A former professional footballer is the only licence candidate to have experienced the agent–player relationship from the client's side. This experience is a genuine starting point, but it does not grant any exemption. Moving from player to FIFA agent requires filling gaps in legal knowledge, meeting the FFAR eligibility conditions and passing the official exam.
Last updated: 25/09/2026
A professional footballer has always experienced the agent's profession from the client's side. He has signed contracts negotiated on his behalf, waited for news while injured, and sometimes learnt of a club's interest only belatedly. Moving from player to FIFA agent makes it possible to draw on direct experience of the profession and of the relationship between a player and his agent.
This article details what leads a former player to choose the profession of sports agent, the skills he still needs to acquire and the requirements of the FIFA agent exam for this particular profile.
A playing career ends well before retirement age, and not all former professionals go on to become coaches or pundits. The profession of player agent makes it possible to remain at the heart of the transfer market without going through the dugout.
The idea may arise during a long-term injury or at the end of a contract that is not extended. It is then a good moment to start preparing for what comes next and to train for the agent profession. The FIFA agent licence will nevertheless have to wait, since the FFAR does not allow a player who is still under contract with a club to obtain it.
Some former players were well supported and wish to reproduce that model, whereas others, on the contrary, dealt with agents who were rarely present at key moments. In both cases, the former player already knows the relationship between a player and his agent. He is simply about to move to the other side and take on that role in turn.
The lawyer brings their command of the law, the coach their knowledge of the dressing room, the sporting director their experience of contracts on the club side and the journalist their network in the media. The former player, for his part, has direct experience of the relationship between a player and his agent.
A former player knows what he expected from his agent, what he actually obtained and what was lacking. He also knows the moments when an agent needs to be present, particularly during transfer windows or when an injury complicates the situation.
This experience makes it easier to understand several rules of the FFAR designed to protect players. The representation agreement may not exceed two years and may not be renewed automatically. A separate written document must specify whether the player sought independent legal advice before signing. For a former player, these rules take on a particular meaning, since he has experienced them himself as a client.
Every club a player passes through creates relationships. Former teammates become coaches, scouts or sporting directors, and contact can also be maintained with the young players met towards the end of a career. This network can facilitate dealings with players as well as with clubs.
However, an agent may not approach a player who is already bound to another agent by an exclusive representation agreement, except during the final two months of that agreement. Knowing a former teammate therefore makes contact easier, but does not guarantee that he will become a client.
For a player, a negotiation is intertwined with the fear of an injury before signing, a family relocation or the question of playing time. A former professional has been through these moments; he knows that a player sometimes turns down a better offer in order to stay close to his loved ones.
This understanding does not replace technical expertise, but it helps to defend what the client really wants, rather than what the agent imagines for him.
A former player knows football from the inside, but certain aspects of the agent profession still need to be learnt, particularly on the legal, administrative and commercial fronts.
A footballer has often signed his contracts without negotiating the clauses himself, whereas an agent must understand their legal consequences. Questions of termination with just cause, the protected period or sporting sanctions fall in particular under the RSTP (Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players), a text that must be studied in depth for the FIFA agent exam.
At a club, the salary arrives every month and a large part of daily life is taken care of. An agent experiences the opposite, with irregular income, a business structure to choose, and invoicing and taxation to manage. He must also maintain his licence by paying an annual fee and completing his continuing professional development credits every year.
Convincing a player to entrust his career to a novice agent requires a commercial approach that few former professionals have ever practised. To represent a minor, the agent must first complete FIFA's dedicated training. He may then approach the player only from six months before the age at which the player can sign his first professional contract, and only with the prior written consent of his legal guardian.
These skills can be acquired gradually, starting with law, which occupies a significant place in the exam.
