Football clubs spent $888m in agent service fees in 2023 – FIFA report

FIFA’s Football Agents in International Transfers Report has revealed an unprecedented heights in total spending on club agent service fees in 2023, with a total outlay of USD 888.1 million compared to USD 623.2 million last year.

This represents an increase of 42.5% compared to the level of spending in 2022, and even surpasses the previous record from 2019 (USD 654.7 million) by more than one-third.

By far, the largest proportion of all club agents were employed by clubs in Europe, which also account for the lion’s share (86.6%) of global spending on club agents.

Similarly, European clubs employed 86.6% of all engaging club agents and 82.6% of all releasing club agents.

The largest amount of agent service fees were paid by clubs from England, with a combined total of more than USD 280 million. While not investing in releasing club agents, Saudi Arabian clubs had the second-biggest spending on engaging club agents with USD 86.0 million.

Korea Republic had the greatest share of outgoing transfers with a releasing club agent, with 31.6%.

The number of international transfers with an agent acting on behalf of the player reached a record high in 2023 with a total of 3,353 transfers.

This corresponds to 15.4% of all transfers and represents an increase of 8.4% compared to 2022.

For the first time ever, clubs in women’s professional football spent more than USD 1 million for the services of club agents, with a total outlay of just under USD 1.4 million.

Club agents were present in a record number of 125 transfers, an increase of more than 20% compared to 2022.