Agent fees. Good or bad addition to the game?

I know I find them irritating. £1.7 M transfer fee and the agent won't go below 600K, or £3.8M fee and the agent won't go below 800K. It doesn't happen every time but it is annoying.

So unless work gets done on the negotiations I say it's a bad addition.

It's realistic to have agent fees in but they are too high in my opinion, not sure if they have been tweaked or not in the latest patch. I find them annoying in contract renewals but recently I have simply offer them nothing until it is the only thing they want changing I then offer them 1k and they usually accept. In the contract renewals I got them to 1k 4 times from demanding £1.7 million, £2.1 million and twice they demanded around 500k.

If it worked properly then it would be good, but it doesn't so it's just a gimmick and should be taken out until it can be implemented properly.

Many times they ask as much as the player, and I don't think that's right. But there are more serious issues to sort out, though.

Here's an example of just how sick they made me. I was in charge of man city, got a bid of I think £80 million accepted, got his wage and everything done but the agent wanted £8.75 million fee. Max I think I could get was £7.5 million. I didnt get Torres just because of that. How pathetic?

Agents are greedy bastards. I think many RL managers also would prefer if they didn't exist.

I read an article on a flight about Mr Zahavi a few years back. He could earn (in 2007) £5m a deal. So the figures quoted in FM aren't out of the ball park I don't think.

And the people calling it pathetic need to think. Transfers fall down at contract negotiations ALL THE TIME, so while its frustrating that you cant pull off a deal, it's also realistic. Just try making your first offer to the agent really low. Very few deals you can afford will break down because of them.

They may well be realistic but that's irrelevant.

In FM agents are just an irritant. The game is less fun because of them and they should go.

IMO.

They may well be realistic but that's irrelevant.

In FM agents are just an irritant. The game is less fun because of them and they should go.

IMO.

Losing makes the game less fun, let's get rid of that! What great reasoning to take out a feature.

And taking out a feature will never improve it. It would be just as bad the next year. They could never see how the feature would work out if we all didn't try it out this year.

Agents are a good addition and are here to stay. When board confidence was introduced in FM08 it was horrible, but it was fixed in FM09. So hopefully agents can be improved in FM12.

About as much fun as a feature as press conferences.

I quite like the agents, the only thing that does annoy me though is when the agent won't even speak to you so you can't even tempt the player with a massive contract.

Agents = bad for football.

However this is a football simultator - they should be in there.

At a higher level the fees seem slightly over the top but then again they could reflect real life.

I like agents at a lower level.. you can often end up saving on the long term by offering a substantial lower wage and just chip in a higher agent fee or when competing against several clubs for the same player you can use the fee as a guarantee that you will get the player if you really want him, even if higher reputation clubs are interested in him.

Agents = bad for football.

However this is a football simultator - they should be in there.

The problem is that the game doesnt simulate common sense. For eg, when the club cant pay out anymore wages, you would expect that an agent would be aware of that and stop demanding more than is available, or as i posted before, when your trying to offer a player an improvement on his current contract, the agent will obstruct it. If agents are going to be in the game then they need to start at the very least behaving in the clients best interests. If that is too much of an ask for SI to code then they need to be removed. Agents are supposed to work for the players, not against the club, when an agent repeatedly obstructs contract negontiations, assuming the player wants to stay then he ought to be sacked. Whats the point of agents anyway? The fee they take could have been offered to the player himself, seems self defeating for the player to actually employ one in the game as it stands.

Agents are supposed to work for the players, not against the club, when an agent repeatedly obstructs contract negontiations, assuming the player wants to stay then he ought to be sacked. Whats the point of agents anyway? The fee they take could have been offered to the player himself, seems self defeating for the player to actually employ one in the game as it stands.

Take everything you say about agents in the game - then apply them to real life.

The number of agents who have caused trouble for players is uncountable - rooney, tevez, looks like we can add carrol to that list as well last night.

The agent fees are part of football however they are incorrectly represented in FM as a recent report about agency fees in the Premier League showed the figure spent on agents in the first half of the season to be considerably less than what is represented in the game.

