Kieran Maguire

Sun 15 January 2023 9:39, UK

Man United and other top Premier League clubs will find loopholes in the new agent regulations set to come into force by Fifa.

That is the view of finance expert Kieran Maguire, who spoke exclusively to Football Insider about how Fifa’s new mandatory licensing system and regulations for football agents will affect clubs.

Fifa announced last Friday (6 January) that their December council meeting approved plans to introduce “basic serving standards” for football agents.

The changes made include a mandatory licensing system, the prohibition of multiple representation to avoid conflicts of interest, and the introduction of a cap on agent fees.

Premier League clubs spent £272.6million on agent fees over the 2021/22 season, with Man United one of the division’s highest spenders with a total spend of £29million on agents.

But Maguire doesn’t think the new regulations will actually lower the fees being paid and instead will force clubs to find ways around the rules such as hiring agents in club roles.

“Fifa’s proposals in respect of agents’ fees seem more to do with populism than pragmatics,” Maguire told Football Insider’s Adam Williams.

“If you speak to chief executives of football clubs, they don’t have huge problems about the activities of agents.

“Indeed, they take the view that agents act as a good interface between the player and the boardroom.

“What we are likely to see is agents find workarounds, such as agents being employed as consultants for clubs.

“They will simply get paid the money not through formal agent fees but through other routes.

“All this will do is decrease transparency and make for opaque arrangements.

“I fail to see the advantages of this.

“Gianni Infantino claims what he is doing is for the good of football, but his previous claims along those lines have never really manifested into anything concrete.“

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