With the agent’s fees of Paul Pogba’s £89m transfer from Juventus to Manchester United in the summer becoming subject to a FIFA enquiry, I’ve been thinking; “Are agents now the most important presence in modern football?”.
According to a leaked copy of the transfer deal, Juventus were to pay £41m of the received fee to Pogba’s agent, Mino Raiola. That’s almost half of the fee! So, discounting the £41m agent’s fee, Juventus will have received just £48m for the Frenchman, which, considering the Turin-based side paid just £500k to sign Pogba from United back in 2012, amounts to a very tidy profit, however, for a player of Pogba’s calibre and age in today’s market it is a small sum. Less, in fact, than the amount Chelsea paid for Fernando Torres in 2011, less than United paid for Robin Van Persie in 2012, less than Man City paid for John Stones this summer.
Mino Raiola is not only the agent to Paul Pogba, the Italian-born Dutchman also represents Man United players Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, alongside Mario Balotelli, Romelu Lukaku and Blaise Matuidi. He has also previously represented Pavel nedvěd and brokered multiple high-profile deals, including Dennis Bergkamp’s £12m move to Inter Milan and Robinho’s move from Man City to AC Milan.
So who exactly has come under investigation from FIFA? Well, it is reported that FIFA have asked Man United for clarification of the details of the transfer. This leads us to assume that there have been some problems with the file submitted to FIFA. This is odd, as surely for such a high profile deal United and Juventus would be extremely careful to assure that all the paperwork is clear, complete and faultless. Does this mean that there was something shady about the deal itself? And who exactly is at fault for the problems?
As far as we know, the deal was that Juventus would sort out the agent’s fees, meaning that United would be at no fault, but this is all just from unconfirmed newspaper sources and leakings of the contract.
So, to conclude, Man United and Juventus are coming under FIFA investigation and that’s all we know for sure, but we are being thrown “brand new exclusive information” from all angles, but we can’t trust it for sure. After all, The Daily Mail are claiming all Pogba’s image right profits (must be a lot!) are being held in an offshore bank account, but that’s before you realise that they are reporting that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is interested in a move to Liverpool.
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Billy
In the dugout 