Rooney migth be able to screw man u for extra pennys but most players arnt indispensable. And as i typed that it occurred to me, that might be the problem, if they are labled indespensable, perhaps the game is reading it literally. I always used indespensable to make it clear i wasnt going to sell a player...I guess there are going to be alot more "first team" contracts in my clubs future

The agent fees are part of football however they are incorrectly represented in FM as a recent report about agency fees in the Premier League showed the figure spent on agents in the first half of the season to be considerably less than what is represented in the game.

But (until the end of this window) it has been a relatively quiet transfer market - but the game doesnt show that.

Also, most of the stats for agents wages only look at transfers, not in house contract renewals, but some might. whereas the game lumps them all together.

I've thought about this for a while and I don't think they should be in the game. I have no problem working with them, but I feel it's a feature that IRL managers have nothing to do with and should be left in the background as an expenses addition.

I've thought about this for a while and I don't think they should be in the game. I have no problem working with them, but I feel it's a feature that IRL managers have nothing to do with and should be left in the background as an expenses addition.

TBF, clubs have a director of football working but FM don't have that. If there's one thing all FM-managers like doing is building their team through signing their own players, so they will obviously have to deal with agents if the players they want have one. As long as managers are dealing with transfers then we will be dealing with agents as well since interaction with the agent is part of the contract negotiations.

I have stop playing the game due stupid Release Clause even If I pay high Fee for Agents

I have got World Class Left back that I want to renew the contract before big club come in and Snap my players up because I have made mistake(I know it is my fault!) on Release clause of last season....

When I want to renew his contract and He did accept £75,000 a week but he want his Release Clause of £11.25 which what I have paid him last season!!!

Sound Stupid as I want put Release Clause of £30m which is acceptable for my Club!!!

I going back on Playing FM 2010 when the 3RD Patch come out and I hoping it does Fixed the Wages demand and Agents and Release Clause too!

I hope agents gets addressed in next patch...............

TBF, clubs have a director of football working but FM don't have that. If there's one thing all FM-managers like doing is building their team through signing their own players, so they will obviously have to deal with agents if the players they want have one. As long as managers are dealing with transfers then we will be dealing with agents as well since interaction with the agent is part of the contract negotiations.

Half true, but at the same time we don't negoatiate image rights etc. currently do we. Not everything contract related is in the game (particularly for major transfers), so there's no particular reason why agent fees have to be done by us if there's particular disquiet amongst the community about them. Agents themselves should stay ofc...

I have stop playing the game due stupid Release Clause even If I pay high Fee for Agents

I have got World Class Left back that I want to renew the contract before big club come in and Snap my players up because I have made mistake(I know it is my fault!) on Release clause of last season....

When I want to renew his contract and He did accept £75,000 a week but he want his Release Clause of £11.25 which what I have paid him last season!!!

Sound Stupid as I want put Release Clause of £30m which is acceptable for my Club!!!

I going back on Playing FM 2010 when the 3RD Patch come out and I hoping it does Fixed the Wages demand and Agents and Release Clause too!

Thank you, i have seen so many deals go down the pan because of silly release clauses that the players requires, it even sillier when we are talking about premier league players all wanting release clauses, when in real life very few have and request them.

A more pertinent question is whether the implementation of agents adds anything substantial to the game?

As of right now the agent is just another layer of fees you have to pay (could have been subsumed under sign-on fee surely?)

and yet another way to jeopardize contract negotiations (granted, I have managed to save money overall by offering more agent fees but this is quite rare...)

Result? Frustration for managers.

To make matters worse, the manager has no way of influencing the hiring and firing or even the behavior of the agents,

so e.g. your most loyal player will not overrule his agent to sign a new deal and will be forced to leave the club (while being Unhappy that he's being forced out of the club ha!).

To people who said that there are agents in RL therefore the game should have it,

there are tons of things in RL that should never be implemented in the game (e.g. requiring managers to watch 90 minutes every game, watching players train everyday),

so I don't see how RL can be the primary justification of including agents.

Agents are awesome! I'm glad they are there.

Agents add to the realism, even if they are annoying.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_prem/9244286.stm

This link shows the agent fees paid by EPL clubs. Seems like FM is pretty much spot on.

all of the agents that i deal with have a fierce dislike of me as i never give them the terms they are looking for. has anyone ever gone from a fierce dislike to a happy relationship by giving a agent the contact they are looking for.

Realistic addition and economically relevant irl, i.e. a good addition as such.

The 'how' may need some fine-tuning however as most new additions to FM did over the last years.

