Of all the financial analysis I have done for many years, the one that shocks me most is the amount of money that leaves the game via the agent’s bank accounts – it is a truly astonishing amount and story behind it.

Premier League Agent Payments: A Six-Year Analysis of Expenditure and Regulatory Dynamics (2019-2025)

 The £1.9 Billion Mandate

This report provides a detailed analysis of payments made by English Premier League clubs to football agents and intermediaries over the last six-year period. 

The data, covering the official reporting periods from 1 February 2019 to 3 February 2025, reveals a market of rapidly growing financial significance. Over these six seasons, Premier League clubs committed a  total of approximately £1.94 billion in fees to player representatives. 

This figure demonstrates the increasingly costly role that agents play in the league’s talent acquisition and retention system.

The identifiable financial trend  has been  a dramatic and sustained inflation in agent remuneration. Annual league-wide spending surged by 55.4%, escalating from £263.3 million in the 2019-20 reporting period to a new plateau of £409.1 million by 2024-25. 

This growth trajectory persisted through the financial pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrating a market dynamic where agent fees are insulated from the volatility affecting other areas of football finance, such as transfer fee expenditure.

Expenditure has been consistently concentrated at the top of the league. A small number of clubs—principally Chelsea, Manchester City, and Manchester United—have consistently driven the market, accounting for a disproportionate share of the total spend. Chelsea’s spending has been particularly notable, culminating in a record-breaking single-year outlay of over £75 million in the 2023-24 period, a figure that exceeded the entire combined spend of the 24 clubs in the second-tier EFL Championship during the same timeframe.

The financial data cannot be understood in isolation from its regulatory context. The period was characterised by a major conflict between global governing body FIFA’s ambitious attempts to impose worldwide regulatory reform and the realities of UK competition law. 

FIFA’s Football Agent Regulations (FFAR) sought to introduce a global licensing system and, most critically, a cap on agent service fees. However, a successful legal challenge in the United Kingdom led to the suspension of this fee cap for all domestic English transactions. 

This ruling effectively created a deregulated haven for agent earnings within the world’s wealthiest football league, fueling the unprecedented spending levels observed in the final two years of this report’s scope.

In conclusion, agent fees have transcended their function as a simple transactional cost. They have evolved into a major, strategic, and increasingly burdensome line item in club budgets. The growth in these non-amortisable expenditures presents profound implications for clubs’ financial sustainability and their ability to comply with the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR), making the management of agent costs a central challenge for club executives moving forward.

Changes in Regulation: From Intermediaries to Licensed Agents

To appreciate the scale and trajectory of agent fee expenditure in the Premier League between 2019 and 2025, it is essential to first analyse the evolving regulatory framework that governed these payments. 

The period was marked by a significant push from both domestic and international governing bodies to increase oversight and control over an area of football finance that had long been criticised for its opacity and excess. 

This section details the transition from a largely deregulated system to a new global standard, and the pivotal legal challenge that defined the Premier League’s unique market position.

The Pre-2019 Landscape and the 2019-20 FA Reforms

The reporting period began under the 2015 FIFA regulations, which had controversially abolished the old system of licensed agents and replaced it with a registration system for intermediaries. 

 This move effectively deregulated the industry, removing barriers to entry such as mandatory exams and insurance requirements. The subsequent years saw a sharp rise in agent fees, with Premier League spending reportedly climbing to £260 million in the season prior to this report’s start date (2018-19), attracting increased scrutiny from regulators like HMRC over the propriety of payments.

In response to growing criticism, The Football Association (FA) implemented a series of reforms to its Regulations on Working with Intermediaries for the 2019-2020 season. While not the wholesale overhaul that was being debated at the FIFA level, these changes demonstrated a significant domestic effort to introduce greater transparency and accountability. The key reforms included:

• Codification of Fiduciary Duties: The regulations explicitly stated that an intermediary must act in the best interests of their client and adhere to core fiduciary duties: avoiding conflicts of interest, not profiting at the client’s expense, offering undivided loyalty, and maintaining confidentiality. While these duties already existed in common law, their inclusion in FA regulations made breaches a regulatory offense.
• Mandatory Offer Notification: New rules required intermediaries to inform their player clients of any formal contract offer, both orally and in writing, within 24 hours of receipt. This was designed to prevent agents from withholding offers that might be in a player’s interest but less financially lucrative for the agent themselves.
• Annual Financial Reporting: A crucial transparency measure was introduced oblging intermediaries to provide their player clients with an annual report detailing all payments made to the intermediary, whether by the player directly or by a club on the player’s behalf. The FA also reserved the right to request these reports, simplifying the analysis of money flows.

