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According to a report by BBC, Premier League clubs paid £77 million to the agents from the period October 2011 – September 2012. The figure is up by £5.13m from what was spent by Premier League teams in the previous 12 months.
It comes as no surprise that Manchester City are the biggest spenders in this regard with a total payment of £10,537,982 to the agents. During the summer, City brought in players like Jack Rodwell for £12m from Everton and also completed moves for Javi Garcia (£16m from Benfica), Scott Sinclair (£8m from Swansea), Matija Nastasic (£12m from Fiorentina) and Maicon (undisclosed fee from Inter Milan).
The club that registered the highest increase from the previous year were Queens Park Rangers. They shelled out £6,818,688 in agent fees, last year the figure stood at £2.5 million. This is no surprise given the fact that they nearly bought a whole new team in the period. Esteban Granero from Real Madrid and Stephane M’bia from Marseille were two of their more expensive signings.
The lowest amount has been spent by Southampton with the south coast team spending £646,106 on player’s representatives. Southampton brought in players like Gaston Ramirez, Jay Rodriguez and Nathaniel Clyne and ended up paying less than a million (£646,106) in agent fees. This is somewhat surprising given the fact that clubs like Newcastle and Everton shelled out less than them on players but still ended up paying more in agent fees. Another surprise was the money paid by Manchester United on agents. They paid only £3,681,580 and bought in players like Robin Van Persie, Alexander Buttner and Nick Powell.
It is widely understood that a club would have to shell out more on agent fees to get the free agents across the line and that it would involve more of agent fees than when a player is bought from a football club. My guess is, proportionately the clubs would have paid higher on free agents than on players they bought by paying transfer fees as well.
Teams in Barclays Premier League ended up paying the highest amount of money in the fees and that money is taken out of football, money that could have been invested back in football. I expect the figure to rise even more next year when clubs get even more money from the new TV deal. Needless to say, we will see more money being spent on what some would call a non-footballing expense.
In the table below, you can check out how much your club paid in agent fees.
Total Money spent on Agents By Premier League Teams Oct 2011 – Sept 2012 | |
| ManchesterCity | £10,537,982 |
| Liverpool | £8,600,444 |
| QueensParkRangers | £6,818,688 |
| Tottenham Hotspur | £6,595,905 |
| Chelsea | £6,490,382 |
| Arsenal | £5,580,873 |
| West Ham United | £4,436,992 |
| ManchesterUnited | £3,681,580 |
| NewcastleUnited | £3,485,503 |
| Everton | £3,092,891 |
| Aston Villa | £2,730,539 |
| Fulham | £2,581,208 |
| Sunderland | £2,173,762 |
| Reading | £2,167,833 |
| WiganAthletic | £1,974,305 |
| Stoke City | £1,717,266 |
| West BromwichAlbion | £1,341,301 |
| NorwichCity | £1,248,725 |
| SwanseaCity | £1,100,845 |
| Southampton | £646,106 |
