It’s been said plenty of times before that the majority of agents do good work and they should be admired, but the sheer greed of the few absolutely ruin the reputation of the many.
There are always stories that come out after a seemingly certain transfer falls through, so a lot of Arsenal fans were waiting to find out the real reason that Houssem Aouar is still a Lyon player.
The Gunners turned to Thomas Partey on deadline day so it’s clear that they had some money to make a move, so there must’ve been something behind the scenes that forced the negotiations to fail.
One story that keeps coming up is that Aouar’s agent/brother was making some ridiculous demands for his commission payment, and it looks like this has been confirmed by ESPN journalist Julien Laurens who is reputable when it comes to French football:
According to @LaurensJulien, Aouar's move to Arsenal collapsed, with the player's agent largely to blame. Sources said Brahim Aouar asked for a large commission for his brother to sign for #Arsenal. A figure of £10m has circulated among reports, but thats not been confirmed. pic.twitter.com/IWb7fUqsGj
— Gurjit (@GurjitAFC) October 9, 2020
We have to stress that the £10m fee is just a rumour at this point but clearly there were some excessive demands, so that has to be a sore point in the family when Aouar’s big move has been blocked by a family member’s greed.
Even if he’s a great player you can understand why Arsenal refused to cave to these demands out of principle, so surely the Lyon man needs to find himself a new agent before next summer.