A Player's Agent Who Can Finance Your Football Trials Abroad

I guess most football players hope to find an agent who can organize trials with clubs abroad and pay all expenses... in return demand for a reasonable Agency fee (commission).

The question is, are there agents like that?
The answer is Yes and No.

Let me explain
The first thing is to understand the meaning of the word "Agent"

An Agent is a person that work on behalf of a principal. He represent the principal, maybe because the agent has knowledge, skills, abilities, time or connections which the principal doesn't have. An Agent working on behalf of a principal means the principal bears all the risk and expenses incurred by the Agent; whether the deal succeeds or fails. However, the principal pays the Agent commission for only successful deals.

In football business, there are principally two kind of Agents. Player's Agents and Club's Agent.

1. Player's Agent work on behalf of a player...introduce him to a club and negotiate contract deals on behalf of the player.  Therefore, every risk and expenses incurred by the agent must be paid back by the player.

However, the player's Agent must prove his sincerity and goodwill in any decision he takes on behalf of the principal; and the principal must as well agree or aprove any risk or transaction the agent want to take, before he can commence.

2. Club's Agent work on behalf of the club. The club gives him specifications of the kind of player(s) they require and the agent goes about to source for such player. The club pay all expenses to bring the player(s) for trial. The club also pay commission to the Agent for successful deals.

Does player's agent finance a player?
No, the agent is not suppose to finamce his principal (the player), rather the player is suppose to fund the Agent's operations and pay for any extra expenses he may have incurred.

When an Agent Agree to fund the player's trials, then the agent has moved from being just an intermediary to becoming a Venture capitalist (An Investor).

The implication is this, when a player pay for all expenses incurred by his agent, the player can only pay the agent a commission not more than 10% - 30% on gross sign-on fee.

But when an agent finance a player to a trial, he would earn as much as 60% - 80% of the player's sign-on fee, which represents his agency commission as well as return on his financial investment.

Remember, if the player does not succeed in the trial, the agent loose all his money. So, it is actually a high financial risk to fund a player's trials.

No Agent would normally want to finance (invest) in a player's trial, they rather the club pay for all expenses of bringing their player for the trials. An Agent will only stick out his neck to finance a player's trial expense if they how good the player is and how serious club desire to employ a player with certain skills and quality.