Article 5 of the FIFA Football Agent Regulations sets out the conditions that must be met in order to obtain and retain a licence, from the moment the application is submitted and then throughout the agent's career. Some of these conditions directly concern former players, particularly when they still have ties with a club or carried out certain activities before obtaining their licence.
| Situation | Effect on the licence | Point to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Current contract with a club | Licence not possible | For FIFA, the player is an employee of the club |
| Shareholding in his training club | Ineligibility | Regardless of the percentage held |
| Investment in an academy | Ineligibility | Same rule as for a club or a league |
| Simple membership of a members' club | No obstacle | Personal membership limited to one vote |
| Suspension of at least two years for an ethics breach | Ineligibility | Even if the sanction was imposed on him as a player |
| Negotiation conducted for a former teammate before obtaining the licence | Ineligibility for 24 months | Introducing a player to a club with a view to a signing already counts as an agent service |
For disciplinary sanctions, the role held at the time of the facts is irrelevant. These conditions are assessed according to the edition of the FFAR in force.
Article 15 of the FFAR sets a service fee cap of between 3% and 10%, depending on the agent's role in the transaction. However, this rule has been the subject of litigation for several years, and its status changed considerably during the summer of 2026.
On 9 July 2026, the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered its judgment in ROGON (C-428/23), a case between an agency and the German Football Association. On 16 July, it delivered a second judgment in RRC Sports v FIFA (C-209/23). Both decisions confirm that rules such as the mandatory licence, the service fee cap or the prohibition on dual representation can, in principle, be justified under EU competition law. However, they leave it to the national courts to assess, on a case-by-case basis, whether each restriction remains proportionate to its objective.
These judgments do not, however, lift the suspension put in place at the end of 2023 by Circular no. 1873. The service fee cap, the rule that the client must pay the agent's fee, and the prohibition on dual representation therefore remain suspended worldwide, pending a new circular. Only a decision by FIFA itself can lift this suspension; a court judgment is not enough.
For a former footballer preparing his career transition, two points remain stable despite this uncertainty. The agent licence, the exam and registration with the national association all remain mandatory. And the exam continues to test the text of the FIFA Football Agent Regulations as it appears in the official study materials, including the suspended articles.
The Football Agents Report published by FIFA in December 2025 gives a precise picture of the market that a former player joins on becoming an agent.
| Indicator | Value |
|---|---|
| Licensed agents worldwide (Dec. 2025) | 10,525 |
| Proportion of men among agents | 95% |
| Average age of agents | 41 |
| Service fees paid to club agents, men's football, 2025 | USD 1.37 billion |
| Share of UEFA-affiliated clubs in these service fees | 89% |
| Agents who received fees on an international transfer | 1,559 |
One figure deserves the attention of a former player considering taking the plunge. Out of more than 10,500 licensees, only 1,559 agents received fees from a club in connection with an international transfer in 2025. The licence opens the door to the profession, but only a minority make a living from a genuinely sustained activity.
In terms of volume, British sports agents account for the largest number of club representations (412), ahead of French agents (382) and Italian agents (313), which places France among the most active markets. These figures echo the point made in the section on the FFAR: the licence gives access to the profession, but the difference is then made through network, prospecting and the quality of the service provided.
A playing career, even an international one, does not grant any exemption. A former player therefore sits the exam under the same conditions as all other candidates.
The exam consists of 20 multiple-choice questions to be completed in 60 minutes, with a pass mark of 75%, i.e. 15 correct answers out of 20. Since the 2025 session, it has been held entirely online. The FIFA exam rules set out how it is conducted.
In 2025, the official pass rate stood at 18% internationally, across 7,745 exam entries. With only one session per year, failing means waiting until the following year to resit the exam.
Among candidates who prepared on the SportsAgent Institute platform, 97% pass the exam. The preparation method therefore plays an important role, including for a former player who already knows football well but still needs to get to grips with the rules and the format of the exam.
The courses and explanations make it possible to understand each text in the study materials progressively. The practice questions serve as daily practice, subject by subject. The mock exams reproduce official conditions, and error analysis then identifies the points to review and helps adjust revision.
For a former player, timing matters as much as revision.
As long as he is bound to a club, the player cannot apply, but he can already check his situation in light of the FFAR and start preparing for the exam several months before his contract ends.
Once free of any tie with a club and of any incompatible interest, the former player can apply on the FIFA Agent Platform. The application window usually opens in January, for an exam in the spring. A contract ending in June therefore leads to an application the following winter.
