Arsenal football club spent £11,181,730 on agents/intermediaries between February 1, 2018, to January 31, 2019, according to figures released by the club today in accordance with FIFA’s regulations.
Now, that may seem a lot but in comparison to our top six rivals it was a pittance with only Tottenham spending less than us by a measly £40k and they never bought a single player over the two transfer windows in that period, how? I do not know but they still managed to splash out £11,141,255.
Liverpool were by far the biggest spenders with a whopping £43,7795,863 paid out to agents, then came Chelsea paying out £26,850,552, then Man City on £24,122,753 and finally Man Utd with £20,759,350.
To further put our expenditure in perspective, Everton spent over £19 Million, West Ham over £14 Million and Leicester City spent over £12 Million, however, unlike those financial geniuses at White Hart Lane, they did at least have some players to show for their efforts.
I do not pretend to know the intricacies of paying agents but on the face of it, I have to say that we look like we have done a far better job managing payments to third parties than our nearest rivals.
That said, I would have been a lot happier if we had spent the same amount as Liverpool and be in the position they are right now, though I am content to just laugh at Spurs and the amount they have spent on non-existent players.
I wonder whether the English clubs pay the highest agent fees among the European football clubs
This article shows how aggressive the agents are, in modern football:
skysports.com/football/news/11661/10716991/the-changing-face-of-scouting-dealing-with-agents
I think Tottenham spent agent fees mostly during extending the contracts of their current players.
Good point, probably some deferred payments also
Absolutely correct Goonster, you beat me to it.
I wish I had someone negotiating my salary increases for me when I was working!
Sp*d didn’t collect the money from us so why the headache?
It’s not a headache is just hilarious ?
Agent fees payment should not debar Arsenal from beating Everton at the Goodison Park on Sunday in the PL to regain 3rd spot in the table from Spurs and remain 3rd to the end of the season. Otherwise, the paying out of all this huge sum of money to the agents will almost be meaningless should Arsenal fail to wake up St. Tottenringham’s Day from the sleeping it has been sleeping for 2 consecutive seasons.
On a different Spurs oddity. I’ve read that although the headline capacity of their new stadium is 62k that will only be for NFL games and non football activities. When the plastic pitch is in place. When the grass is in place the pitch is higher than the first two rows of seats so they are unusable meaning the useable capacity is closer to 60k.
Interesting point Lee, however I remember being at Highbury and standing well below the playing area and that was the case for the equivalent, nowdays, of four rows.
Brilliant vantage point if you wanted to chat to the players when a corner was taking place, or Jack Kelsey etc when taking goal kicks..honestly this happened it really did.
This was changed when all seating came in, so maybe that’s when the ruling came in.
There used to be upside down U shaped railings about six inches in height around the ground, supposedly to to help keep the fans off the pitch!!!
Happy days.
Trust the spuds to screw things up yet again, they didn’t even have a full stadium for the first game back at their billion pound home!!!
Should have made it clear that the railings were on top of a brick wall that was appro. four foot high, if my memory serves me well.
Hi Ken.
It is something I miss we used to be told match attendences but not now it seems. Is there a website that gives this detail?