Reading FC Among High Spenders On Agents' Fees For 2015/16

While 'undisclosed' dominates the football transfer landscape these days, one thing that is transparent is the amount of money football clubs in England have been paying agents and intermediaries. For Reading, they've spent £327,390 on agents fees between October 2015 and February 2016. That puts the club seventh in the Championship in terms of money spent. You'll probably be shocked to hear that QPR top the charts with more than £1 million given to agents in a four month period, while Bristol City, Cardiff, Hull, Middlesbrough and Nottingham Forest are also all above the Royals.

At the bottom is cash strapped Bolton who forked out a mere £54,000 to agents, with the total average in the Championship coming in at £291,046. So we're above the average but not by a huge amount.

The deals done during that period would include the signings of Deniss Rakels, Yann Kermorgant & George Evans, while Paolo Hurtado left on loan and Orlando Sa departed for pastures new. It's unclear whether the figures also include contracts but Chris Gunter did pen a new deal as well.

Agents fees have long irked football fans who question why their hard earned cash is disappearing out of the game. While nobody can begrudge a footballer for wanting outside help with their financial affairs, it's never ideal to see money go into the pockets of people who don't then reinvest it into football.

The FA have also released a list of who's been involved in each transfer deal, which you can read here. There's not a great deal to learn from that list, at least without a detailed search of every party involved but it was interesting to see that Michael Hector's agent for his move to Chelsea was his own dad Pat, while Alex Pearce's move to Derby (and then Bristol City) was handled by his brother Charlie.

So what do you make of the figures folks?