Introduction

The average career-span of an ‘elite player’ (i.e. one who plays in the top global divisions) is difficult to measure but is estimated to be around eight years, with a peak performance occurring at around the ages of 24 to 28, although once again, this varies on a case-by-case basis. However, in reality this estimation seems distorted as it seems to only account for a select, exclusive demographic of football players. For many hoping to make it into the classification of an ‘elite’ player, their careers are often tainted by a variety of factors.

In this blog, we will assess an interesting pattern that seems to be emerging in modern football; a distinct correlation between the increasing volume of games that a player will play each year and the frequency with which injuries, often of increased severity, are occuring. Perhaps this would be best explained within a lengthy scientific study detailing the exact data and figures behind the theory but for now, we will attempt to outline the general overview of what seems to be happening and the effect on both youth football and the top level of the game.

Youth Football and Injuries

The frank reality of the cutthroat business of youth football is that many young stars who demonstrate high potential during their youth development, will ultimately fail to succeed at the top level. One of the biggest causes of this is injuries. Many youth players are unfortunate enough to suffer from injury problems throughout their development and physical growth, which ultimately prevents them from fulfilling their potential.

Youth football is an intense environment and most of these youngsters have a lot of pressure put upon them to perform and to earn themselves an opportunity as a professional footballer. As with almost any physically active adolescent, growing pains can be a big hindrance. However, youth footballers are often fearful of showing weakness and asking to rest as it may tarnish the opinion of their coach and damage their chances of success in the academy system. Hence, many players will battle through and continue to play despite muscle growth problems. This can worsen the issue and many youth players lack an understanding of their body and its maturation processes, eventually creating a worse outcome and long-term ‘niggles’ or injuries.

It is also not too uncommon for youth players to suffer serious injuries that are always a risk from playing football and which I will explore in the next chapter. When considering how and why injuries are affecting those at the top, it is also important to remember that a lot of the general themes, injuries and issues, are replicated in youth football just as much.

Injuries and Causes

There are plenty of examples of what would be considered ‘typical’ injuries for footballers; Anterior Cruciate Ligament ruptures perhaps being the most infamous, as well as broken legs or ankles, and other common injuries that rule players out for shorter periods such as muscle tears, strains, or ‘pulls’ in calves, thighs, hamstrings, groins, achilles and sometimes even upper body parts.

Our view is that these are becoming more frequent problems for football players and we believe that the simple explanation as to why is that the rising number of games and intensity of training that these players are now demanded to participate in, increases the risk posed by injury.

In every competition in global football, there seems to be a reality that the number of games per year is increasing. For example, some leagues require teams to play on a Saturday and then a Tuesday almost every week. In other cases, one league may play once a week but then the teams will also participate in a cup competition which is played during the midweek. It is also important to remember that usually half of these fixtures are ‘away’ from home, and will involve a lot of travelling and mental or physical exertion.

This places a heavy demand on not only the player’s mentality, but also, physically and their body is required to perform at an optimum level with insufficient recovery time.  Fitness and conditioning can only go so far. These players, although some may seem it, are not superhumans and their muscles, joints, brains, bones and ligaments are subject to intense demands which can lead to injury.

The evidence of this rise is demonstrated when we consider how many games some global superstars have played over the last few years. In the 2016-17 season, Bernardo Silva and Joao Moutinho played a total of 67 games for club and country (both Portugal). In 2020-21, Bruno Fernandes played 73 games and was closely followed by Mason Mount with 69, several of which went to extra time in cup competitions. In the same year, the 18-year-old Pedri, exemplified the issue. Having featured for Barcelona in Spanish domestic competitions and the Champions League, he then represented his country Spain at the 2020 Euros, and then again at the Tokyo Olympics, amassing 73 games to equal Fernandes’ record. It was little surprise to see that Pedri was then forced to miss the beginning of the 2021-22 season with a thigh muscle injury having had almost no time off from football before the season began.

