Should Lawyers be Exempt from the FIFA Football Agent’s Exam?
Jonathan Booker
Resolving Costly Sports Disputes Before They Escalate | In the business of 'score-draws', and avoiding expensive 'losses'.
With the new FIFA Football Agent Regulations (FFAR) due to be approved (supposedly) in the next couple of months (June/July 2022), the question has been asked whether lawyers should be exempt from sitting the agent’s exam as is the case for those ‘licensed agents’ who passed the exam pre-2015.
I may well be walking blindly into a ‘minefield’ with this article, yet as with much of what I have written in recent years, my intention is to promote meaningful discussion and constructive debate …….. along with a little ‘rattling of cages’ and ‘rocking of boats’ along the way ??
This article was prompted by something I read a month or so ago, from a discussion between a group, mainly comprised of lawyers - as to whether under the newly proposed (and supposedly final) draft of the FIFA Football Agent Regulations (FFAR), whether lawyers should also be exempt from sitting the proposed exam (and some other stipulations for Licensed Football Agents) as with “former FIFA licensed agents” (the comments referring to Art.21. of the said draft).
Now, this is a topic I touched on somewhat several years ago, and still, it remains a ‘bug-bear’ of mine, not least because of the superiority complex some lawyers have when it comes to football and the role of agents. Yet, this is further compounded by the fact that the lawyers who seemingly have such a mindset are not necessarily the good ones, and the good lawyers respect the work that professional and conscientious football agents do and ultimately wouldn’t want to be agents due to the nature of the work. ?
Good Agents + Good Lawyers = Shared and Mutual Respect
Like any conscientious and professional agent, I have lawyers whom I can call upon to help, guide and advise both myself and clients on legal matters. Despite overlapping areas in many cases, the knowledge of lawyers in their specialist disciplines is very different; from employment and tax-related legal advice to those of intellectual property and family law (as well as a few specialist niche sports lawyers). As such, sporting clients and my fellow sports agents should be well covered by these legal professionals in terms of legal advice and expertise.
The fact of the matter is that when it comes to an important issue for a client, I wouldn’t advise on a legal issue without expert legal advice on something that I wasn’t 100% sure of (even then I may well double-check). Undoubtedly some agents would ‘guess’ and risk a client’s best interests and welfare to save themselves time, inconvenience or most notably a few pounds/dollars/euros here or there; but I would like to think the majority of professional ones would not take such a gamble.
I would vehemently defend the fact that in football, agents and lawyers work together, and the good ones build mutual respect (if not trust) in one another; in that, they are working collaboratively in the interests of the client. On some occasions, I may query something of a legal nature (if only for my own benefit to understand or resolve an issue) and the lawyer in question may ask me to look into something else that needs to be considered and may not be ‘black and white’ from a legal perspective; but rarely do we encroach on one another’s territory or remit once boundaries are established.
Law vs Football ‘Regulation’
As mentioned in previous articles I don’t hide the fact that my best friend is a lawyer, and in his discipline, he is the best in the UK at what he does outside of London (if not one of the best in the UK as a whole), but he harbours no desire to get professionally involved in football or sport from an agent’s perspective. In fact, I am safe in the knowledge that he would avoid at all costs the agent industry, having observed (from me) some of the trials and tribulations agents have to tackle, along with the uncertainty and lack of robust and meaningful regulations.
Many times, we lament the peculiarities that exist between law and football regulation, and the seemingly prevalent actions of football (and football regulation) to contradict the law, but also include a caveat in regulation so that the authorities aren’t actually breaking the law (or encouraging others to do so) with the regulations.
So, for that reason, I would say that this is the first argument that it is indeed necessary for lawyers to sit the FFAR agent’s exam as with any other person who wasn’t licensed prior to 2015. Not solely for the reason that the applicable FIFA (and national agent) regulations may be different to the law that they know, but also the fact that not understanding the differences and nuances that may exist in football regulation is not just to their disadvantage but also their clients and any associated parties.?
Some Lawyers are Already Exempt
A little-known fact is that some lawyers may already be exempt from the exam and licensing procedure proposed by FIFA within the final draft of the new FFAR, in that they selected to sit the exam voluntarily along with licensed agents prior to 2015. This subsequently allowed them to clearly undertake ‘agent/agency activity’ OR just for the purpose of conscientiously getting a better understanding of the football agent and other football regulations.
Now, these lawyers are the ones I believe many professional agents have high regard for, not least as many of them could have opted out of the process and just operated as lawyers (a question for another day, is how many breached either football, legal or employee regulations in operating as ‘agents’ without consent).
In addition to this, something that not many people will be aware of, is that some lawyers were exempt from the previous football agent licensing exam and were allowed to operate as ‘authorised agents’ rather than ‘licensed agents’. One territory in which this occurred was England, whereby there were effectively four categories of FA ‘authorised agents’ (Licensed Agents, Registered Close Relations, Registered Overseas Agents and Registered Lawyers) for which only one category had to pass the exam (Licensed Agents).
This seeming ‘peculiarity’ in football agent regulations, exacerbated by FIFA’s proposed FFAR could well cause FIFA (if not the likes of the English FA) further ‘headaches’ in making exemptions for some with regards to the exam and the licensing process under the new FFAR. What do they do?
Yet, as I mentioned before some lawyers chose to take the exam rather than grasp the ‘free pass’, and for them, I have great respect. And some others choose to work with (licensed) agents and focus on the legal side of the work, which is declared NOT to be part of ‘agent/agency activity’.
I cannot honestly say whether in their position I would have taken up the same option of a ‘free pass’ on the exam, I would like to think I wouldn’t, being safe in the knowledge that in researching the regulations and with legal knowledge and professional status as a legal professional, I should almost ‘breeze’ through the exam (besides its reportedly low pass rate of less than 20% in many jurisdictions) but with a greater understanding of the industry and greater respect for others who passed whether they be lawyers or licensed agents.
