Swiss agents demand protection – Newspaper Kommersant No. 49 (7494) of 03.23.

The International Football Federation (FIFA) may face difficulties in implementing the new rules for the work of football agents. A group of Swiss agents appealed to the Swiss Competition Commission with a request to intervene and suspend the entry into force of the new regulation. Preparing to enter into a lawsuit with FIFA and in other countries. And the Association of Professional Football Agents is ready to submit the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

A group of Swiss football agents filed a complaint with the Swiss Competition Commission against the actions of the International Football Federation. FIFA, as the lawyer of the group of applicants Fabio Babei noted, is abusing its dominant position. The agents ask the Competition Commission to urgently intervene and suspend the implementation of the reform of their work.

The new rules for the work of football agents partially came into force in January, they should be fully operational from October 1 this year.

The transition period was needed to give agents time to fulfill one of the requirements of the new regulation: to acquire a FIFA license. To obtain it, you will have to pass a written exam.

The key points of the reform concern money. Previously, the rules did not regulate the amount of agency commissions. Now there are restrictions. If the annual salary of a football player does not exceed $200,000, then the annual agency fee cannot exceed 5% of this amount. If the player’s income is above $200,000, then the commission is reduced to 3%. The new regulation also limits the practice of double or even triple representation (cases where one agent represented both contracting clubs and the player himself). An exception is made only for the team that buys a football player. In this case, one agent can represent both the buying club and the player. The agency fee in such a situation cannot exceed 10% of the player’s income if it does not exceed $200,000 per year, and 6% if the income is more than $200,000. And the agents representing the selling club are in the most advantageous position. They can receive up to 10% of a player’s transfer fee.

An equally important point of the reform is the requirement to ensure the transparency of transactions. So, settlements must go through the FIFA clearing house. Her work is designed to make the transfer market more transparent, as well as to ensure that clubs are guaranteed to receive payments due to them for the education of football players (usually small clubs act as “educators”). According to the rules, they should receive 5% when transferring a football player (all teams for which he played from 12 to 23 years old receive money, and their shares depend on the period that the player spent with them). But agents are reluctant to disclose the size of their earnings, and therefore oppose this rule with particular fervor.

Many agents, Babei’s lawyer believes, if the reform is not stopped, will be forced to leave the business. He pointed out that the focus of public attention is information on agency fees for transfers of top players, but the income of the vast majority of agents is rather modest.

“Most often, my clients represent players from the second and third strongest Swiss divisions, which are quite inexpensive,” said the lawyer. In his opinion, a strict limitation of commission agents in such a situation will simply make their business unprofitable. And it must be said that the opinion of Babeya’s lawyer does not contradict the data of FIFA itself, which reported that in 2022 agents around the world received $622.8 million in commissions. However, of these, 96.2% were deals involving European clubs. Of this European volume, 80.9% was provided by teams from just six countries – England, Italy, Spain, Germany, France and Portugal.

It should be noted that it is not only the aforementioned group of Swiss who oppose the reform of agency work. A similar process is underway in Germany, where agents have approached the German Football Association to intervene. And the Association of Professional Football Agents generally stated that it would seek the abolition of the reform in the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Alexander Petrov