These top clubs have access to the highest standard of medical care, employ teams of doctors and physios and have scientific knowledge and studies behind them to ensure they give their players the best chance of staying healthy. However, for teams that may play 4 times in 9 days during the Christmas period or perhaps in London on a Sunday, Munich on a Wednesday and Newcastle on the next Saturday, it has to be impossible for players to be 100% fit. There is an expectation on the modern footballer that they will be able to ‘play through’ knocks and niggles although this leads them vulnerable to worsening the problem and being sidelined for a significant period of time, perhaps during the so-called ‘peak’ years of their career.

All things considered, it is extraordinary that someone like Lionel Messi has averaged 51 club appearances every season between 2008 and the present day at Barcelona previously and now Paris Saint Germain. Not only is the number of games impressive but also to have performed at a ‘world-best standard’, collecting seven Ballon d’Or awards during this time, makes the feat even more remarkable. On top of the club appearances, he has also been the ‘main man’ for his country, recently winning the World Cup and has dealt with the excessive pressure incredibly well.

Not everyone is as fortunate as to be so injury free and consistent in their performances. For every player who enjoys a lengthy career at the top of their game, there are hundreds that fall short due to repetitive injury problems and being unable to return to their best following severe injuries, surgeries and other complications.

Head Injuries

One topic which is widely spoken about in modern football and modern sport in general and is worth mentioning here, is the risk of head injuries such as concussion that can impact the later life of a player. For example, referees are now required to immediately stop play if they believe a head injury has occurred as it is not unheard of for severe concussions to have immediate disastrous effects on a player.

Head collisions are commonplace in football and even heading a ball has been scrutinised by football’s governing bodies with an increasing sensitivity towards the health and wellbeing of the players. At grassroots level, there have even been trials of new rules which forbid the heading of a ball as it has been scientifically linked with brain deterioration in later life for individuals who played a lot of football.

Whilst this may be an unrealistic and drastic change to football, there is still plenty to be done to mitigate against the extent of head injuries and concussions in football, as well as the other physical injuries mentioned in the previous section.

Summary

The world of football is known for its cutthroat and brutal nature. However, despite the financial status, commercial attraction and ever-increasing popularity of the sport, there are issues within the game that are causing a rise in the frequency of injuries to players. It is important to remember that the players are a key component of the success of the sport of football and their health, wellbeing and safety should be considered in the highest regard.

Introduction

The impact of the new FIFA Agent Regulations, implemented in January 2023, will be widespread across many different aspects of modern football. One shifting pattern that has begun to emerge in recent times but may be accelerated in light of the new regulations is that of the transition of typical player agents into roles at football clubs, either in executive positions such as Directors of Football, Technical Directors and Sporting Directors; or they become a club agent, providing their representation services to clubs rather than to players or multiple representation. It is expected that agents will continue to focus more on representing clubs as favourable to players. This creates two further categories of agents; ‘brokering agents’ who represent clubs, then agents who come to work within clubs as a board member. Player agents may gradually become a less popular and attractive category proposition.

In this blog, we will shed a light on this emerging trend and consider how it may continue to become a popular transition for agents moving forward. As well as the FIFA commission caps, there are other motivating factors for agents that may lead them to make such a career adaptation.

The Opportunity for Agents to Represent Clubs

This is not an entirely new concept and representing clubs has never presented more of an intriguing opportunity for agents. An increasing population of registered agents are acting on behalf of clubs in football transactions in recent times, even before the changes in the FIFA regulations. This is reinforced in FIFA’s 2022 intermediary report which showed a 22.4% increase from 2021. 7.6% of all transfers involved an intermediary acting on behalf of the buying club. This is shown in the graphic below:

Significantly, the report also goes on to say that almost 60% of high value transfers (over $5million) involved a buying club agent. Currently, the national associations that use and spend the most on club agents for the highest proportion of transfers are in England ($188.8m), Italy ($72.1m), Germany ($45.9m), Spain ($35.6m) and although the fees are not as high, a high proportion of transfers in Denmark and Austria involve an agent representing the buying club.

