The Swans return of agents fees between February 1st 2024 and the same date in 2025 will have caused some eyebrows to be raised. Not least for a club struggling to stay above water as Swansea City are currently.
There has been another increased climb towards two million pounds for this latest reporting timeframe. And yes, the increase from 23/24 in significant. Whilst looking into this we discovered that as per players, agent fees in the Championship, and in most cases in the Premier League are paid throughout the players time with the club that pays their salary. So, that’s another payment scheduled over the term of the players contract but this time to agents. It’s hardly surprising when you look at Chelsea paying sixty million pounds in agents fees for the last reporting period that clubs with excessive millions at their disposal can sail close to the wind. We are yet to look into the profit and sustainability effect on Swansea but there are a whole load of forms to fill in on gaining a reduction in tax revenue, we assume (it has to be) that these fees to agents can also be weighed off with some clever P&S accounting ?
Well here are the current disclosures for all clubs in the Championship. 24/25.
And the year before.
You may need to expand these graphics.
The figures are somewhat surprising for the Swans, has there been some form of laziness or were those summer signings so tied in with their agents they just had to pay, no leeway or discussions ? There were some decent signings for sure, well, Gonçalo Franco & Larry Vigouroux. Not on the tip of everyone’s tongue at the time plus there’s Eom who was also negotiated last summer. Add Florian Bianchini and Myles Peart-Harris (agents also do dealings when a player is loaned out ) Nelson Abbey, also on loan and the costs increase. We are not sure on Lewis O’Brien as he signed after the deadline for agent returns, however Hannes Delcroix and Melker Widell are. Cyrus Christie and Jon McLaughlin are also on short term contracts. Jon’s contract was renegotiated, that costs money. In fact every player contact leaves a trace, and that trace goes in to the agents pocket.
Overall, when you look at the players recruited during this time frame maybe the payments aren’t that extreme ? We have a few agent contacts and they say that the payments are pretty average for the Championship despite other clubs paying far less. However, many pay a lot more. Brett Cravatt and his team have built a new database over the past two years, and now with Richard Montague driving matters forwards with his own team already disclosed then the club now have a far better angle on recruitment.
With the news on Luka Modrić this week and the club on an upward spiral results wise with a man at the helm who gets the club it’s not a bad time to be a Swansea City fan. As we have been stating for months now, kudos to majority owners, Jason Cohen and Brett Cravatt who are well behind everything that is occurring of late. There is more big news to come. And that’s even more exciting.