These FA reforms were a clear precursor to the more sweeping changes being developed by FIFA, signaling a regulatory shift towards greater scrutiny and control.

FIFA’s Global Overhaul: The FFAR Era

Frustrated by what it viewed as a decade of spiraling costs and “excessive and abusive” practices, FIFA embarked on a comprehensive reform of the transfer system. Citing that a total of US$ 3.5 billion had been paid in intermediary service fees for international transfers alone over the preceding decade, FIFA’s objective was to establish a “fairer and more transparent transfer system”. The culmination of this effort was the FIFA Football Agent Regulations (FFAR), which began to enter into force in 2023.

The FFAR were built on three core pillars intended to professionalise the industry and curb excessive remuneration:

1. Reintroduction of Licensing: The intermediary  designation was abolished, and a mandatory licensing system for football agents was reintroduced. Prospective agents were once again required to pass a rigorous exam to obtain a FIFA license, a prerequisite for conducting any agent services worldwide.
2. The ‘Client-Pays’ Model: The FFAR introduced a foundational principle that an agent should be paid directly by their client (the player, coach, or club they represent). While an exception was made allowing a club to pay the agent’s fee on behalf of a player or coach earning below a certain threshold (US$ 200,000 per year), the rule was designed to increase transparency and make players more aware of the costs being paid for their representation.
3. The Service Fee Cap: The most controversial and impactful element of the FFAR was the introduction of a hard cap on agent service fees. The cap was structured based on the client and the value of the transaction. For example, an agent representing a player and the engaging (buying) club could earn a maximum of 6% of the player’s remuneration (if above US$ 200,000 annually). An agent representing the releasing (selling) club would be capped at 10% of the transfer compensation.

The UK Legal Challenge and its Market-Defining Impact

While FIFA’s regulations were designed for global application, their implementation at a national level was subject to domestic law. In England, the FA’s plan to adopt the FFAR, including the fee cap, was met with a decisive legal challenge from a coalition of four leading player agencies. Their central argument was that the proposed fee cap was anti-competitive and constituted an unlawful restraint of trade under UK competition law.

The challenge resulted in arbitration proceedings, and in November 2023, an FA tribunal delivered a landmark ruling. It found that key elements of the FFAR, most notably the service fee cap, were indeed incompatible with British competition law.

The consequences of this ruling were immediate and profound. The FA was forced to announce that it would not be implementing the fee cap for transactions within its jurisdiction. This meant that while agents operating in other countries might be subject to FIFA’s caps, any transfer into or within England, or any contract negotiation with an English club, would remain uncapped.

This legal outcome created a significant regulatory divergence between the English football market and the global framework FIFA had intended to impose. The Premier League, already the world’s most lucrative domestic competition, became a de facto regulatory safe haven where agents’ earning potential remained unlimited. This decoupling from the global standard is not a minor detail; it is a primary causal factor for the explosive growth in agent fee expenditure observed in the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons. It fundamentally altered the market dynamics, making the Premier League an even more attractive destination for the world’s most powerful agents and their elite clients, thereby concentrating agent power and earning potential within the English game.

Premier League Aggregate Expenditure Analysis (2019-2025)

An examination of the Premier League’s aggregate spending on agent fees from 2019 to 2025 reveals a market of relentless growth and with an outsized global footprint. The total expenditure over this period not only charts a steep upward trajectory but also highlights the unique financial power of English football and the entrenched economic influence of player representatives.

Year-Over-Year Growth and Market Trends

As illustrated in Table 1 below, the total amount paid by Premier League clubs to agents and intermediaries increased from £263.4 million in the 2019-20 reporting period to £409.1 million in 2024-25, a total increase of 55.4% over the six years. The most significant year-over-year jump occurred in the 2023-24 period, which saw spending leap by 28.7% to an all-time high of £409.6 million. This spike correlates with the first full reporting period following the UK tribunal’s decision to suspend the implementation of FIFA’s proposed agent fee cap, confirming the market impact of that legal ruling.

