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Love them or loathe them, they’re here to stay. Football agents have fashioned themselves to be controllers of all that is attached to money in football, which is basically everything. They have a say in which players go where and which clubs do what. But there are a select few who enjoy powers medieval kings would love to have had.Here are 10 agents that shape the goings on in modern football.
#10 Darren Dein
Darren Dein is the man Arsenal fans love to hate. Son of former Arsenal board member David Dein, Darren quickly made himself known in business to close aides of his father. He immediately accumulated a wealth of Arsenal players as his clientele, who he proceeded to show the exit as soon as possible.
His biggest accomplishments in the transfer market so far are the transfers of Fabregas and Robin van Persie, whom he helped leave the club in a less than amicable manner.
#9 Jonathan Barnett
Barnett’s claim to fame is the ugly incident over Ashley Cole’s transfer from Arsenal to Chelsea. He is alleged to have helped Chelsea in tapping up the player, much to the chagrin of the rest of the footballing world. He has maintained a quite profile since, all the while building his list of clients. He doesn’t have many to speak of, but the few that he does are the few that can be classified as elites in world football. He is an advisor to Ashley Cole, Gareth Bale, Joe Hart and Wojciech Szczesny among others.
#8 Tim Hager
Hager might not be a discernable figure in the football world by his name, but one look at his list of clients and you know that this is a man of consequence and growing credibility in the business. His clients include: Yann M’Vila, Mamadou Sakho and Antoine Griezmann.
Everybody knows of M’Vila. You might not have seen him play and you don’t even know if he’s won anything credible in his career, but you’ve sure heard of him. This is the work of his agent, who has tirelessly worked to bring him to the attention of the world, in the process linking him with all the big clubs in Europe. M’Vila is good player with a huge potential but not yet on the level his reputation might have you believe. This is the work of Hager and if he keeps at it, it won’t be long before he’s calling big shots in the transfer market.
#7 Jerome Anderson
Jerome Anderson is a very divisive figure in English football. On the one hand, he represented the likes of Thierry Henry, Ian Wright and Dennis Bergkamp at Arsenal, always looking out for their best interests and trying to bring out stability by trying to keep them happy at the club rather than coercing them into a move, and on the other hand he’s had incidents like the time where he broke Obi Mikel’s pre-contract agreement with Manchester United to take him to Chelsea.
Although he doesn’t enjoy the same level of power as Mendes or Raiola, he still remains a fiercely competitive agent, one that wields immense control over his players and their affairs. His clients include some very established names such as John Obi Mikel, Eduardo, Axel Witsel and Kieran Gibbs.
#6 Paul Stretford
Paul Stretford doesn’t make the news very often, but when he does, he has the attention of the whole world. The man behind Wayne Rooney’s recent transfer requests doesn’t haggle around. He knows what he wants and isn’t afraid of getting it, irrespective of structure and standing in the game. Who else would have the nerve to go against Sir Alex Ferguson? That too twice!
He has helped Rooney become one of the highest paid players in the Premier League. This, despite Rooney’s very public attempts to push for a transfer to rivals City.
Stretford’s skills can also be seen in how he’s still managed to keep one of the most mercurial managers, Harry Rednknapp, in the Premier League. Roberto Mancini is another high profile client of his.
#5 Andrea DAmico
D’Amico is another of Italy’s influential agents, having served previously as the Secretary general of the Italian Football Agent Association. He was influential in securing the transfers of Gianluca Vialli to Chelsea and the return of Gattuso to Milan.
His list of current clients includes Cristian Zapata, Nuno Gomes and Alessandro Del Pierro.
Vaunted as much as he might be, he has been controversial in his career, picking up several bans and suspensions along the way. He was first suspended for being involved in a deal while representing both the player and the club, thus creating a conflict of interest. Subsequent controversies have arisen due to his continued participation as an agent while being banned and working without a license.
#4 Pere Guardiola
Pere Guardiola, today, is considered one of the most powerful agents’ in the world. His clientele has grown from youth academy recruits in Spain to global superstars like Luis Suarez over just a few years. His rise has been as phenomenal as his brother, Pep’s.
Pere started out by scouring the youth leagues and B teams in Spain, helping young starlets to their first professional contracts. His prominence grew when he started touting Barcelona youngsters to teams, elsewhere, in Europe as can be seen with his involvement in the transfers of Hector Bellerin and Jon Toral to Arsenal. He announced himself on the big stage with the much hyped, transfer of Thiago Alcantara from Barcelona to Bayern Munich.
Just last transfer window, he helped Luis Suarez secure a dream move to Barcelona, which is by far his career’s biggest transfer.
#3 Mino Raiola
Hardly a window goes by when Raiola is not involved in a big money transfer in Europe. The man who got Ibrahimovic his big break, is said to yield enough power to push a player from the third division to the Champions League, such is his vast network of knowledge and influence within the game.
Raiola is ruthless, and has given many a good manager a hard time over the dealings of his players. His vast list of clients includes – Mario Balotelli, Ibrahimovic and Pogba. He is seen as the driving force behind Pogba’s move to Juventus on a free and is the reason why big clubs keep taking a chance on Balotelli.
#2 Pini Zahavi
Agents, not long ago, used to be journeymen, purveyors of superficial elements in their clients’ lives tasked with enough to keep them busy and yet not enough to impact the game or the players’ decisions. It soon changed with the influx of money in the game. Agents, too, evolved, at least the best of them, to super-agents, a term that most aptly describes Pini Zahavi.
The Israel based businessman is most widely recognized as football’s first super-agent. His involvement in the game has made expensive transfer dealings a norm. The tag agent can be quite deceiving when describing Zahavi, he is a colossus. He has been involved in trading, not only players, but also clubs. He is most famously known as the man who helped Roman Abramovich acquire Chelsea. He, also, enabled Sacha Gaydamak to buy Portsmouth in 2006.
His involvement in transfers has seen the likes of Rio Ferdinand, Didier Drogba, Petr Cech, Yakubu, Younes Kaboul and Tal Ben Haim switch clubs for extraordinary sums. He was also responsible for installing Avram Grant and Harry Redknapp as managers at Portsmouth.
#1 Jorge Mendes
The undisputed king of all agents and, perhaps, the most powerful man in football right now is Jorge Mendes. His ascent from being a nightclub owner to being the God of transfers is nothing short of mythical.
He began his erstwhile career making friends at the big three in Portugal (Porto, Benfica and Sporting Lisbon) and now controls half the transfers made in the transfer window. He recently claimed to be responsible for 68% of the transfers done in Portugal in the 2001-2010 decade. He was also pivotal in the recent takeover of Valencia by Peter Lim.
A look at this window, alone, reveals the kind power he revels in. The transfers he has been involved in 2014 include: James Rodriguez (Real Madrid), Angel Di Maria (Manchester United), Diego Costa (Chelsea) and Falcao (Manchester United). These are but a few of the names he has been associated with in this window.
He also represents Jose Mourinho and Cristiano Ronaldo, which alone should give you an idea about the extent of his powers in the game.
