We have all seen the headlines, read the social media nattering and heard the boos. Then came the news: Samuel Umtiti, Mr. In It For the Money Happy to Sit On His Ass and Get Paid, took a 10 percent pay cut. He also agreed to spread out the rest of the salary due on his contract over a longer period, which allowed the club to register its brightest new signing, Ferran Torres.
And the very next day, Ousmane Dembele’s agent, Moussa Sissoko, in an interview with L’Equipe, spat snark about how his client’s renewal isn’t just about money, but rather about how his delicate flower is being managed, rushed back into duty right after receiving COVID clearance, etc.
To be sure, agents are supposed to be firestarters in their tireless effort to extract the most for their client, which also helps them extract the biggest bonus from the signing. But read the room. In a world where doctors are nurses are on the front lines, dragging themselves back to work as soon as they can, even after some of them have just recovered from COVID, the last thing anyone wants to read is an agent talking about how his client, who makes more in a season than most folks will make in a lifetime, isn’t happy with how quickly he was asked to return to work.
Dembele, as this point we can presume, wants to leave FC Barcelona on a free transfer. The famed Bosman is, in this day of massive salaries, grumpy club negotiations and transfer fees, surely an effective way for a player to gain the kind of mobility necessary, while facilitaring earning a salary that is the same as that gross national product of many small countries. It’s business, and we should logically treat it as such.
But to supporters, it’s a fairly massive “Up yours” to a club that paid 140m for you, and is paying you royally. And this is without even getting into injury history, which is pure awful luck even as there are those fools who think he has somehow been injuring himself because he just LOVES surgery, rehabbing and working his way back into playing shape. Yes, you read right … fools.
Supporters view a player, particularly one worth a pretty hefty transfer fee, leaving a club on a free as an attempt to damage the club they support. The club we support. It’s easy to understand both sides, and not just because both sides run on money. Dembele has been treated like crap by pretty much everyone involved in the club, from physios who got it wrong to supporters who think he’s responsible for his own injuries, to media outlets who sow shit about a player who has had some of the worst injury luck in Barça history. But read the room.
He now has a manager who is doing everything but polishing his boots in public, who is starting him and working to utilize him in a way commensurate with his skill set instead of setting him up to fail.
It’s okay to just chill.
Agents are supposed to put in that work. It’s all about the money, and they’re okay with not having any friends. They sit on their yacht, surf social media and are fine. Just fine. But part of reading the room isn’t just getting the best deal for your client. Or it shouldn’t be. It should also be about perception, and that perception, to phrase it delicately, ain’t good. Especially from the agent of a player who is playing well, but not exactly setting the world on fire. It’s probably at this point, especially after what Umtiti did, that a dignified silence is on the cards. L’Equipe calls with the interview offer and you say, “Thanks but at this point in time, neither my client nor I have anything to say.”
What you DON’T say is that Spanish Jesus, down off the cross to bring Barça back to glory, is mismanaging your player who, in the eyes of many has been broken so much that he should have a signature wheelchair instead of a boot. And let’s not forget that, per that same manager being disparaged by Sissoko, were his client to renew with the club, doing the same thing as Umtiti, the team could sign a player or two.
Oof.
Dembele is in the catbird’s seat. He’s fit, immensely talented even if also frustrating. The team needs him (yes, it does — don’t even start), and the club needs him to renew to free up some cash for more players it can’t really afford. Just because you have someone by the short and curlies doesn’t mean you have to twist and tug.
Players’ careers are short. Blindingly so, slivers of joy constantly balanced on the head of a pin. Any athlete, even the greatest of them, are a bad foot plant away from being a guy doing commentary on TV, or a has-been shadow of their former selves, working around their new limitations. And those players should grab for all the money they can, as any of us would do. But agents still gotta read the room, and right now it just doesn’t feel like Dembele and his team are particularly literate. And that’s a shame, because sympathy, much less empathy, is hard to muster in this oft-ugly, money slaked game that we love.
It's so bizarre to see an agent salt the field like that. I get coming in to these things with sharpened teeth. Hell, I wish I had that for myself! And it's not the agent's responsibility to put together a winning team! But it is a team sport and Dembele has been repeatedly (and wrongly) accused of being unprofessional. It's hard to see how an agent actually being unprofessional helps anyone.
Also, we owe Umtiti a round of grateful applause.