Chelsea splash out as Premier League agent spending climbs to £272m

Robin Bairner

• Updated: 19 May 2021 14:39 BST
• 3 min read

The Covid-19 pandemic has not stopped Premier League clubs splashing out £272 million on agents’ fees over the course of the last year, with Chelsea leading the way.

While the footballing world goes through a major period of financial shock, with clubs cutting back on transfer spending and player wages, agents fees have risen by around £9m over this period.

READ MORE: ‘They’re talking out their backsides!’ – Agents hit out at FIFA transfer reforms

The news comes as a group of high-profile player representatives have sought to step up their campaign against new measures set to curb such spending from January 2022.

Chelsea are the biggest spenders in this regard, having given agents over £35m from the period of 1st February 2020 to 1st February 2021 according to The FA’s clearing account. Given that no club in world football spent more than the Blues over the 2020 calendar year, this should come as little surprise.

Coming in second in the table of Premier League agent spend is Manchester City, who just toped £30m in this expense, little over £300,000 more than neighbours Manchester United.

Liverpool, who were top of the charts during the previous period, have been knocked down to fourth, having slashed their expenses in this regard by around a third to £22m. That figure is around half of what the Reds spent in the 2018/19 period.

Tottenham round out the top five, although their figure of £16.5 million is virtually identical to Arsenal’s.

West Bromwich Albion are the Premier League club with the smallest agent spend, though their figure still tops £4m.

What did every Premier League club spend on agent fees?

How does agent spending compare to previous years?

FIFA rules require the FA to publish how much money has gone to agents.

This figure is up from the 2019/20 period, in which Premier League clubs spent £263m on agents.

That was up marginally from the £261m that was spent in 2018/19, and a notable increase on the £211m spent on agents in 2017/18.

In the 2016/17 season, during which Premier League clubs spent a record £1.38 billion, agent fees were only £220m.