Reading FC

A staggering £996,425 was paid by Reading FC to agents involved in transfers last season
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Reading FC paid almost £1 million to agents

By Jonny Fordham
August 30, 2011

A staggering £996,425 was paid by Reading FC to agents involved in transfers last season.

Only four clubs across the Football League were involved in more transactions than Royals who were one of the top spenders from the £16,658,976.

Out of the 72 clubs, the Championship teams spent £14,089,702 with Reading’s outlay coming from 63 transactions.

The club updated 24 contracts, cancelled two others, as well as undertaking 19 transfers and 18 loans.

In total 1,125 transactions were carried out in the Championship, with an average commitment of £12,524.

A statement by Royals said: “It is noteworthy that our total figure also includes payments made to agents on behalf of players.

“For example, monies taken from the player's own salary to pay their own agent, which is standard industry practice. Committing finances to agents fees is necessary for a number of reasons.

“Last season the majority of our club's commitment came in the process of keeping existing players at the club with improved contracts.

“In the face of strong interest from other clubs, we agreed new contracts with a number of key players to ward off predators and keep our squad as competitive as possible, and agents fees were committed accordingly as part of that process.

“In turn, that strong squad showed their ability and repaid the club's faith by reaching the play-off final at Wembley and a second successive FA Cup quarter final.”

In announcing the latest agents' fees figures Football League Chairman Greg Clarke added: "These figures show that a considerable amount of money continues to leave the game through payments to agents.

“This highlights the importance of the work Football League clubs are doing to establish a 'breakeven' business model across all three divisions.

“No-one is trying to prevent clubs from paying agents where they feel it is appropriate, however we must make sure that clubs are not spending money they simply do not have."

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Most recent user comments 10 of 10

Fair point Lester. But from reading the article all the statements on contracts appeared to be coming from the club.

Dr Watson, Reading
31/08/2011 at 21:58

@Dr Watson - The Football League released these figures....are they doing PR just for RFC? As for your double counting....try & have a little think about it.....maybe it's possible to distinguish what was paid by the player and what was paid by the club?

Lester Crinklesack
31/08/2011 at 16:38

Quote: "The club updated 24 contracts, cancelled two others, as well as undertaking 19 transfers and 18 loans."

1) So that's most of the squad that had their contracts updated??? Excluding the likes of Mills, Long & Ivar. Oh please tell me they didn't give a better deal to Howard or Church. 2) I may be getting old, but I can't recall 19 transfers last season? Not even with the outgoing players, and if that was the case, surely the buying club would make up a big chunk of the costs. 3) 18 loan players, now the key points of the loan system is to keep a players match fit/happy, plus to reduce a wage bill, so how much did we save on wages?

Finally,

Quote"For example, monies taken from the player's own salary to pay their own agent, which is standard industry practice. Committing finances to agents fees is necessary for a number of reasons."

Ok, so we've paid the player and then included the players own contribution to the agent in these figures, is this not double counting????

Whilst I accept that the costs of running a club are extremely high, this whole article rather resembles a bit of PR in terms of "times are hard, this is how much we are paying out, and lets all cheer as we've also just bought 3 new players despite all of this..."

Afterall, we are a well run club, who do things the right way.........

Dr Watson, Reading
31/08/2011 at 09:30

thats more than we spent on players

last chance saloon
31/08/2011 at 07:34

all players should use their union to negotiate pay rises, that is why they are there.

paul scholes doesn't have an agent( the only player in the english professional game) and he hasn't done badly as the pfa negotiate for him. no money therefore leaves the game and the fees are paid by the union membership, so clubs may have a little left over to bring down ticket prices, or even just break even.

surely the fa,the football league, clubs and the pfa could sit down and come up with a ruling on this as a million pounds out of our budget is surely too much and we may have been able to sign a player with that or reduced season tickets by 20 - 30 pounds a hit.

ajr111, swindon
30/08/2011 at 19:09

Not sure what you're on about 'Oh yes', as you say Accounts are an abreviation of all the transactions over a period. The £1m whichever way you look at it, is expenditure....are you trying to say it wasn't included? Or are you getting 'transparency' and 'detail' confused?

Lester Crinklesack
30/08/2011 at 17:08

Surprising all the wise sages who think they can read accounts and defended the position of the club didn't include the £1m approx paid to agents as part of the defence.

If accounts were transparent they would include exactly how much was paid/received for each player. The accounts are an abreviated version.

No-one would buy a business based on the filed accounts - they would want to see paper trail.

Oh yes
30/08/2011 at 15:19

There's an echo round here. I'm sure I posted this on the Alfie thread!

TilehurstSouthbank, Tilehurst, Reading
30/08/2011 at 14:56

What get me though, fans have been showing their displeasure at not spending money, SJM has been getting a lot of stick, why muddy the water more by being so cryptic with the figures. I don’t dispute the fact that agents and football go hand in hand but why then have statement like

“It is noteworthy that our total figure also includes payments made to agents on behalf of players.

“For example, monies taken from the player's own salary to pay their own agent, which is standard industry practice.

If this is the case and i have no reason not to believe it, why not come out with what RFC have actually paid agents not the players them selves?

WoodleyRoyal
30/08/2011 at 14:36

Thats Life - People make a living from other people. Could refuse to deal with agents but then we'd have no new signings and would struggle to tie down existing players to new contracts.

A necessary evil?