Chelsea, Man City and Man Utd dominate as agent fees in Premier League hit £272m

FT Desk

31 Mar 2022 15:41 BST
3 min read

Manchester United forward Cristiano Ronaldo — © ProShots

Manchester City and Manchester United made up more than 23 percent of total spending on agents last year as the Premier League’s payout to intermediaries reached a staggering £272.6 million.

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According to a new report from FIFA, which revealed the spending on player agents between February 2021 and January 2022, Man City paid out no less than £35m, while their cross-city rivals paid just under £30m to get deals over the line.

Over the course of this season, the English top flight clubs spent a truly remarkable £1.5 billion on player sales, which means around 18 percent of all money spent on signing players was handed over to representatives and agents of the players in question.

Of course, much of the fees will be based on the busy transfer windows that both Manchester clubs had, with Man City signing Jack Grealish, Julian Alvarez and Scott Carson, while Man Utd signed Jadon Sancho, Raphael Varane and most notably Cristiano Ronaldo.

The fees involved also include contract renewals and paying off players that departed the clubs to move elsewhere on lower paid deals.

The third club on the list when it comes to pay outs to agents were Chelsea, who forked out an equally staggering £28.3m on player agents, while Liverpool and Arsenal then came in fourth and fifth with bills of £22.1m and £18.6m respectively.

The payouts to agents do go some way to highlighting the financial superiority that the Premier League’s top four clubs tend to have over the rest of the division, with last season’s top four sides in the league making up around 42 percent of all the money spent on player agents and representatives.