England’s Global Dominance

The scale of Premier League spending is even more striking when placed in a global context. 

Official reports from FIFA consistently demonstrate that English clubs are, by a substantial margin, the world’s foremost spenders on agent services. In its 2022 report on international transfers, FIFA noted that clubs worldwide paid US$ 622.8 million in intermediary fees. Of that total, English clubs were responsible for US$ 203.2 million, or nearly a third of the global sum. 

This figure was more than double the amount spent by clubs from the next-highest nation, Italy (US$ 88.5 million), and more than the combined total of clubs from Spain, Germany, and France. 

This pattern of dominance was consistent throughout the period, with English clubs frequently covering a significant portion of the worldwide total for agent commissions in international transfers.

The Insulation of Agent Fees 

One of the most telling trends observed during this six-year period is the resilience of agent fee expenditure to external market shocks, most notably the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic triggered a significant global contraction in the player transfer market as club revenues from ticketing and commercial activities plummeted. FIFA’s global reports show that club spending on transfer fees shrank dramatically, falling by 23.4% in 2020 and a further 13.9% in 2021.

Logically, one would therefore expect agent commissions, which are heavily tied to transfer activity, to decline in tandem. 

However, the data reveals the opposite. Global spending on intermediary services in 2021 remained on the same level as in 2020 and even slightly increased by 0.7%.

While the world was in financial turmoil, the league’s aggregate spend on agents actually rose by 3.4% between the 2019-20 and 2020-21 reporting periods, from £263.3 million to £272.2 million.

This divergence demonstrates that agent remuneration is not solely a variable cost dependent on a buoyant transfer market. A significant portion of these fees is generated by other activities, particularly the negotiation of new and extended contracts for existing players. 

During the uncertainty of the pandemic, securing the long-term services of key assets became a strategic priority for many clubs, and this activity continued to generate substantial fees for agents. This confirms the structural power of agents within the football economy. Their income streams are diversified across both new acquisitions and talent retention, insulating their earnings from the volatility that affects other financial aspects of the sport and cementing their fees as a fixed, high-level operating cost for clubs.

 Club-by-Club 

This section provides a season-by-season breakdown of agent and intermediary fee payments for every Premier League club between the 2019-20 and 2024-25 reporting periods. 

Each subsection presents a data table followed by an analysis of the market dynamics, spending patterns, and key events that defined that specific year.

2019-2020: The Pre-Pandemic Benchmark (1 Feb 2019 – 31 Jan 2020)

The 2019-20 period serves as a crucial baseline, representing the financial landscape immediately preceding the global disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent regulatory battles.

• Aggregate Spend: £263,368,860.
• Market Leaders: The top of the spending table was dominated by the league’s financial heavyweights. Liverpool, then the reigning European champions, led all clubs with an outlay of £30.3 million. They were closely followed by Manchester City (£29.0 million), Manchester United (£27.6 million), and Chelsea (£26.2 million). Together, these four clubs accounted for over £113 million, or 43% of the entire league’s expenditure on agent fees.

• This season’s spending distribution reflects a period of relative stability and predictable hierarchy. The highest-spending clubs were those actively competing at the pinnacle of domestic and European football, investing heavily in both new talent and the retention of their world-class squads. Liverpool’s position at the top was indicative of the costs associated with maintaining a Champions League-winning and Premier League-challenging team. 
• At the other end of the spectrum, Burnley (£3.9 million), Sheffield United (£4.3 million), and Norwich City (£4.9 million) demonstrated the significant financial gap between the top tier and the rest of the league.

2020-2021: Financial Resilience Amidst COVID-19 (1 Feb 2020 – 1 Feb 2021)

This period was defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which shut down football for several months and forced matches to be played in empty stadiums, causing severe revenue losses for all clubs. Despite this, total spending on agent fees paradoxically increased.

