Ciaran Morrison

Sun 12 April 2026 14:06, UK

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Aston Villa must rethink the role of their sporting directors after the FA released how much the club spent on agent fees.

That is according to ex-Aston Villa, Everton, and Aberdeen chief executive Keith Wyness, speaking exclusively to Football Insider, who believes sporting directors need to be held more accountable for high agent fees.

Only Chelsea spent more than Aston Villa on agents between February 2025 and February 2026, with the Villans paying out £38.4million.

It was a sharp rise of £13.4m from the year previously, despite Aston Villa’s financial restrictions in the transfer market.

Aston Villa did tie down key players to new contracts last year, but the club will likely have to sell stars this summer if they want to spend significantly in the upcoming transfer window.

Aston Villa warned that money is ‘flying out the window’

Everton’s former chief Keith Wyness – who served as CEO at Goodison Park between 2004 and 2009 and now runs a football consultancy advising elite clubs – is not a fan of the role of sporting directors at clubs.

Speaking on the new edition of Football Insider‘s Inside Track podcast, Wyness states that Aston Villa must begin spending less money on agents.

He told Football Insider‘s Inside Track podcast: “It’s a very tricky situation, but those sporting directors, I do think there’s a lot of clarity around that position that needs to come out, and they need to be examined a lot more than they are right now. 

“It’s not a position that I’ve ever been really overly keen on. The importance they’ve had recently in certain clubs. It was a disaster at Everton for many seasons under [Farhad] Moshiri, and many clubs have got to start rethinking their roles and responsibilities.

“One of them must be negotiating and seeing better deals with agents. They’ve got to get that number down and for Villa to be up at over £30million is money that’s flying out the window, and it’s not coming back into football.”  

Aston Villa set for £5m bonus

Sources have told Football Insider that Aston Villa could earn £5m from their pre-season friendly against Bundesliga club Bayern Munich.

The two teams will go head-to-head in Hong Kong in August, and it will mark Aston Villa’s first trip to Hong Kong in 15 years.

The Villans are hoping to announce further fixtures in Asia as part of a pre-season tour, before beginning the 2026-27 Premier League season.