Players and agents

The deadline for Championship clubs to re-sign players whose contracts expire June 30th has officially passed, although it looks that many are still negotiating and many clubs are keen to keep news of departures in house.

Our news of Taylor and Solly not wanting to play and David Davis refusing to return to London was hurtful, but it was early, almost 4 weeks ago. This week clubs in our division have still been working out who they can rely on, or will lose. Meanwhile Steve Gallen could concentrate on offering future starts new contracts.

Yesterday Sheffield Wednesday’s top scorer Steven Fletcher plus ex-Addick Morgan Fox and Fernando Forrestieri all announced they will leave after this weekend. Huddersfield will lose right-back Danny Simpson and ‘keeper Kamil Grabara.

Meanwhile as the EFL continue to make it up as they go along, players loaned out to clubs who have had their own season ended can now play for parent clubs, but only if they can’t name a full squad due to injuries. I think!

The FA have released the annual agent’s fees paid by clubs. Incredibly almost £50m was paid by Championship clubs in the year to January 2020. The list is here.

The Addicks spent £303,000 slightly more than Luton and slightly less than Barnsley. The three promoted clubs plus Millwall and Hull were massively overspent by fellow Championship clubs with Stoke ‘heading’ the league table spending an incredible £5.7m in a single year!

Every club is listed down to the National League with Dartford and Macclesfield spending £825 each. New Premier League champions Liverpool gave agents more than £30m.

It is pretty grim reading. English Premier League clubs alone pay over a quarter of billion pounds annually to agents. All that money going out of the game while clubs are on the brink of folding, or can’t afford to keep open academies. Quite disgusting.