I'm in for a hundred quid too. Love those posts I do. Hidden in it is a turn of phrase not honoured or considered enough. I refer to 'unmitigated bollocks'. Makes me wonder what mitigated bollocks would be, one bollock? A vasectomy?
I've heard similar Lookout. But my insider tells me there is a stand off due to biscuits. Apparently TS has a right soft spot for a custard creams, and refuses to allow any other biscuits at the Valley or Sparrows Lane. Jacko on the other hand is holding out for a deal that includes the requirement of Jammy Dodgers at both venues. I'm not sure which of these hard nosed negotiators will blink first, but I think Jammy Dodgers will edge it.
The obvious answer here is jam n cream biscuits, giving them the best of both worlds.
I've heard similar Lookout. But my insider tells me there is a stand off due to biscuits. Apparently TS has a right soft spot for a custard creams, and refuses to allow any other biscuits at the Valley or Sparrows Lane. Jacko on the other hand is holding out for a deal that includes the requirement of Jammy Dodgers at both venues. I'm not sure which of these hard nosed negotiators will blink first, but I think Jammy Dodgers will edge it.
I personally think JJ is the best person to get us out of this league and we really need that, but once out of L1 we need to stay out of it. So my question is has JJ got the experience to manage at a higher level, and are there better out there who already have that experience in the championship? If JJ wants more money and a longer contract than TS is prepared to match then you wouldn't blame him if he wanted to look elsewhere. I hope JJ gets the gig but my opinion costs nothing wheras the owners decision will cost him money.
It doesn't matter how good the qualifications of a manager at Championship level ...... we ain't there yet.
On paper, Nigel Adkins ticked all the boxes, experienced and successful at all levels. Yet it didn't work out. First we need a manager to get us promoted. Jacko is showing all the signs that he is capable of doing just that. Right now, he is that man and should be given the chance.
In any case, looking to future seasons, it's not that Jacko is without Championship experience, as a player with several Championship seasons under his belt; as skipper, player's representative and close to the management team under several regimes, he would have learned a lot. He even has a year's Championship experience as Assistant Manager. He wouldn't have spent those Championship years with his eyes shut.
But the important thing, he knows how to get out of this division as a title and Wembley winner, as skipper and Assistant Manager with Charlton. Jacko knows how it's done because he was there.
He's exactly what we need right now. And he's already proving it.
No I’ve never met Thomas and have no inclination too. I don’t think they are my type of people and I don’t fawn for celebrity.
You make it sound like you’ve never criticised or disliked a player, manager, owner based on what you’ve seen in the public. I’m pretty sure your being a hypocrite there.
It’s not also true to say the team is only there because of Sandgaard. This club is a community and there are many reasons the team is there like us fans (all of us) that part fund the club and travel and support each week, commercial sponsors, volunteers for the trust and outreach etc. Oh and the transfers funded by previous incomings.
I’d also add that I don’t hate Sandgaard, I try to hate a few as possible but I don’t like his style or many of the decisions he’s made. But of course he’s no Mouthall, Elliot or Roland and he’s done some good things. I could share some of what I’ve heard that’s less positive but why, you wouldn’t believe anyway.
What I’ve heard from a handful of fellow supporters, who each know people at the club and the common theme around the JJ situation is Thomas has lowballed the offer vs. JJ’s expectations in terms of wage and length of contract (burnt by the Adkins experience) I’ve shared that, take it for what you want.
We’ll see what happens in the next week or so. For what it’s worth I’m desperate for JJ to get the gig as he’s given us all hope in the season and the season following the turgid Adkins era.
Maybe change your name to 'John Snow'. "You know nothing...."
That witty response is only about 5 years out of date… keep up grandad
OK, maybe change your name to BoJo. That current enough for you, grasshopper?
