FIFA is going to limit the sky-high commissions that top agents like Mino Raiola collect, reports The Times. The World Football Association will set a maximum commission of ten percent of the total transfer fee paid by a club per next season. Raiola and Jonathan Barnett, another top football agent, are considering legal action, but FIFA is unimpressed.
When mediating player transfers, agents currently have the freedom to determine the requested commission entirely at their own discretion. It is a thorn in FIFA’s side that a huge amount of money from top football is ‘leaking’ to advocates: a total of 450 million euros in 2021, a similar amount to the year before.
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In addition to the maximum ten percent that agents can demand from clubs, there will also be a limit for the commission that is asked by agents from the supervised player: a maximum of three percent of the player’s salary. FIFA says that these maximum percentages are desperately needed, because some agents engage in ‘excessive and abusive’ practices. For example, an agent this year received a commission of no less than 118 percent of the transfer fee for the mediation of a player transfer from a French to a German club.
FIFA allows national football associations to impose even stricter limits on agents. FIFA’s council will ratify the rules in the spring, after which they will come into effect from 1 July 2022. With this, the World Football Association wants to severely limit the power of agents. “For example, agents are taking advantage of an approaching transfer deadline by blocking a player’s transfer until they receive an extremely high commission,” a spokesperson said. The Times.
Leading top agents such as Raiola and Barnett are outraged by FIFA’s new rules and have announced legal action. However, FIFA is ‘not concerned’, also because German courts have ruled in favor of the World Football Association in preliminary hearings.