Guest Knightrider Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 Patrick Collins When Yakubu Aiyegbeni joined Middlesbrough from Portsmouth, his agent, Pini Zahavi, was paid £3 million for facilitating the transaction. Now this was, by some enormous distance, the most significant sporting revelation of a hectic week and it confirmed our worst suspicions. A sport which has always embraced excess and has long been a stranger to shame has finally shed its lingering strands of taste and sanity. You think I exaggerate? Then consider this. For Middlesbrough’s match with Bolton yesterday,the adult tickets were priced at between £24 and £31. Let us agree upon an average of £27. So, £3m divided by 27 gives us a figure of 111,111, or the number of Middlesbrough fans required to pay Zahavi’s fee. Middlesbrough’s average gate is around 30,000. Divide 111,111 by 30,000 and we get a figure of 3.70. By now you may see where my crude mathematics are leading. In order to pay the Israeli entrepreneur, Middlesbrough would have to stage around three and threequarter Premiership football matches, with every penny of the gate going to Pini Zahavi. Is ‘madness’ an adequate description? The £3m will be paid in full if Yakubu fulfils his five-year contract but what, precisely, did his busy little agent do for his £3m? Well, he introduced his client to Middlesbrough, he negotiated his contract and, er, that’s it. Three million, squire, and I can’t say fairer than that. Pleasure to do business with you. Be lucky. Now consider further. Yakubu wanted to go to Middlesbrough and Portsmouth were prepared to sell him. Both clubs employed chief executives, empowered to agree upon a price. The contract, one imagines, was relatively standard for a player of Yakubu’s stature and probably required no great skill or imagination to construct. Yet such are the rules of this farcical gavotte that Middlesbrough cheerfully paid Zahavi £3m to represent his own client and negotiate against them. ‘Madness’ doesn’t even come close. But we must be fair to Zahavi, really we must. He apparently has an arrangement with a confrere, one Barry Silkman, by which he pays Silkman a fee every time Yakubu changes clubs. This is because Silkman was the far-sighted fellow who ‘spotted’ Yakubu in Nigeria several years ago. That perception has delivered him a reward akin to a pension. Lucky old Mr Silkman. We must also be fair to the Premier League who, under pressure from the media, have finally been persuaded that players ought to pay their own agents, the kind of practice which the real world would recognise. Many agents, you will be amazed to learn, are not in favour of this belated concession to justice and common sense. And yet, having been fair, we must reflect that nowhere have we registered roars of outrage that a man like Zahavi,who has given the game so little, should take so much from it. Of late, we have heard Richard Scudamore, chief executive of the Premier League, boast of his organisation’s immoderately generous contributions to charitable causes. We have heard Brian Barwick, chief executive of the Football Association, speak of his satisfaction with the process by which the England coach was appointed. And we have heard Geoff Thompson . . . no, I jest. We have not heard a single syllable from the risible rumour who chairs the FA. In short, there has been nothing to suggest that anybody in authority recognises the fact that a £3m payment to Pini Zahavi is a scandal, an outrage and an abject confession that football is as ethically bankrupt as it is financially bloated. It is a sum which insults all those at all levels who have given the game so much and asked for so little in return. £3 million. £3,000,000. Three million pounds. Think about it. And be very, very angry. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crumpy Gunt Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 Which fucking leach was paid £750,000 for renegotiating a Newcastle players (Dyer the culprit)contract. Amazingly Gibson refused to pay an agent £700,000 to speak to Sean Davis (Fulham) but was happy to sanction the above deal for Zahavi. Quite simple solution to the vermin agents. All agents should be paid by the player and NOT the Club. Any Club caught paying an agent a fee should be immediately relegated. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest optimistic nit Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 warning then 3-5 point deduction imo. That would mean the difference between champions and runners up, CL and uefa cup, Europe and midtable and midtable and relegation. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brummie Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 Football really is eating itself. I firmly believe it is on the path to implosion in the relatively near future. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dinho lad Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 Ban agents from football. If players don't like that.....then ban them aswell! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nobody Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 scum of the earth, agents. Just a notch above pedophiles and rapers. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sicsfingeredmong Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 scum of the earth, agents. Just a notch above pedophiles and rapers. Not far from the truth actually, given how they swarm around the junior paddocks in their search for fresh meat/clients. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
geordie2000 Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 Credit must go to James Milner though. He doesn't want an agent and lets the PFA help with his contract negotiations. He said on Football Focus on Saturday 'I am not interested in the commercial side of being a footballer, I just want to play football, the same as Paul Scholes'. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Invicta_Toon Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 Credit must go to James Milner though. He doesn't want an agent and lets the PFA help with his contract negotiations. He said on Football Focus on Saturday 'I am not interested in the commercial side of being a footballer, I just want to play football, the same as Paul Scholes'. exactly if it weren't for greedy cunt players there would be no agents Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Knightrider Posted January 22, 2007 Share Posted January 22, 2007 Credit must go to James Milner though. He doesn't want an agent and lets the PFA help with his contract negotiations. He said on Football Focus on Saturday 'I am not interested in the commercial side of being a footballer, I just want to play football, the same as Paul Scholes'. exactly if it weren't for greedy c**t players there would be no agents Works two ways, they can be a club's best friend when they are in dire need of new faces, ala Willie McKay... I wouldn't blame the players per-se, I think the game itself has allowed this to get out of hand and the real greedy bastards are those that set ticket prices, in fact they are all the same as far as I'm concerned. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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