‘Trust me I am a Football Agent’. The discursive practices of the players’ agents in (un)professional football

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Abstract
FIFA’s decision to deregulate the industry is perhaps a reflection of the neoliberal influences surrounding the organization to let the agents govern themselves and deal with the wrongdoings of the alleged bribery, exploitation and trafficking of young players. However, it can also be seen as the organization’s inefficiency to maintain the primacy of self-regulation and self-governance in matters such as agents’ global leadership and regulation of practices. This paper, using qualitative data collected from players, agents and managers from professional football leagues in the UK and Ireland, aims to uncover the unethical, extremely complex and deceptive sides of the agents’ industry. Two key issues are unpacked: (i) the alleged (un)ethical behaviour of football agents that provokes so much hostility in the football world; (ii) the power shift(s) from clubs and managers to agents and players and the implications these may have on the ethics of the business practices in football.