#GAME HUNTERS SURVIVAL HEROES PROFESSIONAL#
#GAME HUNTERS SURVIVAL HEROES TV#

And this is a profession, it's not a job.

Those that pass are in for a real shock because it's not an easy profession. 'We've officially 174 and another 100 probably failed the last exams. 'The fact of the matter, as far as agents are concerned, is that there are very few doing business anyway,' he says. If the game of football itself has reached a point where only the fittest survive, Segal says that will soon be reflected in his industry too. SEM represent players like Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry, the boxer Lennox Lewis, as well as Ireland internationals Stephen Carr, Steve Finnan, Ian Harte and Kenny Cunningham. Segal's agency, The Sport Entertainment & Media Group (SEM), is another of a handful of super-agents that are beginning to dominate the sport. 'I think within a year or 18 months there will be half a dozen agencies, with nothing available for individual agents,' says agent Robert Segal.

#GAME HUNTERS SURVIVAL HEROES TV#

The introduction of the transfer window and the collapse of TV deals around Europe has changed the climate of the transfer market however, presenting agents with a challenge far greater than the one which faces them when striking their next deal. When George Graham was found guilty of accepting an illegal payment of ВЈ425,000 from Norwegian agent Rune Hauge seven years ago, it may have done nothing for English football's reputation, but when it came to attracting a new breed of agents it was magnetic. England has 174 licensed agents, compared to 123 in Spain, 100 in France and only 55 in Italy. Despised and distrusted for so long, some of the industry's lesser lights may soon find themselves frequenting the job centre.Дespite the signs that profits are shrinking in English football, there has been no let-up in the number of people applying to FIFA for an agent's licence. Not since Michael Owen has a youngster with so much potential emerged in the Premiership, and this at a time when football agents must face the fact that the English game's financial boom is ending.

#GAME HUNTERS SURVIVAL HEROES PROFESSIONAL#

Rooney may not officially join Proactive or sign his first professional contract until December, but at the agency's office in south Manchester this week, they giddily spoke his name in whispers like excitable schoolboys. As coups for agents go, it was the equivalent of running the length of the field with the ball in an FA Cup final and chipping the goalkeeper. But there are people in the game who figure it was bettered two days later, when news broke that the precocious Evertonian was signing for Paul Stretford's Proactive sports agency. WhenВ Wayne Rooney beat David Seaman from 30 yards at Goodison Park last Saturday, everyone assumed it was the football story of the week. David McKechnie looks at the problems facing football agents in a week when Wayne Rooney's signature was much sought after

Game hunters survival heroes