This is just a complete joke. They need to be taken out as they don't work properly. It's as simple as that.

A player can never move again because of an agent. Example - Trying to sign Torres for Real. Real have 200million to spend, they are 800k below the wage limit but the agent wants 15million? What kind of absolute joke is that? There isn't a club in the world who can pay that, or a board in the world who would allow that. With the richest club in the world, the most I can offer an agent is around 8 million.

Yet another broken gimmick to make the box look a bit shinier. Get rid of it ffs.

When I started out I did my best to remove the agent fee from every negotiation, normally by transferring some or all of that money to the signing on fee. Now I just accept whatever the agent wants to reduce the negotiation time, but I haven't played the game at a top club yet.

They are decent enough for a first try at implementing them. Currently they seem to completely out for themselves and not really acting in the interests of their clients. I really shouldn't be able to get a player to accept a wage cut by throwing extra money at the agent, I don't think that increasing the agent fee should really increase the chance of a player signing a new contract or moving to your club. Also where is the option to say that the player employs the agent so they pay him not my club? I'm naive I know :o. At the very least there should be some sort of interaction options that allow to blast an agent for causing talks to break down over their fee and that it has an actual affect (player sacks their agent, forces them to accept a lower fee, player/agent completely refuses to deal with you, etc...).

I always thought agent fees in real life are a percentage of the signing on fee and possibly the transfer fee. It is surprising that they are negotiated seperately as it creates the constant conflict of interest between the agent and the player he is representing.

Agents add to the realism, even if they are annoying.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_prem/9244286.stm

This link shows the agent fees paid by EPL clubs. Seems like FM is pretty much spot on.

No, you are completely misrepresenting facts to defend the game.

The link you provided actually proves that agent fees are broken, thus agents are broken. BBC says, for example, that Liverpool paid 9m for agent fees in 2010 IN TOTAL, while in FM it's not uncommon that an agent asks 6 or 7 or 8m for just ONE transfer.

Agents is another broken feature of the game like so many others and does not work properly, like so many others.

Agent fee can be helpful. I usually increase the agent fee and decrease other payments or players yearly wage. For example, if you increase agent fee by 50 k€ and decrease players signing on fee by 100 k€, agents usually accept your offer.

cant say ive been forced to pay too much by agents, but the figures need to be tweaked downwards

Like most new additions SI implements, they are more of an annoyance, even game breaking, than good stuff.

Like most new additions SI implements, they are more of an annoyance, even game breaking, than good stuff.

Old additions also remain underdeveloped and still create problem in the game. It's not only the new ones.

Good (y) Realism is the key.

Good (y) Realism is the key.

What the wise poster above me said.

andy, see if you can guess who i am, only just seen u on this forum, diddnt even know u played FM, thought u were a COD man.

Agents add to the realism, even if they are annoying.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_prem/9244286.stm

This link shows the agent fees paid by EPL clubs. Seems like FM is pretty much spot on.

I did a little spreadsheet a while back that showed that Premier League clubs paid around 12% (I think it was 12%) of agent fees on transfers, and this assumed that transfers didn't include agent fees anyway and that no agent fees were paid for outgoing transfers. In other words, 12% is an upper-bound. You will get "super-agents" like Zahavi who will undoubtably take bigger cuts but these are rare.

So fees in Football Manager are miles off what they are now - I see lots of 20%-of-transfer-fee payments all over which is, quite frankly, wrong. In addition, when an agent gets angry he becomes difficult to deal with - in reality, once an agent (or any employee, in fact) starts to bring his own personal feelings into his work, his employers get shot of him. A world-class player is not expendable - but an agent most certainly is. We should see players firing agents more frequently if their own demands become a stumbling block - although an angry agent isn't necessarily bad for the player (i.e. you are offering zero commission to the agent - the player won't fire the agent because of this).

You may argue that if you own a shop and I annoy you, you will charge me extra because you don't like me. The difference is that someone is employing you to sell things in your shop, and if you ask for too much of a "cut", your employer will fire you very quickly. In other words, you cannot simply charge me extra because you don't like me.

This is unless you hold some form of monopoly - i.e. you are the best salesman in the world. In that case, that's different - you hold more cards. But this is akin to "super-agents" - and very few of those exist.

