Guide
How to check a football agent in five minutes
Updated
The checks that matter are free, fast and almost never done. So an approach that would not survive five minutes of searching often survives all the way to a signature.
Question 1
Why do you need a list of agents?
The answer changes completely depending on whether you are checking somebody who has already approached you or looking for representation you do not yet have.
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The FA register first, for English football
The FA publishes FA Registered Football Agents with a find function. For representation in English football this is the domestic question and it is the first one to settle.
Search the exact name, and search variants. Agents frequently operate through an agency with a different name, so a nil return is a question to ask rather than an automatic answer.
Then FIFA, for the international layer
FIFA's directory gives access to all Football Agents licensed by FIFA. Its Agents Department manages the licence applications to become and remain a licensed agent.
This is the register for any move across a border. It shows the licence is a real credential issued by a body, not a title somebody adopted.
Then the transaction record, which nobody uses
The FA publishes agent transaction details. This is the most underused source in the subject: it puts an agent's actual involvement in deals on the public record.
An agent describing a track record you can look up is in a different position from one describing one you cannot. It also tells you the level they actually operate at, which a register does not.
What absence means
A name that appears on neither register and in no transaction record, attached to someone asking for money, is not an administrative oversight.
Being registered is permission to act. It is the floor rather than a recommendation, and somebody below the floor is not offering a service you can accept on any terms.
Then read the standard agreement
The FA publishes standard representation agreements for download. Read one before you are handed anything, so the document you are asked to sign is being compared against something.
And note the date: The FA Football Agent Regulations for the 2026/27 season took effect from 1 June 2026. A form from an earlier season is worth asking about.