The traditions of football are changing as the players are rapidly adjusting themselves according to the changes around them. In the past, football clubs were owned by rich people who were also big fans of the game. Now, things have changed and we see more
and more takeovers which are taking place solely for business purposes. Managers used to have longer tenures in their clubs, but now these tenures have shortened to incredibly low levels. Similarly, the players’ focus has shifted and earning money has become
their top priority.
In these changing scenes, players’ agents have taken the central role in football. These agents govern the financial and monetary aspects of a player life. Therefore, the agents are responsible for getting sponsorship and endorsement deals and also negotiate
their deals with their clubs. One can argue that this has made life easier for players who hardly get any time in getting these deals, but there are some problems for the clubs. The managers have found it quite difficult, in recent years, to run their business
in usual way.
These problems have risen from the fact that the agents get percentages of the players’ wages and endorsement deals. Therefore, they are primarily motivated by the urge to make more money, without much regard for a club or a player. This practice has made
life different and we now see more and more lucrative deals for the players, while the clubs are often unable to bear the expenses. However, the clubs have no choice but to take loans from the banks to meet these extra expenses. The players, on the other hand,
have other offers waiting in line and it is a lot easier for them to move to the next offer in case a club refuses to meet their terms.
In the recent years, there have been many deals which involved a lot of spending by the clubs. Real Madrid spent hundreds of millions in order to build their current team and is still paying the price, in shape of wages to these world-class players. Manchester
City has shown an even worse record in English Premier League. After the takeover by Abu Dhabi billionaire, millions were spent to build the squad. These players have been lured into the club with high wages, unprecedented in the history of football. Manchester
City does not have a big fan-base, because of the club’s lack of success in the past. Therefore, the return is not as good as the expenditures, and the club is running riot financially.
Sir Alex Ferguson, the manager of Manchester United, had a bitter taste of this stark reality during this season. Wayne Rooney’s agent started some speculations regarding the player’s future at the club. The atmosphere worsened and Manchester United came
to the brink of losing their main player. When the dust settled and the picture became clearer, it was obvious that Ferguson had played into the hands of the player. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Wayne-Rooney-c36736 got a deal worth £250,000 per week, for which Manchester United had to break
away from club’s own traditions.
Recently, another incident sparked the debate against the role of agents. Blackburn http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Rovers-c40385 had new owners in place and they fired their manager, Sam Allardyce. Big Sam lost his job for no apparent reason and it was criticised everywhere in football circles.
Blackburn is being advised by player agency SEM Group and another agency Kentaro. It was revealed later on, that Big Sam was sacked after an advice from Jerome Anderson of SEM Group. This incident did not show a great picture of modern football and voices
are being raised from all the concerned people.
On one hand, FIFA is trying to preserve the traditional football by disallowing the use of modern technology, but nothing has been done to preserve the game off the field. Some rules must be there to keep the activities of the players’ agents in control.
The players have been turned into mere commodities and the spirit of football is dying.
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