Owner of Italian football club side, Napoli, Aurelio De Laurentiis yesterday described football agents as the ‘cancer’ of football, questioning why clubs should have to pay them in transfer deals for players.
The Italian spoke at the Leaders Sports Business conference held at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge ground in London, disclosing that he only signed players if he had complete control of their image rights and that some deals had fallen through as a result.
The movie producer said of agents, “You know, that’s a cancer of our domain.” “Not every agent. But I don’t understand why you need an agent.
“In Hollywood, the actor pays (the agent) himself. I don’t pay the agent. In soccer, why must I pay? The agents became like a tax and sometimes they want to be paid up front. You make a contract for five years and they want to be paid in two and three years.
“Why? Because when they finally receive all the money, they go shopping around and making your players crazy because they will say ‘I’m negotiating with West Ham, they will pay you two million more’.”
Clubs in England’s topflight, the Premier League spent not less than 130 million pounds ($195.65 million) on agents’ fees between October 2014 and September 2015, an increase of 15 million pounds from the previous period, according to the league.
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