How to Become a Football Agent: The Guide

This book is intended as a guide for people interested in a career as a football agent. So, I should say at the start that I read it as a football fan who is interested in the role of agents in the game today, rather than as someone looking to break into the industry.

I think it’s fair to say football agents have a mixed reputation among supporters. It’s easy to see the headlines about how much an agent earned from a high-profile transfer and wonder why your club shelled out millions in commission to someone whose role you don’t understand. And, of course, there have been well-publicised examples of agents illegally tapping up young players or misleading players about a club’s interest in them. With all that said, I was interested in hearing the “other side” of the story by reading a book written by a successful football agent.

This book offered a good insight into the work an agent actually does for the players they represent. I wasn’t really aware of what agents do beyond their involvement in transfers so it was interesting to learn about their role in advising players on career management, sponsorship deals, image rights, press and social media, charity work and even taking care of players’ family and guests on match days. I was also interested to find out more about agents who represent managers or other staff, or who are given a mandate by a club to organise part of its transfer business.

I found the chapters on transfers especially interesting, particularly the section on the Bosman Ruling which meant an increasing number of players becoming “free agents” at the end of their contract and consequently having a stronger hand when negotiating new contracts. (Though, as a Liverpool fan, I could have done without the reminder about Steve McManaman, my favourite player at the time, leaving us on a free transfer to Real Madrid!)

Some of the book went into a lot of technical detail about registration and contract regulations for agents, which wasn’t really relevant to me, but I assume would be of interest to potential agents. I also noticed that much of the advice seemed most relevant to agents representing high level players, when presumably someone new to the industry would be working with less high profile players, at least unless they started work at a well-established agency.

Overall I found this book interesting but I thought it perhaps tried to cover too much for a book of this length and consequently didn’t go into as much detail as I would have hoped. I’d recommend it to fans who want a quick overview of what agents actually do to earn the millions your club probably paid them in the last transfer window.

** Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review **

Mas allá de que hay información que tal vez uno más o menos conoce, este libro presenta la información de forma sistematizada lo que facilita su consulta. Desconozco cómo era la edición anterior, pero se aclara que hay cambios, y ahora se apunto a que fuera una guía más practica, y se incorporaron capítulos a tales efectos.
Tiene un carácter introdutório, ya que la idea manifiesta, es que pueda ser usada incluso por las personas con poco conocimiento del tema.