A similar figure was reported for agents acting on behalf of the selling club if the player is not a free agent. This is a practice that is most common in Italy, Serbia, France and Colombia. Of the transfers that involved a fee, 6.1% had an agent acting on behalf of the selling club as shown below:

It is also encouraging for agents that the level of expenditure of clubs upon agents acting on their behalf whether buying or selling is returning the the financial levels pre-COVID-19-pandemic as shown below in USD:

Being a Club Agent

A club agent will usually be an individual that has had a preexisting trusted relationship with the club which they come to represent. Agents who have this kind of relationship with a club, multiple clubs, or different members of boards of directors, will be given highly sensitive information and specific targets and tasked with finding players and options that fulfill the demands and requests of the club. They will then pursue a possible deal to bring in the kind of player that the club are looking for or to find a new club for a player that the club no longer requires or wants to profit from.

Club agents play more of a ‘broker’ role. In other words, they are given responsibility by the club to mediate and broker a deal to secure a transfer target or a successful sale of a player. Hence, this may be more difficult for agents who are in the early stages of their career. Those that are acting on behalf of clubs are more commonly experienced and established agents who have built strong relationships with clubs over a longer period of time.

Perhaps the primary motivation behind acting on behalf of a club has changed since the introduction of the new FIFA agent regulations, and particularly the hard commission caps. Agents may be financially incentivised to seek to represent the selling (releasing) club in deals as it is possible to get 10% of the transfer compensation rather than a smaller percentage (3%) of the player’s individual remuneration if they were to act on behalf of the player or the buying club. However, agents may also wish to work on behalf of the buying club as well as a player as this remains the only permitted form of multiple representation and can double the percentage of commission they are entitled to (6%).

For agents who focus solely on the club side, they are also relieved of additional responsibilities and challenges involved with representing players. They are no longer required to provide a 24/7 duty of care and attention to their clients which includes completing every day administrational tasks to satisfy the player. Instead, these agents prefer to concentrate purely on their relationships with clubs and the possibilities of deals in the future.

Becoming a Club Executive

Some agents can go one step further than simply representing a club as a client. Something that may become more commonplace is agents switching to sporting/football roles at clubs such as technical directors, sporting directors, directors of football, heads of recruitment or whichever terminology a club uses. This seems a straightforward career path once we consider the breadth of skill-set and attributes that successful agents possess.

Part of being an agent involves having an in-depth understanding of football clubs; specifically their squad and personnel structure, business model, transfer strategy, tactical approach, reputation/status, facilities, financial position and overall identity. This is the same theme of expertise that is required of someone who takes on the role as a Sporting Director of a football club.

Ultimately, Sporting Directors and similar roles within a club do a very similar role to agents in terms of identifying recruitment targets and finding ways to bring about a favourable deal. What sets it apart from agency and perhaps makes it a more attractive opportunity is that there is no cap on the money which a club executive can earn and the role often comes with lucrative bonus payments as a percentage of transfers and player wages. It is a contemporary and unrestricted method of earning money through transfers.

This side of the industry is accessible to agents who have built up connections, relationships and a level of trust with these clubs and the existing executives and staff. Although there may be difficulties that arise from conflicts of interest, as long as an agent can show they no longer have a vested interest in players or clients, it is possible to make this career change.

It presents an opportunity to agents to experience a slightly different side of the football world, through the lens of the club. Many agents may be tempted by such a role if they have the relationships in place to secure it. In the ever-changing world of football agents and the regulations governing us, perhaps this is a more secure and guaranteed pathway that can benefit agents who have already established themself in their career.

Summary

As part of the evolving industry and specifically in the agency profession, new opportunities, patterns and emerging trends are growing and becoming increasingly popular for agents to transition into slightly alternative roles. Representing a club is a unique opportunity for the agents that have good relationships with clubs that have been built up over their careers. However, some agents may also take a step away from agency and take on a new, but somewhat similar role, as an executive Sporting Director or equivalent.

Introduction

Todd Boehly and his consortium took over at Chelsea in May 2022 from the long standing Roman Abramovich. We explored this in a previous blog and it was clear that there were some big boots to fill on the back of Abramovich’s success over almost 20 years. Since then, Chelsea’s unique transfer business has been discussed at length throughout the busy summer window; through an unprecedented January window, including the deadline day Premier League record-breaking signing of the 22-year-old Argentinian midfielder, Enzo Fernandez and continues to be a popular topic for football pundits and experts.