Or an intermediary. I built up a relationship with one of the Portugal CFO guys on Facebook of all places and when Bowyer left he actually gave me some CV's of Head Coaches that they represented. One of which had a good assistant record at two of the Premier Leagues top clubs. I forwarded them to Thomas and if successful they offered me 10% of what they got if it went through. I would not have taken the fee I can promise you that but I felt I should forward them to Thomas so he could have a look. That proves how easy and unregulated it all is. A simple guy like me who sits in his bedroom could insert himself easily into the recruitment process of a League 1 head coach. The whole thing is nuts:)
It does seem a good time to remind everyone on this thread that currently anyone, literally, today, can become an FA registered agent. You pay the £500 fee and that's it. The process is no more difficult or scrutinised than that of registering your dog in the Addicks pet membership scheme. It would therefore be unwise to assume that the quality of advice or conduct of an agent is at the same level as a lawyer. Of course there are dodgy lawyers, but even Farnell studied for and passed some quite difficult exams.
That is one of the reasons why the Fan-Led Review recommends that "The government should explore ways to support the regulation of football agents operating in English football by working with relevant authorities including FIFA."; I am sure you have already read it, but some other readers may not be aware of the mind- boggling amounts of money "earned" by agents, quoted from a FIFA report in the FLR. Over the decade 2010-2019, the English game was easily the most lucrative in the world for agents. They "earned" $919,500,000. Ponder that for a moment. And then absorb that this figure does not include (for reasons that are not clear) fees paid to agents for domestic transfers or contract renewals. So the true figure is well north of a billion pounds. I am restraining myself when I say it is difficult to discern what value English football derives from this eye-watering amount of money.
If, therefore, it bothers Tracey Crouch, then I suggest it is reasonable that people on here are bothered about the possible activity of an agent in this particular matter, because the balance of global evidence about agency behaviour and reward (described in the Review) suggests this activity is unlikely to in fact deliver value to either "Mr Jackson" or the football club, commensurate with what the agent earns, or thinks he should earn.
So much easier to insert an unnamed agent into the discussion as the problem than publicly go up against someone whose popularity eclipses your own. Jackson’s agent is Jackson, just as Sandgaard’s lawyer is Sandgaard. Let’s not be taken for children - or accept the inference that Jackson is a gullible child being led astray.
It's wide of the mark to blame everything on agents. Sure there are bad ones but there are plenty of good ones too - those who want the best for their player. Those who work for a club and source the best players to fit with an ethos etc
For many years now it has been the case that Agents are paid by the football club - it does seem counter-intuitive but it is seen as a smaller part of a transfer transaction and, in the great scheme of things and is usually insignificant . When people like Raiola and Jonathan Barnett get involved it's a different kettle of fish but these transfers are few and far between.
Since the rules on becoming an agent were de-regulated in April 2015 it has led to a surge in people becoming an agent and trying to earn a quick buck. There are far too many people out there trying to poach and snap up talent and are making all sorts of false promises. God knows why they de-regulated it but it was incredibly difficult to become one. You pretty much had to be a lawyer to get the desired pass rate on the exam and had to have a load of money lodged with them. FIFA have been trying to bring some order back to this for a couple of years and to limit the amount an agent can earn. They are also looking to cut the number of agents working both for a player AND for a club on a single transfer (which makes perfect sense). The new rules and regs are expected soon but this has been the case for well over a year now.
I was on a conference call with Mino Raiola and Jonathan Barnett a couple of months ago and they are adamant they will fight any rule changes with whatever legal backing they can get - and they are currently drumming up support across Europe. This won't happen overnight.
The way I see it there is a need for regulations to filter out the dodgy moneygrabbing agents but we need to be careful not to tar them all with the same brush. Many many players get the piss taken out of them by their clubs and so why shouldn't they have someone with their best interest at heart. A player is there to play football - all the other stuff can, and should, be taken care of for them. That's part of what an agent does.
For what it's worth I don't think JJ's agent (whoever it may be) is the issue here.
Clinging to Cawley’s comment that it will be sorted / announced next week ahead of the window opening.
Football aside I know whenever I’ve been in position as an employee in the past and renegotiated my contract based on a role change it was never immediate. It’s a lot easier to sort when you are getting someone new through the door as you have to get something in place. When you already have an agreement, a payment mechanism and have effectively already taken on the role it’s not as pressing a priority.
Because* it’s football and our club we all panic and rant. Once it is settled I’m sure we’ll get treated to an interview saying ‘glad it’s all sorted’ but preparing the team over the last few weeks was the priority. If there is a division between JJ and TS over anything we can all read at least one person’s side in a few years when they publish their biography.
