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Agent: West Ham United will pay less than £51million for Lucas Paqueta
West Ham United will end up paying less than the reported £51million fee for Lucas Paqueta according to football agent Saif Rubie.
Rubie was involved in the reported record-breaking deal (The Guardian, 29 August) to bring the Brazilian international to the Premier League.
However, Rubie has revealed that West Ham will pay a lower fee for a player that they never thought they had a chance of signing.
Talking on talkSPORT White and Jordan on Monday 5 September [11:26], Rubie said: “West Ham United ended up getting a player that they never thought they were going to get.
“£51million which is quoted as the actual money that they’ve paid for him. I am not going to disclose how much the fee is but it is less than the fee that has been reported.
“The point I am trying to make is that this deal was able to happen due to intermediaries like myself putting a deal together with West Ham, that they were happy to pay.
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“Lyon were happy because no one else put hard cash down apart from West Ham.”
Ugly side to football
Agents getting involved and trying to force deals in order to generate more money for themselves is becoming more of an issue in the modern game.
Often players get a bad reputation for wanting to leave a club, but a lot of the time their decision has come from an agent advising them to look for a move elsewhere.
It appears that West Ham have actually come out on the right side of this deal with Lyon set on cashing in on the midfielder this summer.
Ultimately the fee they wanted for the Brazilian didn’t arrive which allowed for West Ham to land the exciting attacking midfielder.
At the moment there are currently no caps on how much agents can earn from a transfer deal and that is something that should potentially be looked into by the authorities.
Football clubs, owners, managers, fans and the media all have to contribute something to football to remain involved in the industry, whilst agents don’t pay any fees.
Considering the amount of money that is present, especially in the Premier League, something has to be done to restrict the amounts that agents and intermediaries can make,