There are very few things that get me upset on a cold winter morning, when the fate of England’s World Cup bid is being decided in Zurich and the cancer that is football hooliganism has reared it’s ugly head in the West Midlands derby, but one thing is being told that Arsenal Football Club has spent nearly 4 million pounds on agents when the likes of Manchester City have only spent around 6 million beggars belief. Given the fact that Arsene Wenger refuses to spend more than the going rate in his assessment, why are we paying more for agents than we are paying for players? Surely Arsene can use the Gallic “NON!” or “Pas du tout!” These fees are scarcely believable.
What exactly do Football agents do? Well, they act as player/manager advocates. Usually making sure that the interests of players are protected. But when the player and the Club are both agreed that it is in their mutual interests to continue a contract, there only remains the salary negotiations which by any objective measure seems to be a lot to pay for securing the signatures of less than ten players. Are these figures added to the wage bill? I have always been anti-agent given the manner in which some agents tout their clients around several clubs, or in the way that the media is fed the lead that a certain other club is interested in the player so as to squeeze even more money out of the player. Do any other employees at the club have agents? What about agents for the stewards or the cleaning ladies? I mean if people are going to take the p*ss, why stop at players and managers?
I am going as always to be controversial, by stating that the clubs SHOULD NOT pay agents any commission that would not be payable to a sports lawyer for drawing up a new contract. The percentage remuneration has in part fuelled the obscene wages that some players are now getting for kicking a pigs bladder around a field. I am happy to pay top dollar for a world class player who delivers, but not his agent. The player should be responsible for those payments and no one else. Players have become selfish and greedy, in their terms it is just being professional. No player is worth £250 thousand pounds a week. If people argue that this is the market going rate, then when the bottom drops out of the market as it will, then several clubs will be left with deficits due to spiralling wage costs.
Playing high wages to young players breeds complacency. Look at the Arsenal Squad for a start. Many high quality players, but there are very few who give 100% ALL of the time. In short this is why I feel that many Arsenal players are overpaid in terms of the differential between our best players and the worst. Arsene Wenger is thought to want a fairly narrow differential so as not to be divisive in the dressing room . What return have we had by paying premium players to our squad in the last five years? How many Gooners have been absolutely humiliated by the standard of play on the pitch. The only way to change things is to link pay to performance. Then and only then will the cream rise to the top. That at least might end the embarrassment of conceding two goal leads to one of our fiercest rivals. But again, perhaps I am being old fashioned, or even envious? What do you think?
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