• Aggregate Spend: £272,220,223, a 3.4% increase from the previous year.
• Market Leaders: Chelsea surged to the top of the table with a £35.2 million spend, over £5 million more than the next-highest spender, Manchester City (£30.2 million). Manchester United remained in third place with £29.8 million.
• The league’s aggregate increase was almost single-handedly driven by Chelsea’s summer transfer window. The club invested heavily to sign players such as Kai Havertz, Timo Werner, and Ben Chilwell, with the associated agent fees propelling their total to the top of the league. This demonstrated how the spending strategy of one highly capitalised club can skew the entire league’s financial data, masking the more cautious approach taken by others during the pandemic’s peak uncertainty. Liverpool, the previous year’s top spender, saw their fees decrease to £21.7 million. At the bottom, newly promoted West Bromwich Albion spent the least at £4.2 million.

2021-2022: The Market Rebounds (2 Feb 2021 – 31 Jan 2022)

As football began to emerge from the worst of the pandemic’s financial impact, this period saw a return to higher transfer activity, which was reflected in the agent fee expenditures of the top clubs.

• Aggregate Spend: £272,559,945, a marginal 0.1% increase, indicating a market plateau after the previous year’s surprise rise.
• Market Leaders: Manchester City reclaimed the top position with a spend of £35.0 million. They were followed by Manchester United at £29.0 million and Chelsea at £28.2 million, re-establishing the dominance of the ‘big three’ spenders.
• The high figures at the top were driven by major transactions. Manchester City’s spend was  influenced by the British record £100 million signing of Jack Grealish, while Manchester United’s outlay was linked to the high-profile acquisitions of Cristiano Ronaldo, Jadon Sancho, and Raphael Varane. Chelsea’s figures included fees related to the £98 million transfer of Romelu Lukaku. While the top of the league spent heavily, the flat overall total suggests that clubs further down the table were exercising greater financial caution as they continued their post-pandemic recovery. Newly promoted Brentford recorded the lowest spend in the division at just under £3.5 million, less than a tenth of Manchester City’s payments.

2022-2023: Record Spending and Ownership Influence (1 Feb 2022 – 31 Jan 2023)

This season marked an end to post-pandemic caution, with a surge in spending across the league, influenced by major player acquisitions and new ownership capital.

• Aggregate Spend: £318,211,327, a substantial 16.7% increase from the previous year, breaking the £300 million barrier for the first time.
• Market Leaders: Manchester City once again led the league with a spend of £51.6 million. Chelsea, in their first full reporting period under the new ownership of the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital consortium, were close behind at £43.2 million. Liverpool (£33.7 million) and Manchester United (£24.7 million) completed the top four.
• Analysis: The market was supercharged by several high-value transfers. Manchester City’s top spot was driven by fees associated with the landmark signing of Erling Haaland, among others. Chelsea’s aggressive spending strategy under its new owners was immediately apparent, culminating in the January British transfer record signing of Enzo Fernandez from Benfica. This influx of new capital and ambition at Chelsea, combined with City’s continued investment, drove the league-wide total to a new record. At the other end, newly promoted Nottingham Forest, despite a huge volume of incoming transfers, recorded the lowest agent fee spend at £4.4 million, suggesting a strategy focused on lower-value deals.

2023-2024: Breaching the £400 Million Threshold (1 Feb 2023 – 1 Feb 2024)

This reporting period was defined by the direct consequences of the UK’s regulatory divergence from FIFA’s FFAR. With the proposed agent fee cap suspended, spending rocketed to an unprecedented level.

• Aggregate Spend: £409,592,929, a 28.7% year-over-year increase.
• Market Leaders: Chelsea set an  all-time Premier League record with an astronomical spend of £75.1 million on agent fees. This figure was nearly £15 million higher than the second-place spender, Manchester City (£60.6 million). Manchester United (£34.1 million) and Liverpool (£31.5 million) were distant third and fourth.
• Analysis: The record-breaking spend is a result of the uncapped fee environment. Chelsea’s figure, which covered 71 separate player transactions, is a result of a strategy of high-volume, high-cost squad overhaul under its new ownership, with agents capitalising on the absence of commission limits. The increase across the league indicates that this was not an isolated phenomenon; the entire market recalibrated to the new regulatory reality. The £409.6 million total highlights the financial power wielded by agents in the English market. At the opposite end, newly promoted Luton Town spent just £2 million,  illustrating the chasm between the financial operations at the top and bottom of the league.

