Like most football fans, I generally enjoy the majority of the transfer window (despite the fact that we've sold our best player every transfer window for the last 5...go on Francois, make it 6 in a row!). The football365 daily transfer blog keeps me entertained periodically through the day (especially on deadline day - epic), mainly for the regular digs at Sky Sports News and their shouted 'Breaking News' stories - hmmm perhaps that should be "stories" - but also for the constant stream of rumour and completed deals.
However, what does truly annoy me is the agents who constantly peddle their b*llsh*t for no other reason than to get them more money...sure they tell us they're looking out for their players best interest, but who really believes that. Case and point, Joe Garner. Coming of the back of an outstanding 2007/2008 season for Carlisle United in which despite being a raw, and sometimes 'overenthusiastic' approach to playing football, Joey Garner was a hero for the United fans and it was him who many saw as the key to pushing on from losing in the play-off semi-final and gaining promotion to the Championship. However, late in July of 2008 it was leaked to Nottingham Forest that he had a minimum release fee of around £1.1million...sure enough a few days later Joe Garner was a Forest player (but Carlisle went on to sign Michael Bridges as a replacement, so we didn't care).
Now I don't bring this up because its still raw (I almost definitely don't still talk about how good Joey was for us), but because this morning the Sunday Times reported that Raul Meireles had been put on the transfer list by Liverpool over a contract dispute. I mean, seriously, the man was absolutely outstanding this season for Liverpool, while most players take a time to adjust to the pace and pressure of the English game, even without pre-season with the team, he looked just about the most accomplished player in an under performing team.
When Meireles signed for Liverpool he did so on a relatively low wage, so now he has allegedly asked the owners for a contract that matches his value to the team...to which the response is to have supposedly transfer listed him. Now to me this stinks of agents getting involved, it wouldn't surprise me if they had leaked a story to the paper to try an help contract negotiations along, and to be honest I bet everyone else is thinking the same thing. Obviously, this could legitimately be the player being greedy and the club refusing to be held to ransom...but I think some of the recent transfer dealings at Liverpool would suggest they can afford to pay the PFA Fans Player of the year a little bit more...and when he can do this maybe they should.
...not all agents are bad people, and there are probably a number who aren't greedy sh*tmongers who are just looking to exploit people more talented than themselves and I have even researched becoming an agent (FYI basically it costs £250 and you do one exam) but unfortunately we don't know about the nice ones.
To that end I hereby promise that should I become a football agent I will look after the players, set up a charity with the players and generally be an all round nice guy (and publicise it so that people know about it!).
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