Once the application has been approved, the candidate sits the online exam. If successful, the licence is issued after payment of the annual fee, and is retained as long as the holder remains eligible.
Some former players set up on their own, while others join an established agency. Depending on the country, national registration is required in addition to the FIFA licence, as is the case in England with The Football Association.
Obtaining the licence does not put an end to the obligations of a FIFA agent. Each licence holder must then complete a certain number of continuing professional development credits every year, which FIFA calls CPD, in order to retain it.
The CPD cycle runs from 1 October to 30 September. A new agent, which applies to any former player who obtains the licence after passing the exam, must complete at least 20 credits per cycle during his first ten years of activity. This threshold is then reduced by 25%, to 15 credits per cycle from the eleventh year onwards. So-called emeritus agents, registered before the 2022 reform and who went through the transitional regime provided for at the time, follow a different pace, with 40 credits per cycle for five years.
Credits are earned by completing online modules accessible via the FIFA Agent Platform, then passing a final assessment with at least 80% correct answers. The topics covered range from player registration to combating human trafficking, and include a module on the representation of minors, which has become mandatory for any agent wishing to represent a minor player.
For a former player, this obligation changes the nature of the revision effort. The entry exam requires intensive preparation over a short period. Continuing professional development then establishes a routine of regular updating, year after year, for as long as the licence remains active.
Two career paths show what a playing background can open up, and what the licence has changed since.
A midfielder, Vlado Lemic played for FK Borac Banja Luka and then in Belgium, where he met Eric Gerets. He followed him to PSV Eindhoven in 1999 and began working on transfers at that point. He then became a well-known figure behind the scenes of European football, notably around the moves of Luka Modrić to Real Madrid CF and Alexander Isak to Liverpool F.C.
Vlado Lemic does not hold a FIFA agent licence and works as a sporting adviser alongside licensed partners. His career nevertheless shows the importance of network and hands-on experience of the game in this sector.
A former Premier League centre-back, Curtis Davies played professionally for more than twenty years before retiring in August 2024. His career transition had begun as early as 2020, when he obtained a degree in Sports Writing and Broadcasting while still playing for Derby County F.C.
He is now registered as an agent with The Football Association, affiliated with Unique Sports Group, and notably represents Eiran Cashin, his former teammate at Derby.
A former player who obtains his licence today will practise under regulations that are undergoing major change. On 10 June 2026, the Bureau of the FIFA Council approved a new version of the RSTP, which will come into force on 1 January 2027. FIFA presents this reform as the most significant since the regulations were adopted in 2001.
This new edition responds directly to the Diarra judgment, delivered by the Court of Justice of the European Union in October 2024, which had undermined several rules governing contract termination by a player. Rather than amending a single article, FIFA negotiated the entire text with FIFPRO, the European clubs grouped within the EFC and the leagues grouped within the WLA, with the participation of UEFA and CONMEBOL. A memorandum of understanding signed the same day between FIFA and FIFPRO sets up a social dialogue platform running until 2031, tasked with discussing any future changes to the regulations.
In substance, the reform revises the calculation of the compensation payable in the event of a breach of contract, adjusts the rules applicable to the contracts of minor players and introduces a shared governance model for future amendments to the text. A circular published on 1 September 2026 set out the final adjustments made to the regulations, the Disciplinary Code and the Procedural Rules Governing the Football Tribunal.
For a former player in career transition, the challenge lies less in memorising every detail of the new text than in taking on board this change of method. The RSTP is no longer drafted by FIFA alone; it is now shaped through negotiation with the representatives of players and clubs, which suggests regular adjustments in the years ahead.
A former player enters the sports agent profession with direct experience of football and of the relationship between a player and his representative. This experience can make it easier to understand a player's expectations and to build a relationship of trust. However, it replaces neither legal skills nor the exam. The career transition from player to FIFA agent can be prepared before the end of a playing career in order to get ahead, but it also remains possible afterwards. The next exam session is expected in spring 2027, with no official date confirmed so far.
The regulatory framework also continues to evolve, between the new RSTP expected on 1 January 2027 and the service fee cap suspension that is still in force. Once the licence has been obtained, keeping track of regulatory developments is therefore as much a part of the job as prospecting.