Apologies for the long winded and round about manner of saying that I’m not particularly upset or worried about the JJ situation.
Further apologies to the grammar police for starting a sentence with ‘Because’.
The impasse between Jackson and Sandgaard is definitely between the two of them. I said last week don't compare a 19 year old player with his first big transfer and a 39 year old getting his first full time managers Job. Agents vary and it feels that is a red herring despite the alleged words from TS.
Brinkmanship is involved on both sides, and Johnnie has a network of friends and acquaintances in football from seniors like Chris Powell to guys in their 30's who are head coaches or managers. In the real world we listen to advice and pit falls to look out for. Could Lee Bowyer have given advice as he had a myriad of issues with Management !
I wonder what these protracted negotiations between TS and JJ will do for their ongoing relationship assuming that there is a successful outcome?
As others had said it doesn’t feel like much of a relationship exists there’s been little praise from one to the other and I don’t think I’ve seen them pictured together.
Hopefully they can form a working relationship if things get resolved or at least JJ can be left to get on with the job.
Maybe Sandgaard is worried he is being ‘played’ by unfamiliar sources in a country far away, and he doesn’t know Jackson well enough to completely trust him.
Having been burned already (e.g. Adkins, Schwartz, Kirk) Sandgaard has become much more cautious. What will unite Sandgaard, Jackson and the fans is, of course, wins.
In that regard Jackson has delivered big time, Sandgaard has to decide how much that is worth, and for how long. Jackson needs to assess whether he will get the resources to sustain current success into the future. They need to build an understanding where Jackson does not expect too much, and Sandgaard recognises genuine achievement. There is every possibility of sunny uplands all round if the main protagonists proceed with intelligence and maturity.
It would not be counter-intuitive for agents to be paid by football clubs. If only that were true. If only football were like any other business, where executive recruiters would be paid to help a club hire players or other staff and receive an agreed fee on completion, set out in contract before the start of the process, and usually based on a % of the first year's salary of the individual. Which, given the salaries in the game, provides a very lucrative business.
As you rightly point out, football players are not generally like the educated and numerate business people that exec.recruiters are asked by clients to find for them. Absolutely footballers need protection from owners. That is why years ago, the PFA proposed that it would handle that side of the table. This proposal was rapidly shot down. However it remains the most rational solution for the game. Negotiators on behalf of the PFA would have access to accurate salary benchmarks, like in the normal biz world, and would be able to negotiate contracts which makes sense to both sides. They would operate on fixed fees which are transparent for all the industry to see. A separate team within this unit would do the other things that agents claim to do for players; counselling, education, and what we might call concierge facilities. Again for fixed fees. While such a unit would need to be pretty well staffed, it would still cost a fraction of the huge chunk of money paid by clubs to agents, which I listed in my previous post.
The biggest flaw in your defence of the current set up is when you say "there are agents who want the best for their player". That cannot be the case. It's not because I'm arguing that all agents are *****. No, it's much more rational than that. The business model dictates that an agent will not behave that way. The business model is most lucrative when a player moves. Not when a player stays. People, everyone in business to a greater or lesser extent, follow the money. As an exec recruiter my "competitive advantage" was built on giving really good advice to candidates, which they remembered as being way better than others - and when they themselves came to hire people, they gave me the assignments. But sometimes I realised that I was pushing the advantages of my client's offer to a candidate a bit too hard - because if I didn't place them, I didn't earn money. I had to have a word with myself sometimes. I earned nowhere near as much as many contemporaries, but I did just fine, and earned the freedom in later years to choose who I worked for and when.And slept well at night.
Until you separate, rigidly, the people who represent players, from those who help clubs recruit them, you will have this fault-line in football, and all kinds of chancers will extract money from the game. Our money. It will not be easy at all to fix, that's true. Your mates Mino and Jonathan will of course summon the "best" legal minds. I'm sure Nick de Marco is updating his hourly ratecard as I write this. At the same time he will be ready to assist all the EPL club owners in drowning the Fan-Led Review implementation in legal disputes. Of course they will. They are following the money.
Just don't pretend any of that shit is good for any of us here as supporters of Charlton Athletic.
