Kate Hoey, former Labour Sports Minister, revealed this in telegraph,
‘Mike Lee who in 1995, when employed to spin for the Premier League, came to my office at the House of Commons to implore me to stop speaking out about football corruption and bungs in brown envelopes. He said it "would be in the interest of football" if I shut up. The Premier League are “sorting it out”, he said earnestly as he asked me not to call for an independent regulator for football. I politely declined. A few years later, when Sports Minister, I experienced his ability to spin and his negative briefings when I had again refused to kowtow to those powerful men running football.’
Well to be fair to the Premier League they have done an excellent job since 1995 in sorting the whole mess out. Er, hang on…
…also in the Telegraph, Mihir Bose talks to a leading agent about the problems associated with his trade,
‘A leading players' representative claims that the present system of regulating agents in football is failing. And it has emerged that an offer by the Professional Footballers' Association to 'police' agents has been rejected by the game's rulers.
‘Jon Holmes, of the SFX agency, who act for Michael Owen and Steven Gerrard, told The Daily Telegraph: “I was against the licensing system when it was brought in about a decade ago. My feeling was it would legitimise a lot of people who should not have been legitimised. I don't believe the tests to become an agent are meaningful. It's a very simple written test. What is worse, as the case involving Paul Stretford [the agent for Wayne Rooney] shows, doubtful elements may be coming into the world of agents.”
‘One major defect, says Holmes, of the present licensing system is that the term agent is not defined. “We are agents acting in the best interests of our clients, the players. We do a concierge service. But there are many so-called agents who are not agents but brokers. This is the case on the Continent where they act as middle men identifying players a club needs and then finding them. That is very different to what we do.”
‘Holmes believes agents should be regulated not by the Football Association but by the Professional Footballers' Association, as in the United States, but he says the PFA are not interested. “They act as agents themselves for players and they most stop doing that.”
‘However, Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the PFA, told me: “We made the proposal to the FA that we, along with the League Managers' Association, would regulate the agents, but they turned it down. We represent young players. We did so with Rio Ferdinand, Jermain Defoe and Joe Cole and now with James Milner and Neil Mellor. It is not a business, merely assistance to our members. But if we regulate the agents, we would stop that.”
‘Taylor fears a situation may be developing here like that in the United States when agents first emerged. “Then, they said some of the agents have a first degree from Harvard, while others have a third degree from the police.”’