A fascinating insight to the life of a football agent.
Eamon McLoughlin is a former League of Ireland footballer who, for most of the last two decades, has made a career from the cutthroat world of life as a football agent.
Working primarily for Premier League clubs and players, as well as in Europe, McLoughlin has dealt with a number of high profile signings ever since he started out by representing former Ireland internationals Graham Barrett and Liam Miller when they were in the reserves at Arsenal and Celtic respectively.
Speaking to JOE’s business podcast The Capital B, McLoughlin told host Nick Webb about some of the stranger clauses he has seen inserted into players’ contracts.
One clause, in particular, stands out (although, unfortunately, he can’t name the player involved).
“I’ve seen a clause where there was a certain player who, if he was involved in the build-up to a goal, and if he touched the ball in a move where they scored, that he’d get a bonus,” he revealed.
“This player was trying to take goal-kicks, throw-ins, trying to get a touch of the ball in every move whether it was from right-back or left-back. He’d be keeping his fingers crossed that somebody up the pitch would do something.”
By and large, however, contracts remain the same across the Premier League. As McLoughlin points out, Wayne Rooney will sign the same standardised contract that a 17-year-old at Bournemouth would, it’s just the figures at the back of the document – in the ‘schedule’ – that vary.
“It can cover a multitude of things. Premier League contracts are a standardised contract. Wayne Rooney has the same contract as a 17-year-old boy. It’s just that at the back of a contract there’s a schedule. In this schedule you might have one player who gets £200-a-week, and another player who gets £200,000-a-week.
“A contract will include things like, ‘a player has a five-year contract but if (for instance) he gets hit by a bus, he has a one-year contract. If he gets injured playing football, he has a 24-month contract. You don’t have the security of five years just because you signed a five-year contract.”
The schedule, as McLoughlin points out, is the interesting part as it contains the finer details that separate one player from the next.
“You’ve got signing on fees, loyalty fees, win bonuses, appearance fees. If a player wins international caps. Strikers will have goal bonuses. Defenders and goalkeepers may have clean sheet bonuses.
“Clubs will try to cover themselves and protect themselves and I think that’s why all players now will look to get agents. The club’s priority is to tie a player down for the longest possible time that they can, on terms that suit the clubs.”
Listen to Eamon McLoughlin’s full interview on The Capital B with Nick Webb here:
