Well done, Burnely Football Club. No, not for having the dubious honour of the Master of Spin, Alastair Campbell, as a fan, but for spending a mere £468,398 on football agents in the preceding year to 30 November. Recent regulations compel the publication of such previously mysterious football club figures each year, and a glance at the BBC’s website makes for intriguing reading. Manchester City (who else?) are the biggest featherers of agency nests, shelling out just under £13m, while the remainder if the Big Agency Four is comprised of Chelsea (£9,562,223), Liverpool (£6,657,305) and Tottenham (£6,066,935). Perhaps surprisingly, and certainly commendably, Manchester United hover a few places above the relegation zone with spending of £1,517,393. Portsmouth, this year’s cast-iron candidates for a trip to the Championship, spent £3,184,725, money which does not appear to have done them much good.
What are we to make of all this? Well, Swordplay recalls that sometime ago the Times ran an article lamenting the rise of football agents and proposing that in their stead lawyers might care to step up to the plate. Well known former Leeds United and Bradford City player John Hendrie was chief among those who called for more lawyerly involvement in football player transfers, memorably saying that “Agents are like Praying Mantis around players. They are accepted as part and parcel of the game but the majority put their own interests first.”
Hendrie went on to tell the Times that “Agents can have a destabilising influence — after all, it’s in their interests to unsettle a player — and often they will tie young players in to one-sided contracts that aren’t properly explained. Sports law has developed so much now that the main criticism of solicitors acting on behalf of players — that they lack knowledge of the sporting side of the business — is no longer applicable. In many cases a solicitor can more effectively represent a player, at a fraction of the cost of an agent and without any incentive to unsettle players.”
Hendrie said all this back in 2005. Since then, tales of skullduggery amid agents and unscrupulous football managers continue to abound; indeed, threats of libel action as much as discreet (and not so discreet) promises that “you’ll never work in this industry again” are often gossiped about by those who take an interest in such things in football club stands. Hendrie, though, back then already closely associated with a law firm undertaking pioneering work in looking after footballers, has moved on, and in a direction that appears to herald an even more professional way of dealing with the purchase and sale of a football player. He is now working with Field, an innovative collective of lawyers, property experts, tax supremos and designers.
The Field team comprises Blacks solicitors, Savills, HSP Tax Ltd and Turn & Key design agency. It’s a formidable alliance, one which seeks to put the professionalism into sportsperson management for good (memo to brown envelopes: your fate is the shredder). Utilising the cross-fertilisation of know-how that comes from those who’ve been at the top of their sports and their professions, Field aims to provide a one-stop shop for sportspeople with none of the “it’ll cost you £100,000 just to meet my client in the car park” that has bedevilled fooball agency.
We wish the venture luck. Anything that will see an end to what Hendrie once described as the “substantial commissions, cosy deals and conflicts of interest” inherent in the activities of football agents has got to be a good thing.
Pictured courtesy of TanYauHoong: a shredder, otherwise known as ‘the place where football agents and their brown envelopes belong’.
[...] in Field, an innovative collective of lawyers, property experts, tax supremos and designers, as last year came to a close. Among other things, Field aims to bring what many observers would say is a much-needed [...]
Something remarkable happened today. Yes, the Supreme Court launched its Twitter feed. It even has a Twitter policy, one of caveats, disclaimers and little by way of illumination but regardless: who would have thought that the successor body to the House of Lords would stoop to engage with the world of tweets, hashtags and retweets?
We look forward to the day when court business will be conducted via Twitter. Meantime, check out this link for an excellent blog on the Supreme Court.
So Farewell, then, Sir Fred Goodwin.
Now you are just Fred.
Not Right Said Fred, but plain Fred.
The Forfeiture Committee did for you.
No one had heard of it before,
But Dave said it had to act, and it did.
Trouble is that no one knows what to think.
Is it ‘Alas, poor Fred‘,
Or ‘Hurray! Sir Fred is dead!’?
We don’t know.
Do you?
By A. Mob, aged 1,378 and a half.
STOP PRESS:
Fed up with being stuck on the Thames in south-east England, London yesterday decided to move. In a dramatic gesture which augurs ill for the Olympics, the city upped sticks and relocated to East Anglia.
Lawyers were not consulted about the move, and the city’s precise motivation remains unclear. However, financiers fear that London’s decision is a sign that it wishes to downsize. Moreover, a source from London said: “We no longer want to be Britain’s seat of power. If the Scots can deregulate, why can’t we? East Anglia is a nice place where nothing happens. It’s time for a quiet life. Please respect our right to privacy.”
Elsewhere, Birmingham did not do anything, but Manchester was seen to be packing its bags. “There’s an opportunity for us,” said Manchester. “We can become London.”
East Anglia said: “We don’t mind. It’ll be refreshing to be associated with something other than fens and flatness.”
A cartologist at CNN, which broke the extraordinary news, was later fired.
Is there a geek inside all of us?
Excellent Nike ad
Memo to would-be hacks: good writing is no longer a tool of your trade
Released almost a year ago, Spada’s groundbreaking research report, British Professions Today, is available for free download
This bank is so well designed that many of its staff never go home (allegedly)
In the latest of our series of white papers, Spada Research examines trends in environmental reporting.
After a raft of phone-hacking admissions and allegations, we are no longer seen as the gruff but dependable watchdog. Neville Thurlbeck, formerly of the News of the World (part of his Damascene conversion; to be continued).