Seeking to curb player agent fees, FIFA president Gianni Infantino calls on lawmakers for help and targets England

LONDON: FIFA has called on lawmakers to help control payments to player agents in the multi-billion dollar football transfer market, and targeted the world’s richest league in England.

English clubs paid $530 million in fees to agents from February 2023 to February 2024, FIFA president Gianni Infantino said on Friday, while paying just 6% of that amount — $32 million — to foreign clubs “that trained and developed the players signed.”

“Most of this money is leaving football,” Infantino said of the agent fees in a statement on his Instagram account.

FIFA has faced multiple legal cases in Europe brought by agents trying to block the football body’s plan for tighter regulations in the transfer market. FIFA wants to cap agent commissions at 10% of transfer fees when they acted for the selling club, and from 3% to 10% of salaries of players they represent.

Rules intended to take effect last October stalled after agents won a key legal ruling in England — by far the most lucrative market where agencies have earned tens of millions of dollars from transfers of elite players to Premier League clubs.

The tribunal in London ruled that if the English Football Association implemented the FIFA rules it would be an abuse of dominant position in breach of competition law. Agencies

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