FIFA committee recommends caps on agents' fees, loan deals

A prominent FIFA committee has approved proposals to cap agents' commissions at 10% for selling clubs and 3% for buying clubs, while also limiting loan deals to an initial eight per season.

FIFA's Football Stakeholders Committee rubber-stamped the plans on Wednesday. The FIFA Council will determine whether to enact the changes when it meets on Oct. 24.

The new reforms would look to curb the growing influence of agents and the vast sums of money they take from the game. According to FIFA, agents made $2.14 billion from 2013-18.

The committee is recommending regulating an industry that has run rampant for nearly two decades. Since 2001, agents haven't been licensed by FIFA.

Despite the obvious conflict of interest, those agents have continued to operate as representatives for both the buying and selling clubs in a single transaction. The proposals would force agents like Mino Raiola to work for one or the other.

For instance, Raiola earned a reported €40 million from all three parties in the deal that took Paul Pogba from Juventus to Manchester United in 2016.

In an effort to solve the issue, the committee agreed that agents representing selling clubs should earn no more than 10% of the transfer fee. Agents working for buying clubs would get only 3% of the sum.

The committee is also taking aim at teams that stockpile talent. By the 2021-22 season, FIFA could limit clubs to eight international loan deals involving players aged 22 and older. The number would fall to six by the start of the 2022-23 campaign.

Juventus and Chelsea would face the most difficulty with that rule. Each club currently has at least 12 players out on loan. Some of Chelsea's players have spent years toiling in the loan system, bouncing from club to club each season.

"Players' development is suffering as they are moved from one club to another with no clear career plan. The current loan system has facilitated player hoarding with clubs putting numerous players on their books and then loaning them out to other clubs," FIFA said in a confidential document seen by Agence France-Presse.