I would argue agents are realism for the sake of realism and are no fun at all. How can you use agents to your advantage? You can't! You should be able to use agents to annoy and tap-up players yourself, which is using agents to your advantage. Here, all agents do are annoy you - the most fun experience with an agent you can get is where he doesn't take any money at all, which is silly.

Good (y) Realism is the key.

An agent asking for 15million isn't realistic.

An agent destroying his clients chances of going to the club of his dreams isn't realistic.

An agent trying to double what his client wants in wages and to then not budge or negotiate and then ruin his clients chances of going to a good club/ club of his dreams isn't realistic.

It's seriously flawed. If it gets fixed to make it 'realistic' then keep it in there, until then, get rid of it.

No, you are completely misrepresenting facts to defend the game.

The link you provided actually proves that agent fees are broken, thus agents are broken. BBC says, for example, that Liverpool paid 9m for agent fees in 2010 IN TOTAL, while in FM it's not uncommon that an agent asks 6 or 7 or 8m for just ONE transfer.

Agents is another broken feature of the game like so many others and does not work properly, like so many others.

That's a fair point. I haven't managed in the top 4 leagues yet. From my own experiences with smaller leagues it seems to be ok. And I don't really defend the game at all. I thought it was one of the few things that maybe SI got right this time. But apparently not.

I think the agent fees are quite unrealistic and not well replicated in the game, if it can't be dont properly then they should look to improve the system or just take it out completely. Transfer this year have become a lot harder due to agents requesting ridiculous signing on fees for players.

You should be able to use agents to annoy and tap-up players yourself, which is using agents to your advantage.

Ah, yes. IRL agents are used to do sneaky or even illegal things. It's unlikely "tapping up" will be allowed in the game.

An agent asking for 15million isn't realistic.

An agent destroying his clients chances of going to the club of his dreams isn't realistic.

An agent trying to double what his client wants in wages and to then not budge or negotiate and then ruin his clients chances of going to a good club/ club of his dreams isn't realistic.

It's seriously flawed. If it gets fixed to make it 'realistic' then keep it in there, until then, get rid of it.

I'm a the point where this scenario is now a game breaker for me. I can't do any business with the top players in the world because of agents. I can't sign them no matter how rich I am.

What a complete mess this version of FM is, and we've had two patches already.

I feel agents are kind of pointless to be honest.

In exchange for higher fees when signing a players you get instant contract negotiations and an occasional message in your inbox saying a particular player might be willing to sign for your club.

It's bearable in lower leagues, where agents (if a player has one) demand very little but I imagine the fees become a pain in high rep leagues. When spending £20 mil on a player you don't really consider the extra 3 or so mil you will have to pay the agent.

Overall I don't think the existence of agents in the game has been justified sufficiently. There is some potential there however: eg. influencing agents to convince their clients to sign for other clubs.

I feel agents are kind of pointless to be honest.

In exchange for higher fees when signing a players you get instant contract negotiations and an occasional message in your inbox saying a particular player might be willing to sign for your club.

It's bearable in lower leagues, where agents (if a player has one) demand very little but I imagine the fees become a pain in high rep leagues. When spending £20 mil on a player you don't really consider the extra 5-13 or so mil you will have to pay the agent.

Overall I don't think the existence of agents in the game has been justified sufficiently. There is some potential there however: eg. influencing agents to convince their clients to sign for other clubs.

Fixed it for you.

When trying to sign a player the agent wouldn't accept below 9.75million. He asked for around 15 million to start with. When I did finally get the contract accepted, they came back, the offer was laughed at and they refused it. Bear in mind I was managing the richest club in the world, I offered 230k a week in wages, and 9.75mill in signing on fees for player and agent. I could offer no more.

It's not just a problem with agents, it's also a problem with player wages, but thats a whole new issue.

You can make the game less enjoyable by adding more realistic things, I hate press conferences and dealing with agents to be honest.

I just added 900million to Reals transfer budget, and I can't offer more than 8million in agent fees. I offered a 50% of the profit to the player sell on clause (maximum), 2.75million for team of the year (maximum), 275k in appearance fees (maximum) and so on and so forth. The agent would not go below 12.75mill, apparently he no longer likes me because I wouldn't give into his ridiculous demands.

To say it's flawed is an understatement. This whole thread should be in the bugs forum.