City and Chelsea defend agent payouts

Manchester City and Chelsea defended on Tuesday their combined spending on agents’ fees of more than 20 million pounds (33.25 million dollars) in just over a year.

Figures released by the English Premier League on Monday covering the period October 1, 2008 to September 30 2009, showed City, backed by the wealth of UAE-based owner Sheikh Mansour, led the top flight in agent fees spending with an outlay of 12,874,283 pounds (21,411,165 dollars).

Meanwhile Chelsea were second in the agent fees table with 9,562,223 pounds (15,903,690 dollars).

Sheikh Mansour has invested huge sums in City, sanctioning a British record 32.5-million-pounds (54.05 million dollars) capture of Robinho and spending in excess of 120 million pounds (199,584,000 dollars) on new players during the pre-season.

But whereas Chelsea, backed by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, lead the Premier League table by five points from champions Manchester United, City are seventh and 14 points off top spot.

City manager Mark Hughes said the amount his club had spent on agents’ fees had to be seen in the context of the volume of transfer activity at Eastlands.

“If you do a lot of deals – and overall something like 35 were included – given the expenditure and the turnover of players involved, you would expect a figure like that,” he said.

Many have questioned whether agents are worth the money paid to them but former United striker Hughes said: “There is a role that has to be met and, at the moment, agents fill it.

“Do they provide value for money? You have to base every deal on its merits.

“Sometimes you feel the agent has really done his job, on others you feel he is getting money for nothing.

“At times they can muddy the waters. Some deals can seem quite straightforward and then they become complicated at the end.

“On other occasions the deal goes through very quickly.”

Chelsea assistant manager Ray Wilkins added: “I think they are something that are in the game and have been for a long while and we have to deal with it.

“The players obviously feel they are well worth having otherwise they wouldn’t have them. Therefore it’s something that’s there and it’s something that we have to get on with.

“I didn’t have an agent but they are in our game and we will just cope with that situation,” the former Chelsea, United and England midfielder added.