In this blog, we will first look at the extraordinary summer and winter windows for Chelsea since Boehly’s takeover and attempt to outline their new strategy to football transfers. We will then analyse the compatibility of Chelsea’s activity with the financial fair play regulations that are enforced by UEFA as well as independently by the Premier League and explain how Boehly has managed to successfully navigate these rules without facing serious consequences; before considering whether this kind of business model will have an impact upon the future of the football transfer market.

The Boehly Business Model

The unprecedented approach to football transfers of Todd Boehly is demonstrated quite simply by considering the figures involved in Chelsea’s business over the last two transfer windows (summer 2022 and winter 2023) and put into context against the more ‘normal’ numbers of other clubs and leagues:

• Boehly has spent £600m on 18 players since the May 2022 takeover. In context; the second highest spenders during this time, Manchester United, have spent £373m less (£227m).
• The entirety of the Bundesliga, the German top tier, has spent a total of £605m during the same period. In the January window that closed last week, Chelsea spent £322.1m on eight players, including breaking the Premier League record by buying world cup winning youngster, Enzo Fernandez, from Benfica for £105m.
• In context: as we explained in a previous blog, loan deals are far more prominent in the winter window. In the 2022 equivalent, Premier League clubs spent a total of £322.9m, which has almost been matched by Chelsea alone.
• The extraordinary spending of Chelsea and its impact on the global football market is best demonstrated in the graph below:

• During this time, Chelsea have only received an income of around £60m, producing a loss of over £500m since Boehly’s business model began.
• This includes major losses made on players such as Timo Werner (bought for £50m, sold for £20m), and Romelu Lukaku (bought for £95m, loaned back to Inter Milan).
• Chelsea also lost big names as their contracts ran down and they left as free agents including Antonio Rudiger, Andreas Christensen and Marcos Alonso. This was no fault of Boehly’s as it was the previous board who had allowed their contracts to expire.

The 2022 summer window showed the intent that Boehly had with Chelsea. More experienced big names such as Raheem Sterling (£56m), Kalidou Koulibaly (£32m) and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£12m) joined alongside younger, high potential recruitment targets such as Carney Chukwuemeka (£15m) and Wesley Fofana (£80m). The recent January window was much the same; most notably the signings of Mudryk, Fernandez and João Felix (£11m loan) and three other 19-21 year-olds for fees between £30 and £40 million.

As part of Boehly’s business strategy, he has also restructured the recruitment system at Chelsea. The likes of Laurence Stewart, Joe Shields, Paul Winstanle, and Christopher Vivell have been added to the club’s board to bolster their expertise in the football recruitment department. However, as well as the seemingly limitless spending on new signings, there is another major shift in Chelsea’s approach to transfers under Boehly which has occurred for a very good reason…

Navigating Financial Fair Play

One of the most repetitive questions posed when discussing the recent activity of Chelsea in the transfer market is how can they spend such a vast sum, with such little income, whilst also adhering to financial fair play rules?

As we have explained in our previous financial fair play blog, the latest UEFA FFP regulations allow clubs to make a loss of £50m over three seasons, whilst the Premier League adopts a more relaxed approach, allowing £105m in losses over the same timeframe. Hence, in light of Chelsea only receiving £60m income from outgoing transfers, the extortionate discrepancies in their profit and loss reports seems as though it should infringe upon financial fair play. Yet, one of the most notable components of Chelsea’s and Boehly’s strategy changes is offering longer-than-usual contract lengths to their new signings in a process that helps them to ‘amortise’ the costs. Put simply, Chelsea have identified a ‘loophole’ in FFP regulations and by navigating around it in this way will prevent them from breaching any rules and ultimately, they will avoid any penalties for illegal infringements.

