Trust, Transparency and Networking

For football agents, building trust, being transparent and building your global network is crucial and defines your success at an international level.

But traditionally, this has been difficult in a hugely competitive market as agents.

Agents are restricted to their limited network of contacts in the industry, they’re not able to be easily verified as the representatives of their players and intermediaries often wrongly represent their players or get involved in a deal in exchange for costly commission.

And club decision-makers get bombarded with pitches by agents and intermediaries for players, with many being irrelevant or not matching their requirements on the pitch and financially.

But for Andrew Thompson, the Founder and Managing Director of AIT Management, a UK-based agency predominantly representing Scandinavia-based players and African youth internationals, that all changed in June 2021. 

His agency became one of the first TransferRoom Trusted Agencies.

Being on TransferRoom, football’s only transfer marketplace, means that the 550+ Trusted Agencies get direct access to the decision-makers at 800+ clubs on our online platform and get verified by their players as their representatives.

AIT Management gets access to real-time market intelligence and club requirements, and can send targeted, bespoke pitches at the click of a button to find the right solution to their squad needs.

TransferRoom also brings together 100s of clubs and a selection of top agents like Thompson in numerous in-person events every year.

This was all evident when Thompson moved Ghanaian international forward Michael Baidoo (pictured below) to Plymouth Argyle in the English Championship, for a club-record fee of €1.8million from Swedish side IF Elfsborg.

“Regarding TransferRoom being linked to the deal specifically with Michael going to Plymouth, I met the Head of Recruitment of Plymouth Argyle in Autumn 2023 when I visited  the TransferRoom Summit in Lisbon, Portugal,” Thompson says.

“We had a 15-minute meeting. And then from that the relationship grew. And we also utilised the Custom Pitch functionality on the website, so when we could see they were looking for a particular player, we put Michael on their radar.

“So the deal was probably 18 months in the making and we got to a point where we concluded this January Transfer Window.”

In the hyper-competitive world of football agents, attracting the attention of decision-makers is increasingly difficult. Sporting Directors are bombarded with approaches and they have less time than ever, especially in a busy transfer window.

Custom Pitch explained

With Custom Pitch, agents like Thompson can create, design and share a made-to-measure pitch to decision-makers in as little as 60 seconds. In this digital and fully customised pitch, agents can:

• Include all the relevant information, including video highlights
• Share it quickly and securely in seconds
• Make it easily readable on any device
• Power their pitch with real-time data and player stats, which update automatically to always remain relevant
• Track the interest from the club instantly by seeing who has opened the Custom Pitch at the club and how often it's been shared further within the team.

This plugs into the global transfer opportunities that Thompson and AIT Management are opening up through TransferRoom.

“When we talk about the global aspect of TransferRoom and for me, based in the UK, most of my transactions have been done within Scandinavia and Central Europe.

“The markets that I operate in all the players that I work with, it's really opened up the Eastern European side of things where previously, it was a region that I struggled with, but now obviously you've got the direct access to that.

“What we can do is we can utilise the data and the Custom Pitch process on TransferRoom, to then directly pitch these players to these clubs where we feel they appropriately meet the needs of the club, whereas sometimes in the example of Finland, where we work a lot, a lot of the time when we speak to clubs in person, they’re not necessarily tracking this league in particular.

“So the functionality of TransferRoom allows us to put these players and the data directly to the decision-makers who might otherwise not be looking at this particular country.”

'TransferRoom is not just about deals'

AIT Management Founder and Managing Director Andrew Thompson, pictured centre

For Thompson, a long-term member of TransferRoom, it is so much more than just making deals. 

“So I will have been at TransferRoom for four years now in June. I think if anyone thinks TransferRoom is just about making deals, it's not. For me, the reason I've stayed and I will continue to stay is words like transparency, trust and networking. They’re often used in the industry.

“One of the things I've found in terms of recruiting players to the agency is, yes, I have a track record over the last 10 years of working in the industry, but also I think players like the visibility of the dashboard, the real-time information.

“Some players want to see the insights from the clubs. What TransferRoom allows us to do is substantiate the trust and the rapport, especially when working with younger players and their families.

“Now when we talk about having a global network, it isn't just words. There is a platform and evidence of growing our network, building relationships, working in new markets, and I think it's something I would strongly recommend."

Gain instant access to the key people at over 800 clubs worldwide and get verified by your players by becoming a TransferRoom Trusted Agent here.