Infusion agents: why football clubs pay billions of rubles to intermediaries

Last year, Russian clubs paid agents about 4.2 billion rubles. This conclusion follows from the recent publication by the Russian Football Union (RFU) of data on the amount of commissions to intermediaries for 2024. This is 300 million rubles less than in 2023. At the same time, agents received more than 172 million rubles from Russian football players during the same period. Why there is such a bias towards payments from clubs, and for what reason there has been an increase in commission amounts over the past decade, we understand the Izvestia material.

Fluctuations in amounts

Back in 2013, the RFU amended the club licensing regulations, obliging them to report the amounts of payments to agents. Otherwise, they might not be allowed to participate in the competition. The practice of publishing these reports in the public domain was introduced into the regulations in 2015, and for the first time the figures were posted on the official website of the union in 2016.

The data published by the RFU is formed on the basis of financial statements provided by clubs and agents, which they are required to send to the agency activity commission.

Interestingly, this year, for the first time, the RFU summed up the results for all clubs in rubles. Prior to that, the organization published individual amounts of payments in rubles, dollars, and euros. Therefore, it was often difficult to calculate the total amounts, taking into account currency fluctuations. In different media, they were counted in different ways — either based on the minimum exchange rate of the dollar and the euro against the ruble for the year, or on the average exchange rate. Thus, the data for 2023 vary in amounts from 4.12 to 4.5 billion rubles. There is no more detailed information about the payment dates and the corresponding course. But even within these margins of error, it can be seen that, for example, in 2023, clubs paid agents more than twice as much as in 2022.

Interestingly, in 2016, about 250 million rubles were officially paid. According to experts, the growth of agency fees is associated with the growth of the dollar and the euro against the ruble, which has been taking place since 2014.

"Payments to agents have increased in recent years, primarily due to the fact that the dollar and the euro have grown against the ruble," Roman Oreshchuk, former sports director of Dynamo Moscow, explained to Izvestia. — And our clubs pay commissions mainly to foreign intermediaries. Who has been making the biggest transfers lately? Spartak and Zenit. These were mainly transfers of players from foreign clubs. It is not surprising that, according to the data published by the RFU, Spartak made the largest agency payments. They bought foreigners, negotiated with foreign intermediaries, respectively, paid them in dollars or euros, and the same dollar has more than doubled over the past 10 years. Sometimes it was even three times more expensive than the 30 rubles that were at the beginning of 2014. Clubs that hire Russians pay much less agency fees. Fakel, for example, did not pay them at all, judging by the fact that it was not even mentioned in the RFU publication. There are few foreigners in Voronezh. And they, like the Russians in the team, don't have a queue of people who want to sign them. Therefore, the club can afford not to pay agents. His budget is small. They have been living within their means for three years — they stay in the RPL. Those who have a lot of money live in a big way.

At the same time, Izvestia's interlocutors also attribute the increase in agency payments after 2022 to the influence of the foreign market, as clubs continued to try to find relatively high-level foreign players. But it became more difficult to attract them to the RPL, since our teams were suspended from European competitions. And the factor of participation in the Champions League or the Europa League was important for foreign players in negotiations with Russian clubs in the old days.

— It should be understood that there is no queue for legionnaires to Russia right now, — Oreshchuk continued. — It didn't exist before, until 2022, when you had to multiply the amounts by two, when you wanted to bring a good football player to our championship. And now they need to be multiplied by three, or even five. Because our clubs are suspended from European competitions. When I worked at Dynamo in 2019, many negotiations with foreign players and their agents ended at the moment when they received a negative answer to the question: "Is the team participating in European competitions?". And now, when our teams can't even get there, we need to offer very good money to the legionnaire to come to the RPL. Accordingly, the intermediaries receive increased rewards so that they convince the players to come to us. Hence the large agency fees. Could this have been avoided after 2022? I said then that we should rely more on Russian football players. Anyway, since we are suspended from European competitions, we don't have to strengthen our teams at any cost for a lot of money — we need to take advantage of the chance to give practice to many of our guys who will be able to grow a lot in a couple of years. But now, in 2025, this moment has been missed, because, God willing, we will be returned to European competitions in the near future, and clubs will again need to be reinforced by foreigners in order to solve serious problems in the international arena — there are not enough Russian players for this right now.

