Bluebirds' agents fees revealed

The report shows money handed to agents is down more than £2million overall on the previous 12 months. The 72 League clubs paid a total of £8.8m between July 2008 and June 2009 compared to £11.1m for the same period in 2007/08, with Championship sides paying £7.5m, League One £1.1m and League Two £0.2m. In addition, it has been revealed clubs paid agents in 229 of the 3,727 transfers that took place last term, just 6.1% compared to 8.3% the previous year, with no agents being used in 3,498 of the dealings that took place. A total of 19 clubs out of the 72 did not pay one penny in agents' fees in 2008/09, with a further 10 paying less than £10,000. In the Championship alone last season, all 24 clubs committed money to agents compared to just 23 the previous year, although the amount spent was down by £1,760,681. The average price spent among those 24 sides in the second tier comes to £314,225, meaning Cardiff's £537,500 comes in just above. Football League chairman Lord Mawhinney said: "Given the current financial outlook, it is encouraging that clubs are being more circumspect in terms of their payments to agents. Clubs only committed to pay an agent in 6% of the player transactions that took place during the course of the season. This is the lowest figure recorded in the five seasons since the publication of agents fees began."