On the face of it, football agents play a vital role in the sport. Clubs and their rich owners have traditionally held all the cards when it comes to transfers and contract negotiations. Using their leverage to take advantage of (often under-educated) footballers. These middlemen (and women) paly an important role in representing their interests. Their power and renumerations have reached the point where they’re now viewed as the bad guys of football.
In September 2015, something happened which shook the football world. An organisation calling itself ‘Football Leaks’ set up a website which hosted a raft of documentation which exposed a murky world of dodgy transfer dealings, tax evasion and strange contract terms. In the following years, a series of damning investigations were published which sent shockwaves across the sport. A Game of Secrets gets the inside track on the story.
A Game of Secrets looks at the story from several angles and tries to get behind the headlines. Using interviews with some of the key players and archive footage, director Niels Borchert Holm digs down into the detail. It’s a story full of debatable characters and dubious ethics, but one where there are no easy answers. As the trial attests, it’s not a simple case of good guys and bad guys. In A Game of Secrets, these relationships are complicated.
A Game of Secrets is available on demand in the UK from 31 October.
