English FA and Player's Agents still in dispute

The English Football Association will introduce itsnew agents regulations on Saturday despite protests from the Association of Football Agents that player's agents still hadn't been properly consulted. "It's extraordinary that the FA intend to hold a press briefing to explain their new regulations this week when they have made such little effort to consult the agents concerned. It's a disgrace that the FA have never sat down and discussed their reforms with a union representing well over 25 percent of agents," Mel Stein, spokesman for the AFA, told the Daily Mail. However the newspaper reported a response from the FA that it had "engaged in an extensive consultation process with all sectors of the game, including players, clubs and agents" and the AFA had "been consulted on an ongoing basis over the past 18 months."

The agents have four main areas of dispute. These are the tax ramifications of all payments to agents representing a player having to be made by the player himself; the threat to agents of players, under contract to an agent, still being allowed to represent themselves; agents not having to be paid money relating to a former contract if a player signs a new deal without them; and agents acting for a player having to wait for a year before subsequently representing a club over the same player.