MANCHESTER, Dec 16 — Football clubs spent US$500.8 million (RM2.1 billion) in fees to agents in 2020, more than in the previous year, despite a drop in spending on transfers, Fifa said in a report published on Wednesday.

Fifa said that club spending on transfer fees shrank for the second year in a row, due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, but that "this decrease did not carry over to spending on intermediary service fees, which remained on the same level as in 2020 and even slightly increased by 0.7 per cent.”

European clubs accounted for 95.8 per cent of the total spent on 'intermediary service fees', with clubs from England (US$133.3m), Germany (US$84.3m), Italy (US$73.5m), Spain (US$34.8m), France (US$30.3m) and Portugal (US$29.3m) responsible for 77 per cent of the total sum worldwide.

The Fifa report comes as world football's governing body is seeking to alter regulations for football agents.

A third draft of the changes has been distributed and is out for consultation — it includes an exam and licence scheme and caps on payments which would also have to go through the Fifa Clearing House system.

Agents' fees would be capped at 10 per cent of all transfer-related payments and 3 per cent of a player’s salary for services to a player.

The proposals have been criticised by a number of prominent agents but are set to be put to Fifa’s ruling council for approval in the first half of 2022. — Reuters