The impasse between Jackson and Sandgaard is definitely between the two of them. I said last week don't compare a 19 year old player with his first big transfer and a 39 year old getting his first full time managers Job. Agents vary and it feels that is a red herring despite the alleged words from TS.
Brinkmanship is involved on both sides, and Johnnie has a network of friends and acquaintances in football from seniors like Chris Powell to guys in their 30's who are head coaches or managers. In the real world we listen to advice and pit falls to look out for. Could Lee Bowyer have given advice as he had a myriad of issues with Management !
Lee Bowyer's got plenty to say about agents, that's for sure. E.g.:
“The odd rumour but every agent wants to try and move their player on so they can fill their own pockets,” the head coach said.
(Re Alfie Doughty) “His agent said he won’t be signing a new contract and that’s disappointing. This time last year he was saying that we should leave him on loan at Bromley, but we brought him back and improved him.
Then again, Bow has an agent himself, so-called "super agent" Rob Segal (there seem to be a lot of "super agents"). Something about Rob Segal recently rings a bell, and not a good thing, but I can't find whatever it is.
It would not be counter-intuitive for agents to be paid by football clubs. If only that were true. If only football were like any other business, where executive recruiters would be paid to help a club hire players or other staff and receive an agreed fee on completion, set out in contract before the start of the process, and usually based on a % of the first year's salary of the individual. Which, given the salaries in the game, provides a very lucrative business.
As you rightly point out, football players are not generally like the educated and numerate business people that exec.recruiters are asked by clients to find for them. Absolutely footballers need protection from owners. That is why years ago, the PFA proposed that it would handle that side of the table. This proposal was rapidly shot down. However it remains the most rational solution for the game. Negotiators on behalf of the PFA would have access to accurate salary benchmarks, like in the normal biz world, and would be able to negotiate contracts which makes sense to both sides. They would operate on fixed fees which are transparent for all the industry to see. A separate team within this unit would do the other things that agents claim to do for players; counselling, education, and what we might call concierge facilities. Again for fixed fees. While such a unit would need to be pretty well staffed, it would still cost a fraction of the huge chunk of money paid by clubs to agents, which I listed in my previous post.
The biggest flaw in your defence of the current set up is when you say "there are agents who want the best for their player". That cannot be the case. It's not because I'm arguing that all agents are *****. No, it's much more rational than that. The business model dictates that an agent will not behave that way. The business model is most lucrative when a player moves. Not when a player stays. People, everyone in business to a greater or lesser extent, follow the money. As an exec recruiter my "competitive advantage" was built on giving really good advice to candidates, which they remembered as being way better than others - and when they themselves came to hire people, they gave me the assignments. But sometimes I realised that I was pushing the advantages of my client's offer to a candidate a bit too hard - because if I didn't place them, I didn't earn money. I had to have a word with myself sometimes. I earned nowhere near as much as many contemporaries, but I did just fine, and earned the freedom in later years to choose who I worked for and when.And slept well at night.
Until you separate, rigidly, the people who represent players, from those who help clubs recruit them, you will have this fault-line in football, and all kinds of chancers will extract money from the game. Our money. It will not be easy at all to fix, that's true. Your mates Mino and Jonathan will of course summon the "best" legal minds. I'm sure Nick de Marco is updating his hourly ratecard as I write this. At the same time he will be ready to assist all the EPL club owners in drowning the Fan-Led Review implementation in legal disputes. Of course they will. They are following the money.
Just don't pretend any of that shit is good for any of us here as supporters of Charlton Athletic.
@PragueAddick I agree that would be an idea but it is just not workable.
A player is not going to allow a central body to define what they are worth in wages, what their transfer fee is, what their potential is. A central body won't have the in depth view that an agent will have. A central body won't have spent many many hours on the road scouting these players, compiling reports and working out which teams are looking for players and have a gap that this player can fit. That's some of the other stuff a good agent will do if they are doing their job properly.
In the normal business world anyone worth their salt will have an idea of what the benchmark is for wages but the individual still has to back themself as "better than the rest" - thus they will push for more money. If they don't the employer will offer the bare minimum and feel they have got a bargain. Like a football club will do.
