Agents Threaten To Sue FA - 14/10/2007

Football agents have threatened to sue the Football Association unless it waters down new regulations aimed at eliminating corruption from the game. Last month the FA brought in rules that prohibit agents from representing both parties in a transfer and making payments to club managers or officials. The rules require agents to be paid by players rather than clubs. At a FA meeting with agents with Wembley last week, the Association of Football Agents argued that while a transfer involving agents acting for both parties could create a conflict of interest, it was reasonable for both parties to request representation by the same agent for simplicity and for cost reasons. Understanding competition law has not been a strong point for the football authorities and five leading fooball agencies are understood to be ready to mount a legal claim on competition grounds. However, they are first trying to resolve the matter through dialogue with the FA. The FA's position was backed by sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe who addressed the meeting.

The role of agents has attracted considerable criticism from fans and Mr Sutcliffe said after the meeting that the Government was concerned about the role of agents and the integrity of football: 'There has been criticism of agents taking money out of the game which could have been used to reduce ticket pricing or to filter down the game to the grass roots.' He added that there had to be greater transparency and understanding of agents' roles, but hoped their differences with the FA could be resolved without recourse to the courts. It could be argued that this is because the FA might not win, revealing a lack of 'joined up' thinking between competition laws introduced by the Government and its sports policy.