This is not to say those lawyers who took up the ‘free pass’ for the exam are bad when it comes to acting in a football agent capacity; they are no different to the football intermediaries who came into existence in 2015, whereby no one acting as a ‘football agent’ had to take an exam (with a few national exceptions). The fact is there are good ones, there are bad ones and some very bad ones; some chose to research the regulations, whilst others just chose to ‘wing it’ and further damage the industry for both clients (players and clubs), stakeholders and others acting as ‘football agents’.
The Good, The Bad and The ‘Ambulance Chasers’
Over recent years, the number of so-called and self-proclaimed ‘sports’ lawyers (particularly in football) has exploded, and to an extent, sports law is indeed developing into a recognised area of law, which it arguably wasn’t several years ago.
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Whilst there are some very good lawyers and barristers who specialise in sports law (you know who you are, if you are reading this DKP, NDM, JM, PP, GR, MM, PF, DC, MS, TC etc) this like any other industry is accompanied by the ‘not so good’ and the ‘pretenders’, who see it as glamorous and/or lucrative to label themselves as a sports lawyer over that of an employment lawyer, wills and trusts lawyer, or conveyancing lawyer etc (no insult intended to those specialist legal areas).
Over the years, I have come across many individuals who are ‘qualified’ lawyers (of various levels) and thus ‘dabble’ in the area of football agency work. Some who are seemingly barely able or willing to complete a ‘wills’ kit from Amazon, to some extremely credible specialists (in other legal areas) and seemingly operate as an agent for a bit of ‘extra cash’ and or ‘extra kudos’, often without the knowledge and/or consent of their law firm.
The knowledge demonstrated by these individuals varies (both in terms of applicable law and football regulation), but if they have not researched the aspect of football regulations and the agent industry, their level of knowledge of the regulations and the nuances is often shocking, and therefore allowing for such individuals to be exempt from a basic FFAR exam is ill-advised.
Hence, this is again another reason why I believe Lawyers should not be exempt from the FFAR exam for agents, as there is no guarantee as to the area of legal knowledge they possess, how (or even if) this knowledge is applicable to football and football agent regulations, or if they have read up on the regulations that ‘licensed football agents’ will need to be aware of for sitting the exam.
The term ‘ambulance chasers’ has sometimes been used in the past for those legal practitioners who chase a ‘quick-buck’, often out of someone else’s misfortune, misadventure or even naivety. A similar opportunistic streak seems to be evident in the world of football agency, whereby some ‘lawyers’ and legal ‘professionals’ have seemingly sidled into a football agent role simply because they are a lawyer and the perceived ‘glamour’ of the industry, ego trip, title and potentially lucrative rewards are very attractive (please note: some such ‘characters’ I have met were personal injury and accident/misfortune ‘specialists/lawyers’). From personal experience, these so-called ‘professionals’ are not a patch on some of their professional legal ‘colleagues’ and indeed tarnish the image and reputation of the lawyers who know the sports industry as well as arguably the legal profession as a whole.
In addition to this, whilst they supposedly act as ‘agents’, they are often the least conscientious of ‘agents’; available to the player when there is a contract to sign, transfer to process or glamourous awards evening to attend ….. but when the player needs help with personal, family or other less glamorous and often non-sporting issues in ‘out of office’ hours (the less glamourous side of an agent role), the support is rarely there, unlike with many conscientious agents.
If I Was Several Years Younger and More Academic
After many years of being an agent; I still question why, oh why, oh why, oh why ……………………. Oh why !!!! would a lawyer want to be a football agent – after the many years of study (supposedly for some) that lawyers have undertaken to qualify, and the struggle for a place at a firm in such a reportedly competitive profession.
So, quite sadly I can draw three conclusions for the clamour of some ‘lawyers’ to be football agents:
The sad fact is that if I was more academically astute, and several years younger, I would possibly look to retrain as a lawyer rather than undertake the slog and frustration of being an agent. So why do perfectly able lawyers (1) want the role as a football agent, and (2) why do some want a ‘free pass’ of being exempt from the exam?
When I have been contacted on many occasions by ‘aspiring’ agents, I have always said to them the same thing …… if you have the time, ability and drive to play a valuable role in the ‘agency world’, look to qualify in a legal discipline first (even as a lawyer). Use a foundation of knowledge in such areas as employment law, governance, arbitration, intellectual property, litigation to work yourself into the realm of sports law as a niche. Your market value will not only be tenfold that of an agent, but you will have a specialist area to fall back on when your ‘love’ of the sports world inevitably wanes from time to time.
Added to that fact when you consider the qualifications, courses, and development that a qualified lawyer has to contend with …. the notion seeking exemption for a comparatively simple multiple-choice test limited to football regulations related to players and agents should be a ‘walk in the park’ for any able lawyer.
Conclusion
So, with all this taken into consideration, I draw the conclusion that NO, lawyers should not be exempt from FIFA’s agent’s exam under the proposed FFAR, if only because:
The Original Article 'Should Lawyers be Exempt from the FIFA Football Agent’s Exam?' ?can be read at :
Co-Founder of The Football Week | COO @ Sports Agent Academy | Sports Recruitment | LLM, MA, LLB
2 年Super insightful! Thank you very much! ????
CEO & Founder of Giants Sports | FIFA Licensed Football Agent | Licensed ID 202408-8107
2 年no. Because FIFA rules and regulations and acting as football agent is unique and you must have full understanding of the sport and the rules that govern it to operate as an agent. If you have law certification and you do not know anything about soccer that can jeopardize the sport. So i will say anyone with knowledge of the sport in the business and playing aspect of it should be licensed.