Fewer opportunities for agents to wheel and deal

Published on Saturday 3 January 2009 18:39

CELTIC should have around £3m to spend, Rangers have no cash to splash without first offloading, Hearts might reshape their squad by selling a couple of players and buying replacements, while Hibs and Aberdeen can be expected to do little trade.

In a nutshell, that is what Bill McMurdo believes will be the extent of the notable wheeling and dealing Scottish agents will be able to busy themselves with during the January transfer window. The country's original agent, a man with 30 years' experience of brokering deals, cannot, however, say in a nutshell why so many continue to incur the costs required to be involved in this aspect of the football business.

Bizarrely, becoming a FIFA-licensed agent remains a growth industry in a markedly contracting market within these borders. Six years ago there were 39 names bracketed under Scotland in the governing body's list. Currently, there are 53, making Scotland second only to Serbia for the number of agents that go under the country's banner. That makes little sense to McMurdo.

"Possibly five per cent of Scottish agents are responsible for 95 per cent of the major business. Most of the rest are agents in name only," says the man who was the first agent in European football to lodge the 100,000 required to obtain a licence. "They will be taxi drivers, plumbers and whatever who either have, or had, one player in the past five years. It beats me how that constitutes a business. I look down the list and know for a fact that some of those on it have never had a single client in three years.

"I don't know why they have gone through the rigmarole of sitting exams, getting a licence and continue to pay their 1,000 indemnity each year. It is money parted with for no return. It isn't like qualifying as a lawyer and then you are on the circuit. You only make contacts through dealing with clubs over many years, but if you have no players you never establish any sort of network. I often say that we have more agents than the Queen has sodjers, but for why I don't know. I can't understand the attraction."

There is only one possible explanation: if an agent brokers just one major deal they, as well as their player, could be set up for life. But that is hardly foolproof. McMurdo continues to prosper because he has spread himself Europe-wide and expects to place three Spanish players with English Premier League clubs in the next few weeks alone. But that sort of reach is beyond the small fry agents, the part-timers McMurdo respectfully refers to as the "new agents".

"If you are one of those and only have a player or two, it is unlikely you will be in a position to make the big one happen in the first place," he says. "It is true that with the money down south I could make as good a living with five players now as I did 15 years ago when I had 40 across Hearts, Hibs, Rangers and Celtic.

"But what often happens with the new agents these days is that often a buying club will appoint their own agent to push through a deal and cut out the little guy who has been with a player he has helped out since he was a youth player. It can be ruthless, but then it always has been."

McMurdo believes the introduction of the windows has been to no-one's benefit and has placed a restriction on free trade that would not survive a court challenge that, oddly, as yet has not been forthcoming.

In being responsible for the Article 17 ruling – which effectively allows players of a certain age to buy-out their contracts at the end of a protected period – McMurdo believes a Scottish agent, in the form of Andy Webster's representative Charles Duddy, will be responsible for changing the nature of players' contractual commitments, but that few of their Scottish counterparts will benefit.

Yet in established figures Willie McKay and Raymond Sparkes, the country retains some big hitters in the field while former player Mark Donaghy, of Arena Sports Management, has become one of the country's successful young agents with Neil Lennon, Stephen McManus, Paul Hartley and Robbie Neilson among those on his roster.

He, however, plays down the influence of those who look after players' interests. "A footballer gets himself a good move through his talent and his form; an agent can't do that for him," Donaghy says.

It surely then follows that with a relatively shallow pool of top class performers there simply won't be enough good moves to go round for agents.

"If you are being realistic, there is probably enough work for 10 full-time agents in the country," he says. As with McMurdo, Donaghy, who moved to Lytham from Glasgow two years ago, believes the bunching up at the bottom of the English Premier League could be where the money trail leads in the coming weeks.

"A number of clubs down there are saying they don't have anything to spend, but as soon as one breaks rank and starts to do business the others could be sparked into life for fear of being disadvantaged and what that means for their league status," he says.

And that might mean business for Scottish agents with sellable local commodities. All five of them.