An agent doesn't just rock up and start agitating for a move. An agent is a trusted ally with a player's best interests at heart. Who gets to know, and earn the trust, of that player and their family. An agent can take a player from a 16 year old kid into the men's world and guide them along the way. Most won't make it but the agent still does a lot of unpaid leg work in the hope of it all working out.
These "super agents" are the ones people read about and are where the negative perception stems from but for every one of them out there there are loads of others who are good, honest folk doing it for the right reasons and the love of the game. At least that's what I would want from an ethical agent (and that's not an oxymoron - they do exist)
A representation contract can be nullified whenever a player wants and MUST be renewed every two years. It cannot be longer than that. So why do so many players stay with their agent? If they didn't want to move then they can easily just tell their agent "I want to stay here - you can leave now" and that's the end of it. It's not always the agent's fault when a player moves but they are the easy scapegoat.
you’ve slightly misunderstood how such a system would work. Put simply you would replace agents with people who perform the same role but are paid a salary by the PFA plus modest bonuses, to do the negotiation. They would do the same research as those you describe agents doing. Its not that difficult. Nor is this research as reliable as you imply, otherwise most players would perform just as well as was expected when they were signed. We all know the reality. Both above and below expectations. Benchmark salaries are just rational bases for negotiation, not limits. I wonder whether Jacko’s father in law uses benchmarks. From what I have heard up to now he’d probably think a benchmark is something kept in a shed
If you know of an “ethical agent” then here is a suggestion. One of the reasons why agents have a bad image is because they are completely invisible. I’ve got a theory on why that is, but lets not go there. Instead why not persuade this ethical agent to do an in-depth article with The Athletic - this is made for them and I have the contacts there to help set this up- wherein the paper will put to them some of the issues people have with agents and ask this one how they respond. The agent should be ready to discuss in general terms how agents earn their money (i.e. how much) and to justify that level of earnings and the amount of money that agents cost the game. How about it? Doesnt have to be tomorrow but if you can find somebody who indicates they’d do that then I’ll talk to the Athletic and we can take it from there.
Of course agents have a place in football today - years ago it would have been a non business wise player up against a very shrewd Chairman who held all the cards. We only hear about it when an agent does something 'bad' and rarely hear the good. Its an agents job to look after the players interests and let them get on with the football. Jacko said the ball was in TS's court a couple of weeks ago and TS has said the ball is in Jacko's court last week so hopefully this week the ball stops bouncing about and they come to a reasonable agreement that both TS and Jacko ae happy with. I really can't see the agent being the sticking point - his remuneration for sorting the deal out would have been set out in whatever terms jacko employs him under i would have thought -a pecentage of the deal - i can't see how it can possibly be the club that pays the agent. A total conflict of interest surely.
Garry Nelson, for one, wasn't impressed by their capabilities.
Like any unregulated market, football agency will attract crooks, shysters and Matt Southalls but that doesn't mean the likes of John Fortune and Luke Young (to give two examples of ex-Charlton players who are now agents) are crooks or don't work in the best interest of their clients.
Prague, you know that the reputation of recruitment agents is terrible in many sectors and many employers hate dealing with them. Should the Chartered Institute of Marketing take over all marketing recruitment in the way that you want to happen in football to resolve that problem?
The problem with football agency is that there are almost no barriers to entry, very few industry standards and no enforcement of clear conflict of interest issues IE the same agent working for both a club and a player on the same deal.
And the reason it remains a problem is that the clubs, some of some anyway, like it this way. They blame agents when it suits them but if paying a few £m to an agent gets them the player they want they go right ahead. They just see it as a cost of doing business and pay the money.
Comments
Love those posts I do.
Hidden in it is a turn of phrase not honoured or considered enough.
I refer to 'unmitigated bollocks'.
Makes me wonder what mitigated bollocks would be, one bollock? A vasectomy?
For many years now it has been the case that Agents are paid by the football club - it does seem counter-intuitive but it is seen as a smaller part of a transfer transaction and, in the great scheme of things and is usually insignificant . When people like Raiola and Jonathan Barnett get involved it's a different kettle of fish but these transfers are few and far between.
