#its happening

writing my first post i thought to myself it could be interesting for me to backtrack a big change of direction in my life. From making up my mind -to actually taking this decision- quiting my office job-telling everybody close to me-process start-flying away to study in isolation-writing and passing the exam. 

Also since the football agent world is a closed environment these texts can come to use some day. 

Anyway, its happening. In 6 days I have:

-recieved my license (finally)

-My national FA updated its agent lists

-FIFA updated their website with my contract info (of course they screwed it up)

-Arranging a office

-Negotiating to be part of the biggest agency in my country

Now that i managed to sell myself (to be part of the agency) the pressure is on for me to start making transfers, there are actually quite a few ways of making money as an sport-agent:

1. Selling your own signed players

2. Selling other agents players through market exclusivity 

3. Selling players on the request of a club

4. Negotiating/Re-negotiating contract on behalf of a club

5. Acquiring players on behalf of clubs

My plan is to make as much business as possible, mostly by point 2. 

A funny sidenote is that within one hour  and now everyday from FIFA publishing my name and contact info I recieved around 15 similar email to this:

Dear Sir,

With much honour  and due respect to write you.

This is to inform you that we operate a football academy in Benin republic in west Africa. We have well-trained, young, strong and skillful players, we need your assistance to get contracts for our players in clubs in your country, we are ready to take them to your country for a practical test session to determine their abilities in football play and we are  ready to bear the costs for the journey if you will invite us for this purpose.

We look forward to working with you for mutual benefits. Any enquiries are welcome.

Thank you for your anticipated cooperation.

MOHAMMED MAHADI.

NB; you can communicate with us in any of the following languages: ENGLISH,ARABIC OR FRENCH.

zzzzZZZzzz

The headline summarizes my mood the last couple of days, the waiting is turning me into a couch potato.. Still, 17 days after writing the exam I have not received the license, which enables me to act as a player agent. And as usual dealing with FIFA/associations nobody knows anything...
Usually I would just give the establishment the middle finger and do it anyway, but my contact person at the federation strictly warned me about this and that they easily can force me to redo the exam. It would be just stupid to gamble at this point.

Not exactly the start I imagined, hopefully my next post will be all about: players signings-travelling-negotiations-$-pre paring for the summer transfer window-footy games-transfer speculations


Bare with me  

three quarters of a man

now 11 days after one of the most reliving phonecalls of my life (is it only me that totally replaced the happy feeling with only a sense of relief). Ten days in my world is usually allot to just kick back but the incompetence of FIFA and my association has forced me to this ineffectivity... being used to a quite fast paced business environment I am shocked with these two organisations incompetence. Three points have to be presented:

1.Pre-exam "filing and collecting admissions forms"
- This was just a pathetic experience. Fifa have some "prerequisites" they force on all associations/federations, on top of that Iam not sure if my national is retarded. You need to provide documents such as, criminal record, proof of residence, letter of intent, cv, company registrations certificate, bankruptcy etc. My federation made 2 weeks of my life even more miserable due them asking for documents I did not even know existed, for example a document from my local borough saying that I am capable of taking care of myself...

2. Studying for the exam:
The structure of language and outline is just terrible, makes me frustrated even to think about ut. All FIFA documents are written in chapters, articles and paragraphs. In other words quite similar structure to judicial documents, not very reading friendly. Its clear the original documents are old, and that every year FIFA/associations are trying to update them which creates a strange mix of used wording.
If You have any questions in regards to what you study there is NOBODY to ask. Ofcourse any old examps or questions are not provided for...

3. After-exam
After going through point 1 and 2 and passing u just want to start ! This of course is not impossible, according to my association it is not enough to sign insurance and all other documents (I wrote about this in a earlier post) u have to wait until the license is printed and delivered by registered post.
FRUSTRATING, also I know that other candidates that passed the exam already have their license which in fact gives them a head start and me lying on my couch counting money lost...


If anyone is considering going through this process feel free to write to me, I wil help

showmethemny@gmail.com

blank paper

aight, so how do I start ?!

now that almost all paperwork/insurances/code of conducts are signed and my license will be issued in a couple of days i need to come up with a way to attack ...

how do I get tips of players, how do I approach, how do I get in touch with club officials/scouts/agents/players? Its not like CR7 has his phonenr in the yellow pages. Do I need to change to private nr now ? lots of q's ...


my take upon it is that since the majority of agents are either old player or coaches I should be able to outcompete them in street smartness/professionalism/negotiating skills/languages/business mind/intellekt...


piece of cake



by the way if any want to write my email is showmethemny@gmail.com or holla at me on twitter

Licensed FIFA Players' Agent

according to the regulations you are not even allowed to call yourself that. The correct title is Player Agent licensed by the .......... Association.

A quick recap of last weeks happenings:
- Flew back home from my second hometown after 3 weeks of a strict study regiem. Total isolation and at least 10 hours of intense reading everyday.
- Wednesday, serious nerves. Could not sleep at all for 2 days.
- Thursday morning, wrote the exam.
- Thursday afternoon till friday mid day = 35 hours of torture not knowing the result.
- Friday, got the call. Was so nervous I almost forgot how to make the swipe motion and could not answer my phone. 10 minutes later, first drink in 8 weeks.
- Now (sunday) woke up after drinking a whole ocean but happy



first reflections after quarter1-2013:
- leaving my job and studying for 3 months was quite stressful (and boring)
- playing everything on just one card makes you nerv wreck, strategically not a wise decision
- hard work paid off


peace