Many will have been moved by the tragic story of Emiliano Sala. A fine young footballer seems to have lost his life travelling to the UK in search of a new dream. The story has united the sport, and on Saturday at the match between Cardiff City and Bournemouth, fans observed a one-minute silence. This didn’t feel mawkish or sentimental, but raw and morally serious.
As time goes on, however, the saga of the Sala transfer is morphing into a different kind of tale, one that reveals that this talented 28-year-old, whose plane went missing over the Channel Islands on January 22, was at the epicentre of a complex web of agents, hangers-on and middlemen. An investigation by The Mail on Sunday yesterday revealed that four people were cut into the record £15 million move for the Argentine striker from Nantes to Cardiff City, including Willie and Mark McKay, a father and son operation, who had agreed to take 10 per cent of the sale price, and Meïssa N’Diaye, the player’s personal agent, whose company also represents the likes of Sol Bamba and Benjamin Mendy.
Baba Drame, who reportedly works closely with the McKay family, and was involved in the £22 million transfer of Issa Diop from Toulouse to West Ham United, also had a pay-off, according to reports by The Mail on Sunday. Bakari Sanogo, who represents players including Tottenham’s Moussa Sissoko, also took commission, although nobody has yet established what this was for.
We also know how McKay first got in touch with the player because he took the unusual step of handing L’Équipe, the French newspaper, an email that he had sent to Sala on January 6. In it, McKay said that he had been talking to “Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester” about the player, which smacks of exaggeration. He said that he had been involved in many other sales, including Didier Drogba. Drogba rapidly tweeted: “Keep me away from these lies.”
McKay also admitted to fomenting coverage in the British press that West Ham United and Everton were interested in Sala, stories without foundation. This was a calculated attempt to spread disinformation, something that McKay admits is his modus operandi. “That is how we work,” he said in the email to Sala.
Now, it is worth saying at this point that there is no evidence to suggest that McKay and his son are dubious and dishonest. In acting for Sala, McKay didn’t break any rules, and neither did the other agents that were party to the deal. Complex arrangements, often involving tax havens and opaque holding companies, which are both legal, are common.
However, let us move away from McKay et al for a moment and examine the economic logic that underpins the brokerage market in football. A good way to do so is by looking at a 1970 paper by the economist George Akerlof about second-hand cars. Akerlof’s fundamental point, which would ultimately win him the Nobel Prize for economics, was intuitive. The market for used cars will, over time, be dominated by dishonest salespeople.
The reason is simple: dishonest brokers make most money from the gap between the knowledge of the seller (who knows the car is a dud) and the buyer (who can only guess). Akerlof called this “information asymmetry”. The market ends up being dominated by salesmen who are skilled not at spreading the benefits of second-hand car ownership, but at concealing faults in their products until it is too late for the buyer to seek redress.
The market for footballers is, of course, different to the market for second-hand cars in that the skill of players is entirely transparent. Top clubs employ scouts who watch matches, and compile dossiers on potential targets. Agents like to insinuate that they make staggering sums of money because of their specialist knowledge of the market for players, but you only have to meet such agents to realise that this is laughable. What they are selling is quite different, and often misunderstood.
For consider that while the skill of players is transparent to clubs, the opportunities presented by clubs are not transparent to players. Most players are young and impressionable, often having left school early to focus on training. They are not aware of where opportunities exist, or which are the best ones for furthering their careers. It makes sense to outsource this to trusted advisers.
It is here, however, that a fundamental asymmetry comes into play — an asymmetry not between clubs and players, but between players and agents. Agents have an incentive to push deals that benefit themselves rather than their clients. Deals offering juicier commissions; deals offering a wedge between the effective sale and purchase price (Mino Raiola reportedly secured £41 million from the £89 million sale of Paul Pogba to United); deals paying cash to a business partner or partners.
Agents climb the ladder not by brokering good deals to clubs, then, but by brokering themselves to players. It is a market that rewards those who can infiltrate young minds, often through exaggeration, establish trust, and ultimately become the filter through which all information must travel. In the old days, fridges were offered to promising players, then it was cars, then putting dad on the payroll. The logic, however, was always the same.
The market favours another key skill, too: the capacity to muddy the waters. The higher the level of disinformation, the greater the opportunity to extract commission or kickbacks. Confusion equals opportunity, which is why a market that should be as clear as day is shrouded in such rumour, secrecy and innuendo. Over the years, I have noted stories involving hidden payments to agents from investments schemes, bungs from clubs, and much else besides. All have bolstered my conviction that corruption is endemic. Premier League clubs paid more than £211 million to agents from February 1 2017 to January 31 2018, figures that are inexplicable until you decipher the underlying dynamics. We in the media must accept some blame, too, not least for publishing fake transfer stories, from which the more dubious operators obtain influence.
What seems clear is that nothing will change until the governing bodies bring in full transparency in contracts and payments, bans on regulators taking employment from football agencies or partner organisations, penalties for agents who conceal or corrupt information, and a code that prevents agents working both sides of a deal, overtly or otherwise. Frankly, this should have happened 30 years ago.
As for Sala, some may say that it is a little too soon to be investigating his transfer given that the search for his body is still under way. I would politely disagree, and suggest that there has never been a more opportune time to shine a light on this dubious trade. Footballers are impressive athletes who reach the top through skill. Agents, on the other hand, are beneficiaries of a lucrative industry who have never been sufficiently held to account.
