The transfer fee goes to the selling club. The wages go to the player. The third number, the one that appears in no headline, goes to the people who arranged it.
What the fee is for
An agent is paid commission for work on a transfer or a contract: finding the club, running the negotiation, settling the terms.
It is normally a percentage. On a player contract it is typically calculated against gross salary over the contract's life. On a transfer it may instead be a share of the fee. Both structures exist and clubs use whichever the negotiation produces.
Who actually pays
Here is the part that surprises people.
The player has the agent. The buying club usually pays the agent.
It is not charity. Paying the agent's commission on the player's behalf is worth more to the player, after tax, than handing him the same money in wages, and it costs the club roughly the same. So it became the default, and the fee sits in the club's accounts as a transfer-related cost rather than in the player's.
The consequence is that the person negotiating on the player's behalf is frequently invoicing the club on the other side of the table.
Dual representation
Which brings you to the practice FIFA set out to end.
Dual representation is one agent acting for more than one party in the same deal: the player and the buying club, or the buying club and the selling club. The conflict is not subtle. An agent paid by the buyer has an interest in the deal closing, and the person relying on him for advice about whether to move is the player.
FIFA's Football Agent Regulations prohibit multiple representation, with a narrow exception allowing an agent to act for both player and buying club where all parties consent in writing.
The cap, and its very complicated life
The regulations also introduced a cap on service fees, tiered by the player's earnings, plus a pro rata payment rule requiring commission to be paid across the contract rather than up front.
Then the litigation started.
In England, a Rule K arbitration tribunal decided on 30 November 2023 that the service fee cap and the pro rata payment rules would breach UK competition law, so The FA cannot enforce them in England, per Burness Paull's analysis and LawInSport. In Germany, the District Court of Dortmund granted an injunction in May 2023 restraining FIFA from enforcing the regulations for transfers with an EU link pending a decision from the European court. Challenges also succeeded elsewhere, and several national associations declined full implementation.
On 16 July 2026, FIFA announced that the Court of Justice of the European Union had confirmed that key elements of the regulations can be justified, naming the licensing requirement, the service fee cap, the prohibition on multiple representation, the client pays rule and the pro rata payment rule. "FIFA is satisfied that the court has acknowledged FIFA's assessment of football agent activities and FIFA's legitimate concerns related to those activities," said Emilio García Silvero, FIFA's chief legal and compliance officer.
What that does to the English position, where a domestic tribunal has already found the cap unlawful under UK competition law, is a question for lawyers and is not settled by a press release. The honest summary in August 2026: the cap is defensible in EU law and unenforceable in England, and anyone offering a tidier version of that is selling something.
Why the numbers stay hidden
Agent commission is disclosed in aggregate, not per deal. The Football Association publishes annual totals of what clubs paid intermediaries, which is how the size of the market is known at all, and individual figures emerge only through leaks or litigation.
So when a fee is reported as "£70m including bonuses", the commission on top is real, material, and outside the sentence.
The one-line version
The agent works for the player, is usually paid by the buying club, and operates under a fee cap that is lawful in one jurisdiction and unenforceable in another.
Sources: FIFA, 16 July 2026, on the Court of Justice of the European Union decision, including the García Silvero quote; Burness Paull and LawInSport, on the 30 November 2023 Rule K arbitration finding and the May 2023 Dortmund injunction; Crowe UK, on the structure of agent fees and the tax treatment of club-paid commission.