Clarets pay money to agents

A total of £5 million was paid to agents by all the clubs during the period, an increase on the previous six month figures, with just about £4.4 million of it coming from clubs in the Championship.

There were 471 transactions in the Championship and 143 involved the use of agents and it was those 143 transactions that brought about those extra payments of £4.4 million.

Incredibly over £1.15 million of this was paid out buy clubs to actually get rid of players with much of this being spent by Leeds United. The stricken Yorkshire club are leading the way in no uncertain terms and in total during that period they paid over £1.5 million, over a third of the total for the division.

At the other end of the scale, and it is hats off to Crewe Alexandra who again spent nothing. What a fantastic way to run a football club, not a single penny of their money went to agents throughout last year and they are a shining example.

As for the Clarets, after paying £12,000 during the first half of 2004 we spent a further £55,000 in the second half. This was spent on a total of seventeen transactions made up of nine new registrations and transfers in, three updated contracts and five loans.

It leaves us, thankfully, way behind the big spending Leeds and also some way away from some of the others where Leicester are the closest to Leeds with £405,000. However, there were eight clubs who did pay out less than us.

Apart from Crewe, four other clubs had spent nothing during the first half of the year. They were Brighton, Preston, Sunderland and Watford. Watford’s spend in the second half was just £2,000 but Preston and Sunderland were amongst the bigger spenders and both went over the £200,000.

The bottom line at the end of the day though is another £5 million has gone out of the game, well done to those clubs who just won’t be bullied by these agents.