Football agents leech £6.3m out of NUFC

Newcastle United have spent the fifth highest amount on agents fees in the last year according to the club.

A brief statement on the club website shows that Newcastle have spent a staggering £6.3m on agent fees in the year running from October 1st, 2010 to September 31st 2011. In total Premier League clubs spent a total of £71m on agent fees during that same period.

As you can imagine, Manchester City are out in front in terms of fees paid to agents and have handed over £9.6m to the unscrupulous bastar so-and-so's. Next up are Tottenham with £7.5m followed in third by Liverpool who managed to waste a cool £7m. Chelsea are in 4th place with £6.4m just ahead of us in 5th place with our £6.3m, or £6,380,488 to be precise.

To be honest, for a club that once said that they'll not bow to agents demands anymore it's a rather large amount, especially when you look at our transfer spend over that period, which was minimal. However transfer spend is largely irrelevant as we signed eight players in that time, all of whom will have required an agent fee to be paid.

Because the reference period covers Oct 10 - Sep 11 it includes the transfer window of last January and the one over the summer. In that period we signed Hatem Ben Arfa permanently, Sylvain Marveaux, Yohan Cabaye, Gabriel Obertan, Demba Ba, Davide Santon, Mehdi Abeid and Rob Elliot. On top of the you have to consider the new contracts for players like Cheik Tiote and Jonas Gutierrez plus any new deals for any of the youngsters who have been signed during that period.

When you put it like that it's not too bad really is it? I mean we have done a lot of contract negotiations, especially at youth level, and we have signed a number of players. The fact that they have been to replace others is largely irrelevant in this particular case. Even if we'd not sold anyone we'd have still had to pay out these fees.

Unfortunately it's part of the game I'm afraid and until it's clamped down from the top it will stay a part of the game. Personally I think £6.3m on agents fees could have been spent better elsewhere. It would have been enough for an Erik Pieters for example, I think. Either way, it's £6.3m out of the club and out of the game. Even more frightening is the wider picture of £71m just disappearing out of the game.

Boom. Gone. Never to be spent on football again.