Nearly half of would-be agents failed the new FIFA exam.
Football’s world governing body have revealed that only 52 percent, 1,962, of the 3,800 candidates passed the first test.
Hundreds took the exam at London’s ExCel Centre last week while the exam was taken by candidates from 138 different member associations across different time zones.
The applicants will get their results on Thursday with the new worldwide FIFA licence the central part of FIFA’s Football Agent Regulations.
Those who failed the exam can sit it again at the next test which is due to be held on September 20 with the new licence becoming compulsory from October 1 following this transitional period.
Several candidates complained how tough the exam with a pass rate of 75 percent.
There are currently around 2,000 licensed agents in the UK and many long-standing representatives did not have to take the new exam as they already qualify under FIFA’s “legacy” agreement.
But the new set-up is designed to crackdown on unscrupulous agents but also cut down on the growing trend of family members representing their kids.
FIFA are confident that the new qualification and rules will make it much harder for family members to use an agent as a “front” to sign off on deals while they effectively run the show having often been paid huge sums for the privilege.
There were an initial 6,586 applications but only 3,800 actually paid the £300 to sit the exam which took an hour and featured 20 multiple choice questions.
Mirror Sport revealed that some agents believed there was a “cheat code” because candidates were allowed to take in electronic reading material and they could simply press “control F” on a keyboard to search for the answers.
But FIFA, who gave candidates a 528 page document to study before the exam, have insisted that it is not that easy as they still have to apply the relevant information to each answer.
Long-standing agents have largely praised the new set-up to weed out unscrupulous representatives but have voiced concerns over restrictions on how much they can earn from deals and also dual representation.
This question featured in one of the mock exams (the answer is C):
Tom is a licensed football agent who enters into a representative agreement with David, a professional football player. To try to protect his interests, Tom includes a clause in the representation agreement pursuant to which David must pay him a penalty fee if David independently negotiates an employment contract without Tom’s involvement or an involvement of any other football agent.
This type of clause is in breach of which provision of the FIFA football agent regulations?
A: Article 13?
B: Article 12 paragraph 14?
C: Article 12 paragraph 13 b?
D: Article 12 paragraph 12?
