POINTLESS SCUM

NASTY. EVIL. POINTLESS. SCUM. He may not be the most popular figure in boardrooms up and down the country, but Simon Jordan, the bullish young chairman of Crystal Palace, earned the braying approval of some of his counterparts last month when, on the eve of the transfer window, he launched a furious tirade against the “despicable” people he claims are corrupting football and those who play it.

The sport is not short of pantomime villains, but there are few easier targets for derision than agents, the shadowy middlemen who, according to Jordan, routinely demand a six-figure payment for half an hour’s work.

However the agents are ready to strike back. They do not claim that theirs is an industry of angels, but they are outraged by the suggestion that they are responsible for football’s evils.

According to one leading agent, who did not wish to be named, “the game stinks beyond belief, from top to bottom, and nobody will ever do anything about it because as soon as they do it will all fall apart, household names will be discredited and the image of the game will never recover”.

One agent willing to address the matter publicly is Colin Gordon, whose Key Sports Management company represents players such as David James and Chris Kirkland. “Where does the money go with some of these foreign transfers that are massively overpriced?” Gordon asked. “How do the clubs know where it goes? The selling club will receive the money, but where it goes after that, nobody seems to know. I would suggest there are banks in Monaco and Switzerland that are awash with English clubs’ money. People will blame that on agents, but who are agents doing business with? They don’t do business with other agents. They do business with football people. If football was straight, agents would be straight, but, as it is, agents are convenient scapegoats for football’s inadequacies, which are incompetence and corruption.”

“The game is regulated by people who are not qualified for the roles they have,” he said. “The gamekeepers have been completely outmanoeuvred by the poachers. The authorities don’t know what they are looking for and I’m not sure they even want to know. Every time the FA or the Government announces another inquiry, you know it’s going to be useless. There are agents out there who will drive up transfer fees and salaries so they can drive up their cut of a deal. But the bigger scandal is that clubs accept the agents’ position without doing their research.”

“There are some clubs, such as Arsenal, who do their research, even watching prospective signings train, but there are others who don’t do their homework. They sign players who aren’t going to benefit their team and, in some cases, I would ask whether they’re doing that because they want to benefit in other ways.”

“I don’t know how many agents are legitimate. I only know that I am and the ones that work with me are. But other agents wouldn’t be devious if football people didn’t allow them to be. It’s not the agents who have made football corrupt. There’s no such thing as a crooked agent if there’s no such a thing as a crooked manager, chairman or chief executive.”

Barry Silkman, another player-turned-successful-agent,
“You get a lot of bad agents, just as you get bad players, managers, chief executives, chairmen and referees. In all walks of life, you get people who are bad at their job yet make a living. We all like to think football should be different, but it’s not. Eventually, clubs are going to realise that we are here to stay and that the majority of us are doing a great job. They don’t see all the running round you do all over the world to find players for them.”

“Do they think 75 per cent of the foreign players in this country come here by accident? How do you think most clubs find out about these players? It’s not through their scouting networks. They use agents and are very happy to do so. And then they want to start moaning about us?

“I’ve given more to football than Simon Jordan ever will. I played 400-odd games in my career and I’ve been a coach, assistant manager and agent”


“The thing that annoys me is when people get on their high horse about money going ‘out of the game’. You wouldn’t believe the amount of money I put into the game. And what about players’ salaries? Do they think that money stays ‘in the game’? Does it go into some sort of pool? Do me a favour. Every salary to every player, chief executive or manager leaves the game. I do make money from the game, but I put a lot back in — mentally, physically, financially, you name it. I work 15 or 16 hours a day for football and I’ve had years when my travelling expenses have outstripped what I earned.”

“I hear Simon Jordan, Brian Mawhinney, Gordon Taylor, the Prime Minister and the Dalai Lama crowing about agents, but none of them get to the root of the problem,” Gordon said. “If they want to straighten the game, I will happily stand shoulder to shoulder with them, but football won’t change until qualified people are in positions of authority in the game.”

Another agent agrees. “Simon Jordan should come out and name names, but he should also be prepared to name the dishonest chairmen and managers in the game,” he said. “I’m sure he knows who they are. But I don’t think he will because it’s all too easy to blame football agents for everything that’s wrong with the game. People like it the way it is and the sad thing is that I don’t think anyone has got the balls to change it.”