy must pay an annual fee of €250, be an EU citizen, have no criminal convictions in the last five years, have a secondary school diploma or equivalent and pass a qualifying test.
Clubs are prohibited from using non-registered agents, whose involvement would make the contracts they worked on null and void.
On top of that, a player’s family members must pass the agents’ exam if they want to take part in football negotiations.
Mike Miller, chairman of the Association of Football Agents, said: ‘it is in everyone’s interests to have a regulated and transparent system.’
WALES and Northern Ireland have benefited from England’s World Cup qualification with lucrative away matches arranged for the March international week against opponents who want experience of home nations football. Wales are playing in China in a mini-tournament against Uruguay and the Czech Republic, while the Irish take on Panama and Costa Rica. Of course, new Wales manager Ryan Giggs (above) rarely travelled to Cardiff, let alone the Far East, for friendly matches when he was a player.
The FA are yet to announce Phil Neville as the new head coach of the england women’s team, but they are already advertising for his assistant. Candidates must have ‘consistent and successful experience of development of elite women players’. That begs the question, why does the head coach not need experience of the women’s game, but his No 2 must have it?
THE chances of Ben Stokes playing cricket for England until after his trial for affray are zero. That much is clear when the 13-strong ECB panel making that decision today includes two former senior police officials in Jane Stichbury, the ex-Met deputy assistant commissioner, and Martin Darlow, formerly head of professional standards for the Bedford and Herts Constabulary.
Arsenal plan for new era
EVEN the most ardent Arsene Wenger devotees can envisage a change of manager at Arsenal at the end of the season, especially if the club fail to qualify for the Champions league again.
Wenger might even decide this is the right time to quit, in the knowledge he will have plenty of countries keen to employ him after the World Cup if he wants to continue working. Arsenal have started the succession process with the arrival of sven Mislintat as head of recruitment from Dortmund and raul sanllehi as head of football relations from Barcelona. These were board appointments rather than Wenger choices.
Meanwhile, despite Arsenal’s recent travails, three shares in the club have been sold for a record £28,000 each in deals that did not involve stan Kroenke or Alisher Usmanov, who own 97 per cent of the club between them.
THERE has been another departure through the West Ham media department revolving door, with Max Fitzgerald leaving to become communications chief at Championship leaders Wolves. West Ham are known to work their staff particularly hard.
MILLIONS of pounds have been poured into the annual laureus World sports Awards — whose latest nominations were announced yesterday — since their launch in 2000. But in the UK they still fail to resonate with the public, unlike the muchdiscussed, lower-budget BBC sports Personality of the Year awards.