Legal Perspectives of International Football Essay

Legal Perspectives of International Football - Essay Example The first role as can be deduced from the above definition is the fact that the player's agent is charged with the responsibility of introducing a player with a club so as to negotiate an employment contract of the player with the club(of course at a fee). He is often paid by the club for bringing the player to accept a contract with the club. This is the only channel of payment recommended meaning that the agent is working for the club to sign up competent players with the club. However, at the same time, the player's agent is also working for the player negotiating for his terms and conditions for the contract with the club in which case the player can also pay the agent. These double payments are common but they have happened as shall be seen from the example to be illustrated in a little while. FIFA forbids player's agents from working for two parties when negotiating a transfer or an initial sign up of a player but the FIFA laws are not very clear hence reason why we have witnes sed some double payments especially in Wayne Rooney's transfer in 2004. It can be recalled that Wayn... Paul Stretford was paid by Manchester united football club for delivering the 18 year old able striker from Everton to the Club (Manchester United) and the amount was promised to hit 1.5 million if Rooney stayed at the United's Old Trafford for 5 years. Rooney on his part also paid Paul Stretford, his agent, for his role of negotiating his contract terms of 50,000/week (Conn, 2004). In defence of Rooney's act of receiving payments from both parties in a single transfer the, Andrin Cooper, the FA spokesperson, said that he did not consider the act a breech to the FIFA regulations because the regulations did not in any way outlaw payments made by both the club and the player. This therefore represents and at the same time amplifies the fact that the law form FIFA about agents may seem to be clear but it is not clear at all. FIFA regards the role of the player's agent to be mainly that of persuading his player to join a club, the work for which he gets paid by the club. It should me noted that the federation, FIFA, therefore in this accord regards the above role as very much separate from negotiating the players terms with the club in the same transfer. The two roles, though separated by FIFA, are inseparable because they are dependent in that the player will not accept to join a club (for the agent to be paid the player must accept to join the club) if his persona l conditions are not taken care by the club in the contract, an issue that the player's agent ensures through an active and engaging negotiation with the club owners. Therefore, at all times, the player's agents have been carrying out the role of getting the player to sign up for a given club but this role depends on another implied role of getting the club to accept to the terms of the player