2024-2025: Sustained High-Level Expenditure (2 Feb 2024 – 3 Feb 2025)

The final period covered in this report shows that the spending levels of the previous year were not an anomaly but the establishment of a new, elevated financial benchmark for the league.

• Aggregate Spend: £409,137,387, a marginal 0.1% decrease but effectively maintaining the new £400 million-plus plateau.
• Market Leaders: Chelsea remained the Premier League’s top spender for a third consecutive year, with an outlay of £60.4 million. While this was a reduction from their previous year’s record, it was still a colossal sum. Manchester City (£52.1 million) and Manchester United (£33.0 million) rounded out the top three.
• Analysis: This season confirms that the £400 million mark has become the new standard for annual agent fee expenditure in the Premier League’s uncapped market. The sustained level of spending, even with a slight dip, indicates that clubs have fully integrated these higher costs into their operational budgets. The spending hierarchy remained largely consistent, with Aston Villa (£25.1 million) and Newcastle United (£24.4 million) cementing their places in the top tier of spenders, reflecting their ambitions to challenge for European places. At the bottom, newly promoted Ipswich Town had the league’s lowest spend at £6.2 million.

Comparative Analysis of Club Spending 

Analysing the agent fee data over the entire six-year period reveals distinct and persistent spending hierarchies within the Premier League. A club’s cumulative expenditure on agent fees is not just a reflection of its transfer activity; it serves as a proxy for its financial muscle, ownership model, and strategic ambition. The long-term data paints a clear picture of the league’s financial stratification.

The Financial Elite

A select group of clubs consistently occupies the top of the spending tables, driving the market and setting the financial pace for the rest of the league. Over the six seasons, Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United, and Liverpool have demonstrated a sustained commitment to high-level expenditure on agent services.

• Chelsea emerged as the single largest spender over the period, driven by an unprecedented outlay in the final three years following their change in ownership. Their total spend of over £266 million is a testament to an aggressive, high-volume strategy of squad rebuilding.
• Manchester City’s consistently high spending, totaling over £258 million, reflects a long-term strategy of continuous, elite-level squad enhancement necessary to maintain their domestic and European dominance.
• Manchester United and Liverpool also feature prominently, with cumulative spends of over £178 million and £160 million, respectively. Their expenditure underscores the non-negotiable cost of competing for major trophies, which requires the constant acquisition and, crucially, the expensive retention of world-class talent—a process invariably managed by powerful and highly compensated agents.

Challengers

Below the financial elite sits a challenger tier of clubs, whose spending is substantial but often more cyclical, correlating with specific periods of investment aimed at breaking into or solidifying a position in European competition. 

Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur are the primary members of this group, with six-year totals exceeding £112 million and £97 million, respectively. Their spending patterns often show significant year-to-year variance, reflecting targeted investment in key transfer windows. 

More recently, clubs such as Aston Villa and Newcastle United have joined this tier, with their spending on agent fees accelerating significantly following injections of new ownership capital and a clear strategic shift towards challenging the established order.

The Pragmatists and Promoted Clubs

The lower half of the spending table is populated by clubs operating under more constrained financial models. Teams like Brighton & Hove Albion and Brentford consistently record some of the lowest agent fee expenditures among established Premier League clubs. This is not an accident but a reflection of a deliberate club strategy. These clubs prioritise sustainable, data-driven recruitment, often identifying and developing talent before it reaches the peak of the market. By doing so, they actively avoid the inflationary bidding wars and high commission rates that characterize the top end of the player market.

Similarly, newly promoted clubs such as Luton Town, Sheffield United, and Ipswich Town invariably enter the league with the lowest agent fee outlays. Their spending figures highlight the vast financial gulf they must bridge to compete and underscore the different financial reality in which they operate.

A club’s long-term position in the agent fee hierarchy is therefore a clear financial map of its place in the Premier League’s ecosystem. It distinguishes the “buyers” of elite talent and market influence from the clubs that must operate more sustainably. Unlike net transfer spend, which can be skewed by a single large sale, cumulative agent fees represent a consistent and direct cash outflow—a clear measure of a club’s willingness and ability to fund the non-recoupable costs of competing at the highest level.