Since the rules on becoming an agent were de-regulated in April 2015 it has led to a surge in people becoming an agent and trying to earn a quick buck. There are far too many people out there trying to poach and snap up talent and are making all sorts of false promises. God knows why they de-regulated it but it was incredibly difficult to become one. You pretty much had to be a lawyer to get the desired pass rate on the exam and had to have a load of money lodged with them. FIFA have been trying to bring some order back to this for a couple of years and to limit the amount an agent can earn. They are also looking to cut the number of agents working both for a player AND for a club on a single transfer (which makes perfect sense). The new rules and regs are expected soon but this has been the case for well over a year now.
I was on a conference call with Mino Raiola and Jonathan Barnett a couple of months ago and they are adamant they will fight any rule changes with whatever legal backing they can get - and they are currently drumming up support across Europe. This won't happen overnight.
The way I see it there is a need for regulations to filter out the dodgy moneygrabbing agents but we need to be careful not to tar them all with the same brush. Many many players get the piss taken out of them by their clubs and so why shouldn't they have someone with their best interest at heart. A player is there to play football - all the other stuff can, and should, be taken care of for them. That's part of what an agent does.
For what it's worth I don't think JJ's agent (whoever it may be) is the issue here.
Apologies for the long winded and round about manner of saying that I’m not particularly upset or worried about the JJ situation.
Brinkmanship is involved on both sides, and Johnnie has a network of friends and acquaintances in football from seniors like Chris Powell to guys in their 30's who are head coaches or managers. In the real world we listen to advice and pit falls to look out for. Could Lee Bowyer have given advice as he had a myriad of issues with Management !
Hopefully they can form a working relationship if things get resolved or at least JJ can be left to get on with the job.
I thought TS was due to return to the States imminently - I wonder if he goes back without announcing Jacko full time, where that leaves everything
What will unite Sandgaard, Jackson and the fans is, of course, wins.
Jackson needs to assess whether he will get the resources to sustain current success into the future. They need to build an understanding where Jackson does not expect too much, and Sandgaard recognises genuine achievement.
There is every possibility of sunny uplands all round if the main protagonists proceed with intelligence and maturity.
It would not be counter-intuitive for agents to be paid by football clubs. If only that were true. If only football were like any other business, where executive recruiters would be paid to help a club hire players or other staff and receive an agreed fee on completion, set out in contract before the start of the process, and usually based on a % of the first year's salary of the individual. Which, given the salaries in the game, provides a very lucrative business.
As you rightly point out, football players are not generally like the educated and numerate business people that exec.recruiters are asked by clients to find for them. Absolutely footballers need protection from owners. That is why years ago, the PFA proposed that it would handle that side of the table. This proposal was rapidly shot down. However it remains the most rational solution for the game. Negotiators on behalf of the PFA would have access to accurate salary benchmarks, like in the normal biz world, and would be able to negotiate contracts which makes sense to both sides. They would operate on fixed fees which are transparent for all the industry to see. A separate team within this unit would do the other things that agents claim to do for players; counselling, education, and what we might call concierge facilities. Again for fixed fees. While such a unit would need to be pretty well staffed, it would still cost a fraction of the huge chunk of money paid by clubs to agents, which I listed in my previous post.
The biggest flaw in your defence of the current set up is when you say "there are agents who want the best for their player". That cannot be the case. It's not because I'm arguing that all agents are *****. No, it's much more rational than that. The business model dictates that an agent will not behave that way. The business model is most lucrative when a player moves. Not when a player stays. People, everyone in business to a greater or lesser extent, follow the money. As an exec recruiter my "competitive advantage" was built on giving really good advice to candidates, which they remembered as being way better than others - and when they themselves came to hire people, they gave me the assignments. But sometimes I realised that I was pushing the advantages of my client's offer to a candidate a bit too hard - because if I didn't place them, I didn't earn money. I had to have a word with myself sometimes. I earned nowhere near as much as many contemporaries, but I did just fine, and earned the freedom in later years to choose who I worked for and when.And slept well at night.
