| Big fleas have little fleas | ||
| Upon their backs to bite ’em. | ||
| Little fleas have lesser fleas | ||
| And so on, ad infinitum. | ||
| 5 | JONATHAN Swift was writing about the invention of the microscope, but the | |
| agents crawling about Old Trafford1), trapped under the glass yesterday, were not | ||
| a pretty sight. | ||
| Agents occupy soccer’s twilight world. There are 240 licensed by Fifa in | ||
| England and 39 in Scotland, giving these isles more middlemen than France and | ||
| 10 | Germany combined. It’s another baleful competition where we are world | |
| champions. | ||
| For years, agents have operated behind the scenes. Now, Manchester United | ||
| has done the football world a service by detailing the £8.5m of agency payments | ||
| it made and promised last season. | ||
| 15 | United may have been dragged into the move by its major Irish shareholders, | |
| but it still deserves a little credit for shedding light on this previously invisible | ||
| world. If the agents made £8.5m from United last season, how much did they get | ||
| from Chelsea? | ||
| Some of the problem is due to football’s regulators. Fifa’s rules restrict clubs | ||
| 20 | from approaching players other than through licensed agents. This guarantees | |
| work for the agents and, with clubs footing their bills, creates the perfect | ||
| conditions for fee inflation almost without limit. | ||
| Football is an industry where the money pouring in at the top drops straight | ||
| into the pockets of the players and out again via fast women and faster cars. | ||
| 25 | Agents want some of the spoils and they are getting it. There are even agents for | |
| the agents. | ||
| United chief executive David Gill wants to do away with these surplus | ||
| midfielders, but will not attack the system, arguing that players would simply | ||
| demand more money if their agents’ fees were not borne by the club. Maybe. But | ||
| 30 | at least there may then be some restraint. After all, he who pays the piper… |