Everton’s 10th position in the agent’s payment table reflects the managerial turmoil and general instability of a club appallingly managed throughout this time period.

Market Drivers, Projections, and Concluding Analysis

The £1.94 billion spent on agent fees in the Premier League between 2019 and 2025is not an anomaly but the result of a confluence of market forces. Understanding these drivers is crucial for projecting future trends and appreciating the strategic challenges that this escalating cost presents to clubs.

Primary Market Drivers

Four fundamental factors have fueled the hyperinflation of agent fees in English football:

1. Broadcast Revenue Inflation: The Premier League’s colossal domestic and international media rights deals provide the financial foundation for the entire ecosystem. The £5.6 billion earned from international rights alone in the 2022-2025 cycle injects vast sums of capital into the clubs, enabling them to absorb ever-increasing operational costs, of which agent fees are a primary component.
2. Intense On-Pitch Competition: The fierce competition for a limited number of coveted positions—the league title, the top four Champions League qualification spots, and even survival in the league—creates huge competition for talent. This intense demand for a small pool of elite players generates enormous leverage to the agents who represent them, allowing them to command higher fees for their services.
3. The Uncapped UK Market:  The successful legal challenge to the FFAR fee cap has created a uniquely permissive regulatory environment in England. This has made the Premier League the most lucrative market in the world for agents, attracting top representatives and driving commission rates higher than they might be in a capped system.
4. High-Capital Ownership Models: The influx of owners with vast private capital, exemplified by the takeovers at Chelsea and Newcastle United, has had a direct inflationary effect. These ownership models often prioritise rapid, large-scale investment in the playing squad to achieve sporting objectives, and they are willing to sanction the high agent fees necessary to secure their transfer targets.

The Link to Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR)

The escalating cost of agent fees has a  critical impact on clubs’ ability to comply with the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR), which limit allowable losses over a three-year period. While often discussed in the context of transfer fees, agent payments present a distinct and more acute challenge to PSR calculations.

A transfer fee paid for a player is a capital expenditure that can be amortised over the length of the player’s contract. For example, a £50 million transfer fee for a player on a five-year contract is registered as a £10 million annual expense in the PSR accounts. Agent fees, however, are treated as an operational expense. They are a direct, non-amortisable cash outflow that hits the profit and loss account more immediately and fully in a given accounting period.

This distinction makes the growth in agent fees a significant compliance risk. An annual spend of £75.1 million on agent fees, as recorded by Chelsea, is a direct £75.1 million reduction in the club’s PSR calculation for that year. This is financially equivalent to acquiring a star player but provides no corresponding asset value on the balance sheet that can be spread over time. As these non-amortisable costs continue to rise, they place immense pressure on club financial models, particularly for those operating near the PSR loss limits. Consequently, managing agent fee expenditure is no longer just a matter of good business practice; it has become a central component of regulatory compliance.

Future Projections and Market Outlook

Based on the current landscape, the market for agent fees in the Premier League is projected to remain on the elevated plateau of approximately £400 million per annum. The fundamental drivers—high broadcast revenues and intense competition—look set to continue.

The primary variable that could alter this trajectory is regulation. Should a renewed legal or regulatory effort succeed in implementing a form of fee cap that is consistent with UK law, it would fundamentally reshape the market. However, given the precedent set by the 2023 tribunal, this appears unlikely in the short term. 

The more probable source of pressure will come from the PSR (and any new regulatory) framework. Stricter enforcement of existing rules, or a future tightening of the allowable loss thresholds, would compel all clubs, including the wealthiest, to scrutinise every line of expenditure. This could lead to more aggressive negotiating tactics with agents and a greater emphasis on controlling these significant cash outflows.

Conclusion

The 2019-2025 period was transformative, making football agents one of the most powerful and highly remunerated actors in the Premier League ecosystem. Their financial influence, now measured in the hundreds of millions of pounds annually, has been fueled by the combination of broadcast riches, sporting imperatives, and regulatory failure in the UK to implement the cost controls applied at a global level. 

The result is a market where fees have become decoupled from broader economic pressures, creating a formidable and escalating cost base. For the clubs of the Premier League, managing this environment and reining in this expenditure is now one of the most critical financial and regulatory challenges they face.