Football agent and lawyer Erkut Sogut has called for increased regulation around new agent registration and qualification.
Erkut Sogut represents Mesut Ozil, Ilkay Gundogan, as well as a host of other top flight footballers.
He was speaking to the Football Ramble when he was asked if he thinks that agents should be regulated more heavily.
“Yes,” he said. “At the moment there is not even really a regulation needed to become an agent.”
You don’t have to (Pass the FIFA Test). In the past, it was all controlled by FIFA and there was an exam,” said Erkut Sogut.
“And there’s no exam since 2015. At the moment, you just go online and register yourself. They call it an intermediary now. So you go online, and you just start working. You pay a fee, and that’s it – tomorrow you can represent a football player.
“This is a danger for the players and the family members who are being represented by someone who has no clue about the business and who hasn’t learned anything.”
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However, it’s not entirely the murky world that is presented in the media, as Sogut attests to.
“Generally there is a bad image regarding agents because they get so much money from the clubs. That’s what people think that they’re greedy. I wouldn’t say that it’s the agents who are to blame for everything. In every profession there are good ones and bad ones. There are good agents and bad agents.
“It’s easy to blame the agents because they don’t have a community that can back them and help them in the media. For the clubs, it’s easier to blame the agents when they pay a lot of money. Sometimes they don’t have to pay that much money.
“A lot of people don’t know that agents sometimes act on behalf of the clubs. For example, I’m doing a deal for the player. I get to the club and I find there’s two other agents who say they represent the club. Why does the club need two more agents involved, and to pay more agency fees? I represent the player, you just need to pay me.
“In the end, if the club is paying so much money to agents they say agents are the bad guys. No, sometimes they put agents into the game.”
