Online scouting resource or commercial venture, asks Ian Plenderleith
According to Tom Bower’s book Broken Dreams, Israeli agent Pini Zahavi made £3 million on the transfers of his client Rio Ferdinand from West Ham to Manchester United via Elland Road. Rio’s such a nice bloke that he’s still doing his agent favours, endorsing a new scouting website founded by Zahavi that claims to represent “the world’s biggest ever football database” on players.
Ken Bates takes on the Inland Revenue
As our press day loomed, our thoughts turned to Leeds United and we began to write about Ken Bates’s latest victory. Which was what would surely happen. After all, the man who was on the brink of disaster at Chelsea, with unserviceable debts of more than £100 million, was able to walk away with £18m when Roman Abramovich arrived on his white charger. Bates had bought Chelsea for just £1 originally and now seemed likely to snap up Leeds for another astonishingly low sum.
For the richest European clubs, the term “the global game” has a new meaning as they rush to sew up their share of overseas markets. Gary Bowerman analyses the attempts to colonise China
As Liverpool’s new marketing strategy starts to look east, China seems an attractive option, particularly as the world’s biggest clubs have made a head start. AC Milan, Manchester United and Real Madrid have all played here in the last four years, with Barcelona, who beat then Chinese Champions Shenzhen Jianlibao 9-0 in Macau in 2003, set to play in Beijing this summer. The public-relations results were mixed, however, especially for Milan, whose second-string team were soundly beaten 2-0 by Shanghai Shenhua in front of a pitifully small crowd at the 80,000-seat Shanghai Stadium. The Chinese fans’ message was clear: don’t take us for granted.
Steve McClaren's agent claimed that English football is the most corrupt in Europe, but from abroad it's all a matter of perception, as Gabriele Marcotti of Corriere dello Sport explains
“Who the fuck is Charles Collymore?” That’s what a well known European agent, one who has done dozens of deals in the English game, said to me shortly after 10pm on the night of the BBC’s Panorama documentary. His take, echoed by others, is that, if proved, the latest round of “bung revelations” are destined to fry a whole bunch of smaller fish, while allowing the major players to escape unscathed.
It’s not just managers who play the percentage game. The role of agents in football is once again under scrutiny, but Adam Powley wonders if the will exists within the game or the media to tackle the problem properly
Many issues have been raised by Mike Newell’s dramatic contribution to the perennial saga of bungs. But amid all the outrage, one question has barely been asked: what exactly are agents for?