Amortisation is a term used to describe the spreading of costs. In the context of Chelsea, they have offered lengthy contracts to players and will pay their transfer fees in instalments over this time. This helps them to balance the books and significantly reduces their annual losses. Rather than a typical contract length of three years, maybe up to five years maximum, Chelsea have exceeded this in many new signings to redistribute transfer payments over a longer period.  This is seen in practice as follows:

Mykhaylo Mudryk’s EIGHT-AND-A-HALF-YEAR contract means that Chelsea will pay Shakhtar Donetsk around £8m per-year (plus add-ons) over this time to eventually pay off the £70m transfer fee. The authorities that enforce Financial Fair Play rules will be presented with the annual financial reports that will only show this £8m figure against Chelsea’s books. Notably, for a transfer of this size, the weekly-wage of £97,000 per-week is relatively low. However, for Chelsea, this new approach means that their wage bill will be reduced and if it doesn’t work out for Mudryk in London, other interested clubs can meet these wage demands. This is a change in strategy that has occurred during the Chelsea and Boehly era, since the £325,000 per-week contract given to Raheem Sterling in summer 2022. For Mudryk, this contract still appealed to him as it gives financial security to him until he passes the age of 30, despite the fact he may have been able to receive a higher weekly salary over a shorter contract length elsewhere. If Chelsea do want Mudryk to stay for the duration of his contract, this approach also puts them in a good position as it makes it difficult for other clubs to buy him out of such a long term contract.

Other examples of this strategy are:

There are signs that Chelsea are aware that they cannot just continue to expand their squad endlessly however. With the departure of Jorginho (£12m) to Arsenal on January deadline day as well as rumours around highly-sought-after players such as Hakim Ziyech (who had a failed loan to PSG) and Conor Gallagher can slightly help Chelsea work towards balancing the books in the near future. Perhaps one important thing to also note at this point is that Chelsea’s famous Cobham academy has amassed almost £100m from the sales of Tammy Abraham, Marc Guehi and Fikayo Tomori in recent years. However, these sales were made before Boehly’s takeover and cannot be attributed to his business plan.

The Future and How Have UEFA Reacted?

At the moment, the full extent and impact of such a unique and unprecedented strategy is yet to completely materialise. It can be labelled as an ongoing experiment in football and is being closely monitored by other clubs. It is unclear whether other clubs will follow suit and attempt to adopt similar business models moving forward. Perhaps the only comparison that can be made at the moment is the activity of Nottingham Forest since summer 2022. They have recruited 22 players during this period, although their circumstances are significantly different following their promotion from the English second tier and their bid to remain in the Premier League.

Some experts have pointed to the long-term consequences of the business strategy as a point of hesitation for other clubs. The spread of payments over almost the next decade will accumulate and may eventually limit the scope of expenditure of Chelsea in the future, particularly if some of their recent signings do not play out as expected or hoped.

Another hindrance to other clubs mirroring this modern approach to transfers is that Boehly’s intelligent redistribution of finances to avoid any risk of breaching FFP regulations has instigated a quick response from UEFA. UEFA have stated they will implement a new restriction as part of Financial Fair Play which limits the distribution of a transfer fee to over a maximum of five years. In other words, clubs are still permitted to sign players on longer contracts, such as Mudryk’s 8.5-year deal; the new rule alteration will mean that the club will have to pay the transfer fee in the first five years of the contract. In practice, if the total fee was £100m, the club would owe £20m per year in instalments and must have paid this in full by the end of the fifth year of the contract, or they risk being faced with FFP penalties and punishments.

Summary

Chelsea’s recent activity in the transfer market since the takeover of Todd Boehly’s consortium has made for fascinating viewing for football fans and experts alike. The unprecedented total expenditure over the last two windows has raised many questions amongst the footballing world and highlighted a key loophole in the FFP regulations. Moving forward, it will be an interesting strategy to follow and to see whether or not UEFA are able to prevent such business models and if clubs are able to reflect Chelsea’s approach or even to exploit other flaws in the regulations to benefit their own transfer strategy.

Further Reading

BLOG: What Does Todd Boehly’s Consortium Bid Mean for Chelsea?

BLOG: The Winter Transfer Window – A Football/Soccer Agent’s Perspective

BLOG: Who Benefits the Most from UEFA’s New Financial Fair Play Regulations?

BLOG: Moguls, Royalty, Bankers, Businessmen and Consortiums: The Chaotic and Expensive World of Owning a Football Club