Until you separate, rigidly, the people who represent players, from those who help clubs recruit them, you will have this fault-line in football, and all kinds of chancers will extract money from the game. Our money. It will not be easy at all to fix, that's true. Your mates Mino and Jonathan will of course summon the "best" legal minds. I'm sure Nick de Marco is updating his hourly ratecard as I write this. At the same time he will be ready to assist all the EPL club owners in drowning the Fan-Led Review implementation in legal disputes. Of course they will. They are following the money.
Just don't pretend any of that shit is good for any of us here as supporters of Charlton Athletic.
“The odd rumour but every agent wants to try and move their player on so they can fill their own pockets,” the head coach said.
(Re Alfie Doughty) “His agent said he won’t be signing a new contract and that’s disappointing. This time last year he was saying that we should leave him on loan at Bromley, but we brought him back and improved him.
Then again, Bow has an agent himself, so-called "super agent" Rob Segal (there seem to be a lot of "super agents"). Something about Rob Segal recently rings a bell, and not a good thing, but I can't find whatever it is.
I agree that would be an idea but it is just not workable.
A player is not going to allow a central body to define what they are worth in wages, what their transfer fee is, what their potential is. A central body won't have the in depth view that an agent will have. A central body won't have spent many many hours on the road scouting these players, compiling reports and working out which teams are looking for players and have a gap that this player can fit. That's some of the other stuff a good agent will do if they are doing their job properly.
In the normal business world anyone worth their salt will have an idea of what the benchmark is for wages but the individual still has to back themself as "better than the rest" - thus they will push for more money. If they don't the employer will offer the bare minimum and feel they have got a bargain. Like a football club will do.
An agent doesn't just rock up and start agitating for a move. An agent is a trusted ally with a player's best interests at heart. Who gets to know, and earn the trust, of that player and their family. An agent can take a player from a 16 year old kid into the men's world and guide them along the way. Most won't make it but the agent still does a lot of unpaid leg work in the hope of it all working out.
These "super agents" are the ones people read about and are where the negative perception stems from but for every one of them out there there are loads of others who are good, honest folk doing it for the right reasons and the love of the game. At least that's what I would want from an ethical agent (and that's not an oxymoron - they do exist)
A representation contract can be nullified whenever a player wants and MUST be renewed every two years. It cannot be longer than that. So why do so many players stay with their agent? If they didn't want to move then they can easily just tell their agent "I want to stay here - you can leave now" and that's the end of it. It's not always the agent's fault when a player moves but they are the easy scapegoat.
you’ve slightly misunderstood how such a system would work. Put simply you would replace agents with people who perform the same role but are paid a salary by the PFA plus modest bonuses, to do the negotiation. They would do the same research as those you describe agents doing. Its not that difficult. Nor is this research as reliable as you imply, otherwise most players would perform just as well as was expected when they were signed. We all know the reality. Both above and below expectations. Benchmark salaries are just rational bases for negotiation, not limits. I wonder whether Jacko’s father in law uses benchmarks. From what I have heard up to now he’d probably think a benchmark is something kept in a shed
Make a lot of money simply just moaning about stuff and negotiating. (Obviously probably not quite as simple as that)
Do they actually do anything else?
Not exactly a job to be proud of but they aren't breaking any laws.
Garry Nelson, for one, wasn't impressed by their capabilities.
Like any unregulated market, football agency will attract crooks, shysters and Matt Southalls but that doesn't mean the likes of John Fortune and Luke Young (to give two examples of ex-Charlton players who are now agents) are crooks or don't work in the best interest of their clients.
Prague, you know that the reputation of recruitment agents is terrible in many sectors and many employers hate dealing with them. Should the Chartered Institute of Marketing take over all marketing recruitment in the way that you want to happen in football to resolve that problem?
The problem with football agency is that there are almost no barriers to entry, very few industry standards and no enforcement of clear conflict of interest issues IE the same agent working for both a club and a player on the same deal.
And the reason it remains a problem is that the clubs, some of some anyway, like it this way. They blame agents when it suits them but if paying a few £m to an agent gets them the player they want they go right ahead. They just see it as a cost of doing business and pay the money.
What would happen if Thomas just came out and said I have stopped looking because the best man for the job is already in the job?
Jackson is already under contract so what he could he do? Publicly refuse yo do it?
It would be morally and professionally wrong to allow things to continue as they are.