Player’s Agent Vs Intermediary, What’s the Difference Any Way?

This is a three parts article on Football Player’s Agent as an Intermediary:

[Here is] Player’s Agent Vs Intermediary – what’s the Difference Any way?

Player’s Agent [As an Intermediary] Everything you need to Know About the Career

Player’s Agent [As an Intermediary] - The Job Hazards and Prospects

In April 1, 2015, FIFA Finally abolished the operation of Licensed Player’s Agent to give way to the new designation – Player’s Intermediary.

But Professionals are still saying…

Player’s Agent or Intermediary, what’s the difference Any way?

… the fact is, an intermediary does not need license to operate, but he sure needs the cognate knowledge and skills of an agent as well as meet the requirement of FIFA.

While we watch and see how the intermediary concept settle in the industry, especially in the area of the 3% commission issue… We still recommend to professional players and those aspiring to become player’s intermediary to go ahead and enroll into our 8 weeks… “Agency and Player’s Management Course.

Click here to indicate your Interest

Who is a Football Player’s Agent?

By definition, a football Player’s Agent is any person who is permitted by the football association of his country of nationality and fully recognized by FIFA as an Intermediary i.e. player’s representative in football market operations.

A professional football player’s career could be complicated without an Agent. The fact is, not many players have adequate skills to negotiate employment terms with club’s management. So a player contracts an agent to represent him in such matters and in return the agent is compensated with a percentage commission from the player’s remunerations (Sign-on fees or salary as the case may be) negotiated in the employment deal.

At first, agents were licensed directly by the world’s football governing body FIFA until 2001. After then, license were issued by the respective football association of an applicant’s country of nationality. But by 2015, the licensed player’s agent operation was finally abolished by FIFA due to many irregularities that needed to be sorted out.

So there’s no such designation as ‘FIFA Licensed Player’s Agent, not anymore!

Although, what is operational now is the intermediary concept, but you should understand that the word ‘Intermediary’ is also a synonym for ‘Agent.’ Perhaps, what FIFA did was to deregulate the practice through removal of Licensing…