According to Nikolai Naumov, former president of Lokomotiv, the growth of payments to intermediaries, especially those who are foreign citizens, is a big problem for Russian football, especially in cases where they are made by clubs funded from state budgets or budgets of companies with state participation.

"You can still treat this calmly when such money is paid by a private club like Krasnodar or Akron, but the expediency of payments from actually state or near—state clubs is very doubtful," Naumov shared his opinion with Izvestia. — It is no coincidence that this problem was raised at the state level at the end of last year, when Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, the governor of the Samara Region, raised the issue of large budget expenditures in Krylia Sovetov on salaries for coaches and agency fees. Although this money could be redistributed to children's and youth sports, the construction of physical education and recreation complexes, and in general to social activities. But we see that clubs continue to spend large amounts of money on player transfers, most often foreign ones, as well as agent commissions. There's nothing wrong with people getting paid for their work, but how much of that money is justified is a big question.

Player payments

The players paid about 172 million rubles to the agents in 2024. This is significantly less than what the clubs pay. In previous years, the disparity was about the same. In 2022, the players paid 117 million rubles, in 2023 — 332 million rubles. According to Nikolay Naumov, it has long been an established practice when agents earn commissions from clubs, rather than the players whose interests they represent. This is usually done in the form of a contract for the provision of services to find a football player.

"This has been happening for decades,— explains the former president of Lokomotiv. — And this does not really correspond to logic and common sense, since the agent represents the interests of the football player, conducts contract negotiations on his behalf, is looking for employment options, and is engaged in legal support of contracts. In theory, it is the player who should pay him the commission. But in fact, the club pays for allegedly finding a football player. The work of the breeding service is duplicated. But in fact, this is done in order to save on tax payments. And this is happening not only in our country, but also in Europe. And this suits most clubs.

According to Roman Oreshchuk, the "club— agent" relationship suits most managers due to the greater economic benefits, since the player will still have to compensate for his agent's costs, but with more taxation.

— It is a global practice when it is clubs that pay agents' commissions, — Oreshchuk explained. — Agents are definitely not a substitute for club selection services, but most of the rewards for services rendered are not received from football players because clubs have the opportunity to save on the amount of payments. If a player pays a commission to an agent, the club must include it in the athlete's salary. But after all, a tax in the range of 30-35% should also be charged on top of his salary. And if you pay a commission to an agent, then there is no tax. Let's say a football player has a salary of 90 thousand rubles per month — without tax. And with the tax — 120 thousand rubles. From 120 thousand rubles, the player will have to pay the agent 10% — 12 thousand rubles. In order for a player to keep his salary in full, the club needs to add to 120 thousand. these 12 thousand But in fact, taking into account taxes, it is necessary to add 20 thousand. And this is so that the agent gets his 10%. Therefore, it is easier for the club to pay 12 thousand directly to the agent. And the agent, as an individual entrepreneur, will pay taxes to the state himself. It's easier than paying a football player to pay the agent out of his own pocket. The numbers vary greatly, so the club—agent relationship is a normal global practice. In some European countries, where taxes are up to 50%, it is even more widespread. Figuratively speaking, the club pays the agent 1,000 euros directly. And a football player would have to pay 1,500 euros for the amount of 1,000 euros to reach the agent. The club will be in the red, raising its budget in order to report money to the player for agency services.

As in previous years, Spartak Moscow is the leader in agency payments among clubs. In 2024, he paid 135,241,944 rubles, 10,625,133 euros and 68,965 dollars.