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Five things… a football agent should never do
Also known as: the Dimitri Seluk guide to being a football representative…
1 Get your client dropped
Yaya Toure is a Manchester City legend – a fact his agent Dimitri Seluk regularly points out. Yet he is a legend who is set to see out his final days at the Etihad in ignominy after City manager Pep Guardiola declared that the Ivorian will not play for the club again – unless Seluk apologises to him. Come again? It’s an unusual turn of events – two men as esteemed as Guardiola and Toure reduced to a public bitching match via the medium of a sharp-suited Ukrainian who likes to wear his sunglasses on his head. But that’s the Seluk effect. His recent attack on Guardiola was so outrageous that the Spanish manager has stooped to the agent’s level by lashing out at Toure, meaning Seluk has directly cost his beloved client the chance to play football. “If Pep Guardiola wants a war, then he can have one,” Seluk exclaimed, all guns blazing.
2 Send your client to war
Given that agents put great stock in their role of protecting clients, you’d think sending one to war would be the last thing they’d want to do. Especially if it’s a war they can’t win. But Toure has been plonked on the front line without any hope of success. He’s the USA in Afghanistan; he’s a disposable stormtrooper coming up against the might of the Force. Guardiola has quickly asserted his authority since arriving in Manchester less than three months ago. He has won eight games in a row and he didn’t need Toure in any of them (aside from a dead rubber against Steaua Bucharest). “When you go into someone’s house then you should treat them with respect. You don’t go into someone’s house and ask them to leave,” Seluk fumed. Hmm… what about when you’ve been specifically employed to sort the house out?
3 Make your client look ridiculous
Although it’s widely accepted within the game that Seluk is a bit of a silly-billy, his outspoken persona doesn’t reflect too well on Toure either. When the agent famously declared that the midfielder was considering leaving the Etihad because the club didn’t get him a cake on his birthday, most people assumed it was Toure who had actually made this specific demand. And maybe he did, but it’s more likely he just lets Seluk do his talking for him – even if this sometimes involves the agent getting carried away and going off on some strange tangents. It’s quite possible that it’s Seluk who is obsessed with cakes and Yaya doesn’t even like them. Footballers shouldn’t eat cakes anyway.
4 Talk crazy nonsense
“Pep only wants players who are scared of him.” “My grandfather could have won the league with Pep’s team.” “Pep should go to Sunderland.” Guardiola should certainly not be immune from criticism – and it is indeed still open to debate whether he would do any better than David Moyes at the Stadium of Light – but Seluk’s is not constructive. His wild claims have stoked up ill feeling between Toure and City when he should have been trying to build bridges. He’s like the friend who brashly jumps to your defence in a low-key squabble outside the pub and gets you both beaten up.
5 Become the story
By taking the unprecedented step of demanding an apology from an agent, and suggesting that the agent’s actions will have a direct result on team selection, Guardiola has shifted the focus squarely onto Seluk rather than Toure. This leaves him with the choice of swallowing his pride and begging for Guardiola’s forgiveness, or staying on the attack and consigning Toure to the reserves for the rest of the year. Somewhere during this argument, Seluk has lost sight of his actual job, which is to maximise his client’s job satisfaction. Instead, he has minimised it. The man is giving a bad name to the agent business. It’s such a shame, all the other ones seem so nice.
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