The tragedy of the death of Argentinian player Emiliano Sala and the pilot who was flying him David Ibbotson sparked controversy as Ibbotson was colour blind and unlicensed to take fee-paying passengers and the plane was not registered to undertake commercial flights.

In the wake of the accident, Cardiff City are now appealing to Premier League clubs to agree on new regulations to force agents to use only commercially-licensed aircraft for athletes, according to The Telegraph.

Cardiff City say they are to join forces with the Air Charter Association (Baca) to call for “urgent action on illegal flights”, and tougher punishments to protect the athletes.

Shocked by the sheer scale 

But in the sad circumstances surrounding the Sala disaster, one Cardiff City FC spokesperson tried to find a positive outcome:

“Our club has been shocked by the sheer scale of the problem in the sporting world. We will be insisting that intermediaries book only commercial licensed air carriers when handling player transfers. We are hopeful that other clubs will take similar positions. 

“Meaningful progress on this issue – in the form of accountability and protections – would be one positive outcome from what is a terrible tragedy for everyone who knew Emiliano and for the football world as a whole.”

Premier League clubs paid out a total of more than £260 million in agent fees for the twelve months ending 31 January 2019 – up 19 per cent on the previous year. 

Liverpool top the list of payments, with £43.8 million paid out to intermediaries in a year in which they signed Allison, Naby Keita, Fabinho and Xherdan Shaquiri for a combined sum of £168.98 million.

Liverpool paid £17 million more than the next club on the list, Chelsea, with Manchester City and Manchester United both also paying more than £20 million in agents fees. 

Bottom of the list were Huddersfield Town, who spent just over £5 million. While Liverpool are challenging for the EPL title, Huddersfield last Saturday became the first team to drop out of the EPL before the clocks changed. 

Championship clubs paid a total of nearly £50 million in agents’ fees, but there is a sharp drop to League One, where the total is just £5.5 million, of which Sunderland paid more than half on its own. League Two clubs paid £940,555 and those in the National League and below £378,605. 

Crack down on intermediary payments

The disclosure of the fees by the FA comes as the Premier League shareholders – comprising representatives of each of its 20 clubs – meet on Friday, where a crack down on intermediary payments will be discussed. 

Clubs are keen to end dual-representation, which will put a stop to agents being paid by both the club and the player in a single transfer. The EPL want to try to introduce the policy by the start of next season.

The moves come as FIFA also tries to re-regulate agents. FIFA scrapped licensing of player agents in 2001 and placed control of intermediaries in the hands of national associations. Further reforms in 2015 further deregulated who could act as an intermediary, while also tightening rules on disclosure via its transfer matching system. FIFA are now seeking to limit payment of agent fees to players, while also introducing a cap on the percentage of a contract a player can share with an agent. 

The proposals face opposition from agents themselves. Last month a leaked letter from the Association of Football Agents (AFA) to FIFA warned that limiting agents fees to come only from the player “will create anarchy and a ‘black economy’ within football” that will “destroy any hope of real transparency”. The AFA threatened legal action and said that such reform would indirectly drive up costs to clubs.