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- Soccer clubs paid a record $888.1 million in agent service fees in 2023, a rise of 42.5 per cent on the previous year, world governing body FIFA said in its annual “Football Agents in International Transfers” report released on Thursday.
- The previous record was in 2019 when worldwide spending on commissions to agents involved in the foreign transfer of players was $654.7 million. The 2022 number was $623.2 million.
- English teams were the biggest spenders by far this year with a total outlay of more than $280 million, while 86.6 per cent of the worldwide spending came from European clubs, FIFA added.
- Saudi Arabian clubs went on a spending spree this year, splashing out almost one billion dollars in the transfer window to lure top players from Europe and they had the second-biggest expenditure on hiring club agents at $86 million.
- “The number of international transfers with an agent acting on behalf of the player reached a record high in 2023 with a total of 3,353 transfers,” FIFA said in its report.
- “This corresponds to 15.4 per cent of all transfers and represents an increase of 8.4 per cent compared to 2022.”
- In a first for women’s soccer, professional clubs spent more than $1 million in agent service fees, with the total hitting just under $1.4 million.
- Agents have been at loggerheads with FIFA after they lost an appeal in July to block new rules that would cap their transfer commissions and introduce exams to secure a licence.
- FIFA said it got 19,973 licensing applications this year with 9,207 taking the exam, which 32.6 per cent passed.
- However, an English FA tribunal set up in June found earlier this month that the proposed FIFA regulations are incompatible with British competition law.
