Sports Agents and Labour Markets

Giambattista Rossi is currently Lecturer in Sport Labour Markets at Birkbeck, University of London. Holding a PhD in Management from Birkbeck, his research focuses on the economics of the labour market in football. His expertise is on pay-performance relationships, production functions and players’ salaries and transfer fees. In 2011, Giambattista was awarded the CIES-FIFA Joao Havelange Scholarship. He carried out extensive and relevant research on football agents with the big 5 European football leagues. His expertise on the industry of sports agents was also enriched by his previous working experience for a leading football agency in Italy. This has allowed Giambattista to deepen his knowledge and to create his research network Anna Semens is currently Head of Analytics at Havas Sports and Entertainment Cake, with over ten years of experience in the sport and entertainment industry and a Ph.D. focussing on the economics of football - specifically the role of agents in football labour markets. She has consulted for a wide range of football clubs, brands and governing bodies, as well as conducting commissioned research for national governments and the European Commission on various issues relating to commercial and economic aspects of the sports industry Jean Francois Brocard is the General Secretary of the International Association of Sports Economists. He has Master degrees in both Management and Economics from the Ecole Normale Supérieure of Paris. In 2009, he was a member of the research group that conducted the Study of Sport Agents in the European Union on the behalf of the European Commission. At the end of 2012, he was awarded a doctoral degree in Economics, conducting an extensive research on the intermediation of professional athletes in Europe and in the United States. He is currently associate researcher for the Centre for Law and Economics of Sport (CDES) in Limoges. Jean Francois has published extensively on various aspects of the role of intermediaries in the industry of sport in both academic and practitioner publications

1. Introduction: The Business of Football Agents

2. The History of Football Agents

3. Modern Football Agents

4. Market Consolidation and Player Concentration in the Big Five European Leagues

5. Actors and Regulating Framework in the Football Agent Industry

6. Third Party Ownership in Football

7. Conclusion: The need for change