06 Jan 2017 18:57:19
2 inter-related questions for Ed002, if he's around and has the time to answer this. What constitutes the entirety of a Football Agents role? The Agents are raking in millions of $$, so what exactly is it that they are doing on a day in-day out basis?
Also, its common for a lot of Parents to be the Agent for their kids, but I wouldn't be wrong in assuming that not all these parents have received any formal or professional training in being an Agent, so it makes me wonder what exactly does one need to do to become and Agent and if you need to have a certain educational/ professional background to become an Agent?

{Ed002's Note - This is an open-ended question really. The vast majority of registered agents spend their time trying to match players to clubs, or in some cases trying to move kids on to other agents for a fee. Most don't make that much money - there are many, many agents out there. Some at the higher end spend their time building relationships with particular clubs and club staff and working on advertising and other deals for their clients. Some work on behalf of clubs by conducting transfer negotiations and others work to find and move managers and coaches. Some also work as brokers to find and filter potential buyers or investors for clubs. There are no specific "qualifications". As for family members representing players it is reasonably rare - particularly in England. They are not registered as agents when doing such work.}

1.) 06 Jan 2017
06 Jan 2017 21:26:07
Thanks Ed. I agree its very open ended, but I was just curious to know if these Agents need to come from a Footballing background, or they are just like a lot of other brokers/ agents in other fields, where they primarily need to have good salesmanship and people skills.

{Ed002's Note - Some players have become agents, but not that many.}

2.) 07 Jan 2017
07 Jan 2017 06:53:51
I have a family relationship to tony Stephens, Beckhams old agent as well as others through sfx. He worked extremely hard and diligently for his clients from what I could see. Beckham valued him greatly and always regretted that fergie wouldn't have a bar of him. Posh and becks turned up at a Xmas Doo at Tony's house a few years back when I was back visiting. when he heard I was a scouser he loved some friendly slagging off, really nice fella.

{Ed001's Note - just to addend Ed002's note, there are a whole slew of players-turned-agents from this year, due to FIFA's relaxing of the rules. They are intermediaries now and they are pretty much unregulated, so there are hundreds of them. Most are wasting their time and everyone else's, some are already stepping on toes (one ex-player was offering around an Aston Villa player without his agent's knowledge a few weeks back), some will no doubt be fine. Chris Birchall has just launched an agency, Julian Joachim did so a few months ago, and I expect many more to do so now the rules are relaxed. All is very recent and probably best avoided until they establish themselves really.}